Stealing is stealing...

[Bill Pierce]

To me, this is an exceptionally important article. Many people are not concerned with picture theft and won’t find the article of interest. On the other hand, stealing is stealing…

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/they_are_stealing_our_work.shtml

[boomguy57]

Great...now there is a whole cottage industry evolving around tracking down photographs on the Internet.

[Bill Pierce]

Great...now there is a whole cottage industry evolving around tracking down photographs on the Internet.

Cottage industry? The photographer taking certain precautions, using search services that are free and copyrighting his pictures is a “cottage industry?” Or, do you just think that theft is OK or professionals shouldn’t charge for their services?

[jippiejee]

... and that a student had won a contest for a poster design featuring my image.

The fact that that poster design won a contest is even more worrisome than the infringement... :(

[kshapero]

I have lost faith years ago in the university community teaching young people any real values. Case in point.

[presspass]

The only solution, and you have to be a real Luddite like me, is not posting images on the internet. That removes a valuable source of knowledgeable criticism as well as a chance to share. I would like to participate, but I do sell images and publish them - on paper. Bill is right - stealing is stealing.

[zauhar]

It is not true that the professor "ignored" copyright law as implied in the article; in fact she was fully aware of it as evidenced by her belated attempt to contact the photographer. She found copyright law INCONVENIENT when she heard the price.

Here is what happened (I guarantee) - student produces poster with "found" photograph, professor discovers after the fact that it is not a public-domain image, gets nervous, contacts photographer, hears price she doesn't like, decides to ignore the whole issue and hopes it goes away.

A long time ago I received a manuscript to review - one of the figures looked weirdly familiar. I realized it was one of my own drawings, from published work, with additions layered on. The paper was by a student of an academic I greatly respect, so I let it by with a comment to the editor asking for appropriate citation. The "theft" was of an illustration that was really a cartoon, so the motivation was pure laziness on the part of the student. But that cartoon represented over an hour of diligent work on my part, effort he student did not have to put in, and it was clearly theft of my TIME if nothing else.

Randy

[sepiareverb]

Well there is some generally accepted "educational use" allowed for images, but this certainly was not that as I understand it. Images can be used by students if they are not to be published beyond the classroom- tho this certainly does spread the notion to students that one can take images freely.

[Aristophanes]

It is not true that the professor "ignored" copyright law as implied in the article; in fact she was fully aware of it as evidenced by her belated attempt to contact the photographer. She found copyright law INCONVENIENT when she heard the price.

Here is what happened (I guarantee) - student produces poster with "found" photograph, professor discovers after the fact that it is not a public-domain image, gets nervous, contacts photographer, hears price she doesn't like, decides to ignore the whole issue and hopes it goes away.
Randy

The difference between the market and the law is precisely what fuels copyright violations in the first place. In a world of 100% copy utility the price of a unique work that can be indefinitely reproduced falls proportionately to its mass appeal.

Technically, much copy and paste functions and "quotes" are violations. The law is bent into a pretzel to allow such transgressions, but there are no firm boundaries because there is no market nor legal consensus on exactly where those lie as lawsuits--mostly futile--attest.

It is an analogous to caveat emptor. The buyer must protect themselves up front or the law bars them from not doing so through expensive court remedy afterwards.

Here, the copyright holder should protect themselves up front or suffer from infinite reproduction, difficult to trace, and almost impossible to collect revenues.

In this particular case, the inflexible "minimum fee of $250" appears to be completely out of line with:

1) The nature of the image's use in this context
2) The willingness of the consumer to pay that amount
3) The apparent (and stated) lack of bargaining
4) The cost of remedy or redress

In short, the "market" for trade of copyright materials is stunted right from the start. This is, in part, the copyright holder's fault. This should have been conveyed in the article. Note how the term "unauthorized" is in the negative. It is up to the copyright holder to "authorize" their works. It is not up to the end-user to verify authorship much less market compensation.

