Assuming the following:
- Alice has drawn a painting.
- Bob has somehow (legally) gotten a photo/copy of this painting, but does not have any additional rights.
- Bob then goes on to publish this image on his Creative Commons Zero blog. (Not thinking about the fact the doesn't have the permission to publish the photo under CC0)
- Charles finds the photo which has been clearly published under CC0 and uses it somewhere else
Obviously what Bob did was wrong. There is no question about that, but under US law, what are the consequences for Charles? And who is liable for the damages Charles' causes? Bob or Charles?
A friend of mine was 'Charles' in this type of situation and he resolved it with 'Alice' super nicely (Alice wrote him asking/questioning whether he had permission to use it, Charles explained where he got it and agreed straight away to pay Alice for her work, as Alice was nice enough to just ask for a very reasonable sum), but we ended up wondering whether if 'Charles' would've wanted to be an asshole, whether he could've just put the blame completely on Bob and just stopped any further infringements.
The more I think about it, the more I am confused by this, as I assume Charles would probably be liable no matter what, but if that were the case then a nefarious Alice could intentionally instruct an anonymous nefarious Bob to publish all her works everywhere.