John Collier's statue of Nobel Prize-winning biologist Norman Borlaug in the garden of the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates Building, once the Des Moines, Iowa, Public Library

In 2015, documentary photographer Carol Highsmith received a letter from Getty Images accusing her of copyright infringement for featuring one of her own photographs on her own website. It demanded payment of $120. This was how Highsmith came to learn that stock photo agencies Getty and Alamy had been sending similar threat letters and charging fees to users of her images, which she had donated to the Library of Congress for use by the general public at no charge. In 2016, Highsmith has filed a $1 billion copyright infringement suit against both Alamy and Getty stating “gross misuse” of 18,755 of her photographs. “The defendants [Getty Images] have apparently misappropriated Ms. Highsmith’s generous gift to the American people,” the complaint reads. “[They] are not only unlawfully charging licensing fees … but are falsely and fraudulently holding themselves out as the exclusive copyright owner.” According to the lawsuit, Getty and Alamy, on their websites, have been selling licenses for thousands of Highsmith’s photographs, many without her name attached to them and stamped with “false watermarks.” (more: http://hyperallergic.com/314079/photographer-files-1-billion-suit-against-getty-for-licensing-her-public-domain-images/)

Norman Borlaug (1914–2009), American agricultural scientist, plant pathologist, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1970. Known as the “Father of the Green Revolution,” Borlaug helped lay the groundwork for agricultural technological advances that alleviated world hunger. Borlaug studied plant biology and forestry at the University of Minnesota and earned a Ph.D. in plant pathology there in 1942. He began working with the DuPont Company in 1942 but was soon recruited as a research scientist in charge of wheat improvement for the Rockefeller Foundation’s Cooperative Mexican Agricultural Program in Mexico, where he worked from 1944 to 1960. Seeking to assist impoverished farmers who struggled with diseased and low-producing crops, Borlaug experimented with novel varieties of wheat, creating disease-resistant strains that could withstand the harsh climate. That work was founded on earlier discoveries of ways to induce genetic mutations in plants, and his methods led to modern plant breeding.