Requesting "immediate payment" of an item already in use without an up-front contract is simply poor protection, and instead tries to rely on moral suasion rather than sound business economics and a persistent knowledge of the law. Copyright is not passive; it must actively defended and protected by the producer. We do not ring-fence the free exchange of ideas but only allow those who produce to ring-fence at their own cost their products. This was not done in this case and these are the consequences. To get to the heart of what occurred here one must step away from moral arguments and look at the value, the legal responsibilities, and the contracts (or lack thereof).

[sevo]

That there is a cottage industry for tracking online image theft is illustrative of the severity of the problem.

Well, it may be illustrative of the economical situation of small scale graphic artists in the current market - but the notion that income relevant image theft has grown (apart from the special issue of from-and-for-web usage) is rather questionable.

I've had many problems similar to the one described in the original posting, long before any re-usable image sizes appeared on the internet. In the eighties I even had an US publisher reprint all my books without my permission or payment, and even register these counterfeits with the LoC. In the real world, you have your agent send a bill, and he'll sue the offender if that does not get paid. So what...

In the case in question, the far more troublesome thing is that that typographic abomination won a contest - or that a place where such a thing can win a contest claims to be a university!

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

In the case in question, the far more troublesome thing is that that typographic abomination won a contest - or that a place where such a thing can win a contest claims to be a university!

It's all a bit odd, really. I'm not that taken by the picture, either, myself.

Does anyone know how many hours it would actually take to get such a case through an American court? In the UK, we have the excellent Small Claims Court system: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/ManagingDebt/Makingacourtclaimformoney/DG_195118 surely something similar is available in the US?

[daveleo]

Stealing images is easy, widespread, unethical and illegal.
But I think that it is an unsolvable problem.

Most people believe that whatever is posted to the internet is now in the "public domain", no matter what protective wording it is wrapped in. To most people, downloading stuff is not unethical or wrong, and you are not going to change their minds.

I am not offering excuses for this bad behavior, I offer this as an explanation and a commentary that, if you put stuff on the internet, expect it to be downloaded often and maybe used for commercial purposes.

(Don't shoot the messenger, please.)

[Paul T.]

Sadly, last time I checked (as in, last time a big chunk of my work was used on a commercial site) the Small Claims court considered Copyright outside of it expertise.

[Bike Tourist]

As one who uses microstock to generate a little retirement income, these sites operate on volume, not premium pricing. As a result, I have a LOT of images out there, most of which were paid for. At one site my current count of images sold is 21,500!

Now, I am almost sure that some additional images are in use without my being paid but they are very difficult to identify. All the ones I am able to track via Yahoo or Google have the proper credit line attached, but those identified are just a small portion of the ones uned on the internet to say nothing of print media.

I hear music artists are having a tough time, too.

[julianphotoart]

Stealing is stealing indeed, and intellectual property is property as much as anything else. It is strange that this form of intangible property is so little respected. If one owned 100 shares of stock, it is just as intangible as a photo given that we no longer deal with physical stock certificates. So would anyone excuse stealing that stock? It is also strange to me that the ubiquitousness of the net, and/or the problems with the court system, might provide any rationale to excuse out-and-out theft. But hopefully, here at RFF we are "preaching to the choir". How can this be "preached" to the public in general? For my little part, I refuse for instance to let my daughter copy films or music or anything else without legitimately paying for them. We are a pirating-free house.

[Jockos]

Stealing is stealing, copyright infringement is copyright infringement.

At least in Sweden :)

[Gabriel M.A.]

The fact that that poster design won a contest is even more worrisome than the infringement... :(

Hey! It's thought-provoking, and hence MoMA-worthy art!!


But seriously, Me-ism + ignorance + disregard for others (a variant of "who cares!"-ism) is a dangerous long-term poison:

What’s shocking is that the teacher who supervised this contest did not see anything wrong [with] that. She did not teach her students about copyright law, and did not tell them to ask the copyright holder for permission. When she called me she seemed surprised to learn that use of copyrighted work is subject to terms defined by the copyright holder.


In this day and age, the certitude of being right is enough and Syllogisms are used as irrefutable backup. Arguments are less than often reasonable, and anything that challenges our (no matter how proven otherwise) truths are felt as attacks to the core of the person itself: how can I...I!! not be right?


