Throughout the election, there was one particular superficial criticism of President Donald Trump that seemed to stick–that his hands were rather small. Trump–who’s known for dealing poorly with criticism–may have taken that particular jab to heart. Because now some internet sleuths are claiming that the White House is photoshopping official photos to make Trump’s hands look bigger than they actually are.

Here’s the evidence, in gif form:

The discrepancy in hand size appears to have first been noticed by Dana Schwartz, who writes for the Observer. She tweeted:

Trump 100% photoshopped his hand bigger for this picture hanging in the white house, which is the most embarassing thing I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/MGTbFfdLqp

— Dana Schwartz (@DanaSchwartzzz) January 27, 2017

Schwartz, as well as some of her followers, tried to get to the bottom of what I’ve wisely decided to dub PhotoshoppedHandGate.

@DanaSchwartzzz Here, this is the absolute most precise I could get it. The color & contrast changes, but nothing moves. pic.twitter.com/zHFItu8Knx

— Christopher Keelty (@keeltyc) January 27, 2017

@DanaSchwartzzz tried to scale the photos based on their shoes (and was generous). Trump’s hand is still enormous compared to the original. pic.twitter.com/9XraoWKO8l

— Joon Lee (@iamjoonlee) January 27, 2017

Based on my (unscientific) eye Trump’s hand certainly looks bigger in the White House release. But what exactly happened? Some have hypothesized that PhotoshoppedHandGate may be similar to the “dress” phenomenon–lighting and angles are playing a trick on our eyes. And Philip Bump, from the Washington Post pretty handily (see what I did there?) debunked it on Twitter.

OK. So, this “Trump’s hand is Photoshopped” thing is nonsense.

— Philip Bump (@pbump) January 27, 2017

First, the ABC segment clearly uses a version of the photo from Getty, not a shot of the photo on the wall. https://t.co/h0JMpVsU1A

— Philip Bump (@pbump) January 27, 2017

Second, if you compare ABC shot (in preceding tweet) with image from Getty, below, they’re the same, except color. https://t.co/cbeUwuoNp8

— Philip Bump (@pbump) January 27, 2017

And here you go: A GIF that I just made. Not aligned perfectly (my fault), but the hand is the same. pic.twitter.com/N7Zii1qRMY

— Philip Bump (@pbump) January 27, 2017

So as fun as it could have been to pretend that there’s an official White House staffer dedicated to photoshopping Trump’s hands in photos…that’s almost certainly not the case. But, for a few minutes during a long week, at least we were all distracted by the possibility.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Is the White House Editing Pictures of Trump’s Hands?: Probably Not appeared first on Law Street.

As a future law student who plans to focus my studies on Intellectual Property, I navigate news aggregation sites thirsty for some juicy copyright and trademark infringement stories. Protecting and recovering property is what I’m about. After all, there’s ingenuity, labor, and profit to protect!

Therefore, when Getty Images turned over a new legal leaf this week, I found myself confused, annoyed, and relying on my inherent sarcasm to get me through this bit of tough IP news.

Getty Images, a large and well-known image licensing company, is seeking to make less aggressive copyright enforcement a priority. Aww, so endearing, isn’t it? *Cue eye roll*

For years, Getty has been equipped with (and fully utilized) software that flags illegal reproductions of its images on the Internet. Once flagged, Getty would send a rather stern note to the party that is allegedly infringing its content. Threats in the letter include costly litigation avoidable by settlement penalty payments and licensing and enforcement fees.

Recently, the leader of Getty Images’ global legal team, John Lapham, explained to GigaOm how Getty’s “enforcement policies are being ramped down…We’ve changed the program quite a bit to remove penalty and fees.”

Retrospectively, there were hints along the way. In March, Getty allowed free embedding of a majority of its images. For Getty, the move allowed access to more user data, advertisement insertions, and metered payments to Getty photographers. For users, the watermark was removed from this group of images, but critics still say “the implementation is hideous.” Ouch.

A Getty spokesperson extended Lapham’s explanation, stating in an email:

Our aim is to approach infringers as customers and to educate them—and anyone else who is new to licensing—about how to license imagery properly. To this end, at the beginning of this year we changed our approach to remove additional fees—“fees” being a percentage of the costs we incur in detecting unauthorized use and recovering the cost of the license. We now endeavor to recover the cost of the license fee only—there is no additional fee or penalty—and we only seek payment from registered businesses that are using an artist’s exclusive content to promote their own business.

So, Getty wants to treat infringement as just a customer mistake. A far cry from the intense lawsuit spree it executed earlier this year.

I appreciate the little licensing lesson that Getty is offering. But I disagree. A photographer worked hard for that photo, positioning the subjects, adjusting the lighting, staging the background. As Getty tries to promote its new tactic as one that helps the creative community, my years of studying communication and media make that hard for me to believe. The credibility associated with Getty is built upon the corporate and legal muscle it provides for artists. By diluting that practice, I worry and feel for the artists who license their work through the company.

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