I've had my photos also copied, but never have felt the need to pursue legal action, since my requests to either give me compensation, full credit or remove the image completely have been granted.

In a few occasions, they took the photo and either cloned or cropped out the copyright notice. When I contacted them they were offended! that I asked them to either purchase the image or both put the copyright notice back and give me full credit.

I remember years ago when I started making my website disable downloads people were outraged --outraged, I tell ya!-- that I was thwarting their freedom to download my photos: "once I can see it on the browser, I have a copy, so why can't I keep it?" was as baffling to me as an argument as "the plane is already on its way to Paris, why can't I just jump in a seat that nobody's paid for anyway?"

I've resorted to adding hard-not-to-notice frames --and idiotically enough, some people complain about the frame when looking at photo-sharing sites...but that's a different topic-- simply because this is yet another *deterrent*.

The least one can do is be vigilant.

[sevo]

This cottage industry specifically applies to "from-and-for-web usage" and the problem is serious.

Image theft is an ongoing issue in book publishing, nothing new there. But in the grand scheme image theft within the confines of the internet isn't even 20 years old. And in the last 10 years it has mushroomed. There is probably far more image theft occurring online than in hard copy publishing. But the issue is not one of printing on paper or inserting a jpeg into a website, the issue is stealing, pure and simple.

That is debatable. You cannot simply make believe a new medium is the old one and the same mechanisms of revenue gathering should apply (and even less so, if you back-refer to a romantic notion of past media that weren't ever really that nice to the authors).

The internet has been cheered by photographers for giving them far more exposure and opening them larger markets. The downside of that however is that the world at large will not boost its expenses for stock photography by a magnitude or two just because a new medium has sprung up and is packed with unprofitable micro publications, and that a globalization of markets means more competition - a smaller share for each author, off a bigger, but lower price market.

A copyright police that enforces that tertiary use of a image for a poster, flyer or web site with marginal circulation gets the full pay for an original will not be a solution - practical issues aside it would reward third- and fourth-rate artists with entirely inappropriate sums. We really need a copyright tax scheme that collects the (barely litigable) amounts appropriate in these cases. This will however partially replace the publishers (which have become increasingly useless thanks to the internet) - the main battles will happen on that front, as that multi-billion industry will not give up its privileges without a fight...

[Gabriel M.A.]

Stealing is stealing indeed, and intellectual property is property as much as anything else. It is strange that this form of intangible property is so little respected.


One of the problems is that law still has to catch up, and one of the reasons for that is that the people making the laws don't understand the issue, and are often lobbied by entities who have only their interest in mind and promote awfully-flawed legislation.

There is a scandalous lack of education on the technical aspects, compounded by rampant ignorance and/or disregard to common decency and common sense.

The tragedy is, in order for common sense to prevail, one needs a benevolent and enlightened dictatorship. And we all know how long those last.

[kansas_parker]

I have lost faith years ago in the university community teaching young people any real values. Case in point.

This is what happens when parents leave it to educators to teach their children values and things other than academia. Why should we have ever put faith in the university community to teach values?

I would like to know if the student was disciplined after this all came to light.

[Gabriel M.A.]

It was not a student who stole an image, but a teacher (who organized the contest) at the university who used a copyrighted image without permission as the image used for posters, letterheads, etc. for the contest promotion, etc.

[GoneSavage]

What a terrible poster.

[furcafe]

Have you seen this thread?:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117686

Or this 1?:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=117885

To me, this is an exceptionally important article. Many people are not concerned with picture theft and won’t find the article of interest. On the other hand, stealing is stealing…

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/they_are_stealing_our_work.shtml

[Gabriel M.A.]

Have you seen this thread?:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117686

Careful!

When one begins equating eating a hamburger to murder, it is 1) extreme, 2) an insult to victims of murder, and 3) diluting the issue.

Things aren't absolutely black and white, and a long argument cannot be reduced to a headline sentence. It is exactly this kind of fallacy which leads to the other end of the spectrum: "if you're sharing online...you shouldn't charge for sharing".

Extremes hate nuances. Not to mention those who exploit nuances... :bang:


Not all things are the same to all other things.

[SimonSawSunlight]

isn't it a nicely simple world we live in? :D

[zauhar]

While I blame the college professor for her lack of oversight (and apparent lack of concern for the law), I have to add that teaching values to the "kids" these days is next to impossible. They are either incapable of understanding that intellectual property is the result of LABOR, and deserves compensation, or they choose not to understand that because it would interfere with their downloading experience.

Their attitude is supported by some members of academia who claim that ownership of ideas is an illusion, and by members of the mainstream press who write gee-whiz articles about how "different" the internet has made everything, so much so that the stodgy "old rules" don't apply anymore. There was an example of this sort of thinking in the New York Times recently that incited a lengthy thread on RFF.

Randy

[Dogman]

Somewhere along the line, someone forgot to teach a generation or three about a value system.

Several years ago--before I ever owned a digital camera--a summer intern where I used to work saw some of my pictures hanging in my office and asked about them. During the short conversation, he mentioned he liked photography and often went online to Flickr and other sites and downloaded photos to use in brochures and presentations for his church and its affiliates. I said something to the effect that he really should obtain permission before using someone else's photographs but he obviously didn't even understand the concept. Here's an intelligent high school kid who is apparently involved in his church and no one had ever instilled in him the fact that "stealing is stealing".

I'm afraid there is no solution to this problem in the foreseeable future. Too many people believe they are entitled to anything and everything without regard to anyone else.

[mdarnton]

I have lost faith years ago in the university community teaching young people any real values. Case in point.

It is definitely not the university's job to teach values. The problem is not the university: it is people who think it's the university's job; namely, the parents and the surrounding community. If you don't have values by the time you go to college, it's way too late. Parents no longer parent, elementary teachers no longer teach, TV . . . well, I can't watch TV at all, because of the values it projects, and if I had kids they would not be watching it.

After reading the whole thread, I see the same old suspects popping up arguing against values, anyway: people who don't understand property, don't understand theft, and don't understand copyright. Along with one person who apparently blames the victim for making nice pictures when there are so many people who want to steal them, and thinks that once something is stolen, the person who stole it now is the owner.

[furcafe]

Perhaps outright "ownership" is a modern illusion, but the granting of legal temporary or permanent monopolies/licenses over patents, publishing, etc. is very old, as is the law of service marks & trademarks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_patent_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark

Ownership of ideas is a modern illusion (mostly 20th century). The patent was designed to give the inventor a head start not make ideas belong to any one person. Seldom is any patent truly the idea of one human -- nor literature or painting truly "owned."

[daveleo]

Ownership of ideas is a modern illusion (mostly 20th century). The patent was designed to give the inventor a head start not make ideas belong to any one person. Seldom is any patent truly the idea of one human -- nor literature or painting truly "owned."


@ photomoof . . .

:bang:

[Jamie123]

I don't know if it's stealing but I'm quite certain that the poster is a crime.

[MartinP]

I don't know if it's stealing but I'm quite certain that the poster is a crime.

Yes, it did make me wonder what the rest of the entries were like.

[emayoh]

This may seem to be a snarky comment, but I assure you it is not:

The original article uses a poster that includes a photograph but also some original design work by an Alvernia University student. Is luminous-landscape and/or Alain Briot liable for reproducing the design aspect of the infringing poster without permission of the student or university?

Is it a case of: 1) He stole my photo, so I feel ok in stealing that design work back? If so, then "stealing is stealing" is false because Briot must feel that some stealing is OK within certain situations.

Or is it a case of: 2) I only care about the photo and the text and design of the poster are irrelevant?

Because if it's 2, then perhaps you can start to see why this gets to be a tricky issue. We throw our hands up and cry about values and theft, but feel it's ok to steal fonts, themes, we use trademarks willy-nilly and probably break the speed limit every day.

Briot makes the statement "Copyright legislation is supposed to take care of this, unfortunately as we all know it does not work."

But, he says "Furthermore, it took nearly a week for my photograph, and the poster, to be removed from Alvernia’s website."

So, the image was removed. I'm not convinced that copyright legislation has been proven to be broken by Briot's tale of woe.

Now, I wonder if Briot got paid to write that column for luminous landscape, or if he was happy to devalue the labor of writing for paid writers everywhere. (OK, that last part was a little snarky)

[emayoh]

There used to be a band, I don't know if they still exist, called Me First and the Gimme Gimme's. I think that just about sums up modern society.

The band took their name from a book which is over 20 years old...

[zuiko85]

I'm speechless. Although I produce no work worth stealing or even giving away that is not true for working artist's whose livelihood depends on their work. What is surprising is the attitude of the university. They seemed too dense or arrogant to get it.

[zuiko85]

Alain Briot's use of the university poster with his stolen image was editorial and not commercial, therefor not subject to copyright by the student or university. It was in fact, 'exhibit A' in his argument.

[emraphoto]

When I see photographers getting bent out of shape about this (still) I can't help but imagine gigantic, bloated and ill designed dinosaurs migrating across the plains to extinction as the little rodent and bird predecessors look on.

It's somewhat like putting your favourite old Vector Research turn table out on the curb and then writing a blog about the ills of modern society because someone took it home with them.

It's very, very late in the game to be swindled by this sort of thing. If you haven't already adapted to this reality and your livelihood depends on your work, you are in serious trouble.

Sort of line the photographers that spend countless hours moaning about cheap folks on Craigslist?



I think if a photographer has not gotten the word that putting one's images on the web is bound to subject them to copyright infringement -- that really annoys some photographers, and does not bother others very much is a reality.

In the past the photographer would never have known if his image appeared on a poster for a contest at a university -- now through the miracle of the internet he knows.

It has happened to me -- the most egregious instance was when this photo was used full page by the Ad Council for a full page in the NY Times.

http://www.romdog.com/art/images_timeline/reading.jpg

A non-profit, I could have sued, I did not, they begged, I let it go. I was mostly ticked off that the "free publicity" did not include the credit, stamped on the back of the photo.

<importantpoint>Those who want to make a living as a photographer, cannot depend on the photos they have put up on the web at high resolution as a source of income.</ip>

Don't waste your life searching them down (although it is now quite easy with Google image). Find some new clients and do some new work, or put low rez in stock.

[L David Tomei]

I have no objection to educational use of my images but when someone uses one of my images for their own commercial benefit, I have a serious problem. After reading this thread I went to the internet to do a quick search for one of my images. It took me less than one minute to find it being used by a commercial photography site at http://www.hardmountphoto.com/gallery. The image of the vintage Kodak camera appears on my RFF gallery.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/data/8608/thumbs/3A_Ser_III_7241_02_RFF.jpg
Now I await a response from them.

[Sparrow]

I have no objection to educational use of my images but when someone uses one of my images for their own commercial benefit, I have a serious problem. After reading this thread I went to the internet to do a quick search for one of my images. It took me less than one minute to find it being used by a commercial photography site at http://www.hardmountphoto.com/gallery. The image of the vintage Kodak camera appears on my RFF gallery.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/data/8608/thumbs/3A_Ser_III_7241_02_RFF.jpg
Now I await a response from them.


Well I, for one, found that site educational ...

[L David Tomei]

Apparently Google leaves no doubt about "unauthorized" use of images when they call their search "Who Stole My Pictures". In the past few minutes I have found several commercial sites with one of my images being used to make money. I must be really naive.

[rxmd]

Stealing is stealing indeed, and intellectual property is property as much as anything else. It is strange that this form of intangible property is so little respected.

It's no wonder really. There aren't that many forms of property that you can take and the owner keeps them anyway. There aren't many forms of "stealing" where the damage calculations are similarly hypothetical, as in based on the assumption that the "thief" would actually have bought the work, where this assumption itself is taken for granted in a completely unsubstantiated fashion.

Copyright infringement is convenience-driven - it occurs because it is so convenient to take things for free. If the only way to get your work was to pay for it, many "thieves" wouldn't take them to begin with, there would be no income, and hence there is no loss of income either, because zero minus zero is zero.

So no, "stealing" is not stealing. It's really not the same as stealing, say, a car, where the car has a monetary value that it is worth exactly once and where the car is gone after the theft and the damage is exactly the value of the car.

Claiming it's the same thing and claiming enormous damages for allegedly lost income is really sour grapes and the stomping of John's dinosaur horde. Nobody denies its a problem and there is a real need for a solution, but the solution has to be adequate to the problem of copying, not to the completely problem of physical theft. Mixing up the words is not going to help.

[Rick Waldroup]

How about when someone does not actually steal a photo, but steals the concept and idea behind a certain photo?

Several years ago, my wife and I were sitting in a movie theater waiting for the movie to start. You know how they play ads, public service announcements, etc while you are waiting? Well, lo and behold, up pops an ad for a charity organization dealing with runaway kids and there is a B&W photo accompanying the ad. I almost damn near dropped my popcorn as the image was an identical copy of a photo that I designed and shot for a short lived zine I published back in the mid '90's.

I waited for the ad to recycle on the screen, wrote down the contact info for the agency and called them the next day. After talking to several different people I was having a hard time making them understand that my photo was not being used without my permission, but my concept and artistic vision were certainly being used by another photographer to produce the photo they were using in their advertising. I explained that I had the original negatives to prove my position. Anyway, their final answer to me was for me to contact the photographer and sue him. Now, they would not disclose his/her name nor provide any contact info. I assured them that if I did sue, they too, would be named in the lawsuit.

Of course, such an extreme measure was never taken, and I was later contacted by the agency and assured that the photo was being removed. I, in turn, offered my original photo as a replacement, which they declined, without viewing it.

So, did I own the rights to this concept or design? Was I right about contacting the company and complaining about the theft of my artistic vision?

I know there have been similar circumstances where artists sued over this type of thing because they felt that their ideas had been stolen and they wanted compensation for their work and effort. What do all of you think ?

[rxmd]

How about when someone does not actually steal a photo, but steals the concept and idea behind a certain photo?

Elsewhere I posted a link to a British court decision (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWPCC/2012/1.html) about a picture that was similar, clearly not identical, but also clearly inspired by another picture, and the court found the first to be in infringement of the second on copyright grounds.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWPCC/2012/1(image1).png
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWPCC/2012/1(image2).png
(images linked to from the court decision)

I find that highly problematic because I believe that ideas and concepts should not be copyrightable, only their manifestation in the form of concrete things - images, texts and so on. Everybody can have an idea and a concept, but the creative step and the step that involves work it's turning it into an actual, well, work. Otherwise you'll end up with lots of copyright lawsuits about "picture of president Obama, in three-quarter portrait, looking right and down".

[btgc]

This days in our buses drivers will be prohibited to listen to radio (which they did for themselves). Idea is it's a public broadcast and thus requires licence. Someone has managed to push through laws allowing to earn cash from nothing. Note, radio stations already have paid to greedy licence operator, but now they ask to pay once more.

I believe world would be better place without good part of laws, licences and patents. Lawyers and bankers should get real jobs and stop living from legalized slavery. Musicians should go on tours not feed record industry and lawyers. If they can't play they have to work as a music teachers - if they have something to teach, of course.

Some day system will break, because it's corrupt and invalid.

[L David Tomei]

When it comes to copyright infringement or improper use of intellectual property in general, it is normally up to the owner of the copyright or intellectual property to defend any legal rights. It is possible that failure to act to defend those rights could result in the loss of those rights.

Regarding the question of theft of a "concept", personally I would consider the legal principle in patent law that refers to "those skilled in the arts". If "those skilled in the arts" would reasonably be expected to create a particular image, or come up with a particular concept or design, then there isn't much protection.

[rxmd]

When it comes to copyright infringement or improper use of intellectual property in general, it is normally up to the owner of the copyright or intellectual property to defend any legal rights. It is possible that failure to act to defend those rights could result in the loss of those rights.

No, that only applies to trademarks. Please remember that trademarks, copyright and patents are different things that operate differently.

[L David Tomei]

I agree with you. I was only referring to the fact that the owner of intellectual property can't sit back and expect anyone to step up and defend those rights. In any case, I try to avoid acting like an amateur lawyer.

[Paul T.]

So no, "stealing" is not stealing. It's really not the same as stealing, say, a car, where the car has a monetary value that it is worth exactly once and where the car is gone after the theft and the damage is exactly the value of the car.

Yes, stealing IS stealing.

This is a moral argument, not one of degree; you are saying that it isn't stealing, because someone is taking something you didn't really use, or that wasn't worth a lot.

But taking something that isn't worth a lot is still stealing. And sometime IP is worth a lot.

Plenty of people like to support your attitude because they make money out of it. In particular, big corporations like Getty are pushing for laxer control of orphan rights so they can make money. But once they've got control of a critical mass of images, do you think they'll be giving them away? No, sir.

Theft of items that [might] have negligible value is theft, however you package it.

[rxmd]

Yes, stealing IS stealing.

This is a moral argument, not one of degree; you are saying that it isn't stealing, because someone is taking something you didn't really use, or that wasn't worth a lot.

No, in fact that is not what I am saying. I am saying that there is a conceptual difference between the act where A takes X from B and B then no longer has X (stealing), and the act where A takes X from B and then A and B each have X (copyright infringement). In the first case what matters is the value of X; in the second case X can't even be assigned a single value, because what matters is revenue from some usage rights in some contexts, that can be difficult to calculate and where it can be impossible to actually prove what amount was lost (if at all). The two are logically not the same thing. Really, the only thing they have in common, at all, is that there is some damage involved.

This is neither an argument of degree nor a moral argument; it is a pure argument of logic and terminology. There is no simple analogy here; copyright infringement is a thing all in its own, however wrong, and different from stealing. Calling it "stealing" means using muddy and unclear terminology, and possibly, as often in these cases, unclear terminology also implies unclear ideas.

[btgc]

In the first case what matters is the value of X; in the second case X can't even be assigned a single value,

In second case there's a term "not gained income" which is oxymoron because people who used X would not consider buying it. So X neither has fixed value or there's any income lost.

[L David Tomei]

I think the word "stealing" in normal conversation refers to the act of taking someone else's property without rights or permission. The generally accepted meaning of the word is rather clear although if we were all here to craft a law or prepare a legal brief, the term would require a proper legal definition. In any event, I agree that it can (but not necessarily) be foolish to loosely throw around terms such as "theft" and "stealing".

[Gabriel M.A.]

Elsewhere I posted a link to a British court decision (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWPCC/2012/1.html) about a picture that was similar, clearly not identical, but also clearly inspired by another picture, and the court found the first to be in infringement of the second on copyright grounds.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWPCC/2012/1(image1).png
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWPCC/2012/1(image2).png
(images linked to from the court decision)

I find that highly problematic because I believe that ideas and concepts should not be copyrightable, only their manifestation in the form of concrete things - images, texts and so on. Everybody can have an idea and a concept, but the creative step and the step that involves work it's turning it into an actual, well, work. Otherwise you'll end up with lots of copyright lawsuits about "picture of president Obama, in three-quarter portrait, looking right and down".


I totally agree, this is very troubling. Ask a court of lions to rule on the savoriness of birdseed based on food regulation conceived by the dog food industry.

[Sparrow]

Don't forget there is also Trespass to Goods if one can't make Theft stick ... and as someone else pointed out Patent, Copyright and Trademark law ... I find it a little odd that people think the law is there to be fair or just, that isn't necessarily the case in fact.

[rxmd]

I find it a little odd that people think the law is there to be fair or just, that isn't necessarily the case in fact.

Yeah, and the idea that the law should make sense, totally overrated too.

[Paul T.]

No, in fact that is not what I am saying. I am saying that there is a conceptual difference between the act where A takes X from B and B then no longer has X (stealing), and the act where A takes X from B and then A and B each have X (copyright infringement).


The notion of theft is not, and never has been, restricted to physical possession. These arguments were played out in the 1700s, when artists like William Hogarth had to fight knockoff merchants who stole his work and used exactly the same arguments.

In that case, they were trying to argue that new technology, ie engraving, rendered old concepts of ownership - what we'd all IP - redundant. That argument was invalid then, and it's invalid today.

I should also say I've heard all these arguments dozens of times from people trying to steal from me. People will use any argument to make money or avoid paying out - but so far, they've always caved in and either paid me money or removed the offending work, because they ultimately have to recognise that lifting copyrighted material is theft.

(Incidentally, I'm not talking about photos lifted from websites, I wouldn't put anything crucial on there without it being watermarked up the jaxsie).

[Sparrow]

Yeah, and the idea that the law should make sense, totally overrated too.

Not to mention the cost of brining an action, geez ... £219 an hour for my solicitor, and god alone knows what the brief costs these days

[gdi]

It is understandable that people want to see support for their own position in the definitions of intellectual property and theft - thus the attempts to distinguish between "stealing" and "copyright infringement". People are free to make those arguments for their personal reasons.

But, and I speak only from the perspective of a non-lawyer in the US, the matter of whether "creations of the mind" are property in the eyes of the law is clearly settled - intellectual property does exist. And, the concept and definition of theft of intellectual property exists and is accepted legally. That is simply the way it is; it can be changed if enough people pressure their representatives (or vote in new ones) to support their position. Yes, they would be up against mega-corporations, but it can be done, just look at the SOPA/PIPA protests.

The same goes for the moral argument, everyone has to follow their own morals but one can't discount the moral argument out of hand. If you review the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights you will see that the concept is in Article 27:

"(1) Everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author."

So, it is clear that, based on common and practical definitions, intellectual property exists and can be stolen, and doing so can be considered immoral. Yes arguments an be made that the situation can and should be changed, but trying the redefine reality just doesn't hold water.

[rxmd]

The notion of theft is not, and never has been, restricted to physical possession. These arguments were played out in the 1700s, when artists like William Hogarth had to fight knockoff merchants who stole his work and used exactly the same arguments.

In that case, they were trying to argue that new technology, ie engraving, rendered old concepts of ownership - what we'd all IP - redundant. That argument was invalid then, and it's invalid today.

I don't think I have to defend the notion of "physical possession" at all, since you just introduced yourself right there; a classic straw man argument.

Theft is usually pretty well defined. It usually means to permanently deprive someone else of property. Go look it up. Copyright infringement does not deprive you of property, after all the original of whatever gets copied it remains with you. Instead, it deprives you of some reasonable hope of future income. This is a conceptually different thing.

With theft, A takes X from B. B is left without X. The damage is X.
With copyright infringement, A takes a copy of X from B. Because it's a copy, B remains in possession of X as if nothing had happened. The damage incurred does not result from B being left without X, but from B being deprived of some possible income.
Note how the damage is not identical to the thing being taken.

It would probably be theft if I copied the image, then broke into your house and deleted all copies of it on your hard drives and took the negative.

I don't care who what how in the 18th century. It's the 21st century now and we have a legal concept of copyright infringement that is different from the legal concept of theft, for a reason. You are just being unclear in your terms.

I should also say I've heard all these arguments dozens of times from people trying to steal from me.

Well now you are hearing this argument from me, and I'm not trying to steal from you. Consequently, you should probably stop considering the argument merely on grounds of your own assumptions about the evil intent of whoever brings it forth.

[rxmd]

So, it is clear that, based on common and practical definitions, intellectual property exists and can be stolen, and doing so can be considered immoral. Yes arguments an be made that the situation can and should be changed, but trying the redefine reality just doesn't hold water.

Intellectual property being stolen implies that you then don't have it anymore, which is obviously not the case, hence the need for a distinction in terms. This is all the argument is about, not whether intellectual property exists or not or whoever makes which laws.

[FrankS]

It's no wonder really. There aren't that many forms of property that you can take and the owner keeps them anyway. There aren't many forms of "stealing" where the damage calculations are similarly hypothetical, as in based on the assumption that the "thief" would actually have bought the work, where this assumption itself is taken for granted in a completely unsubstantiated fashion.

Copyright infringement is convenience-driven - it occurs because it is so convenient to take things for free. If the only way to get your work was to pay for it, many "thieves" wouldn't take them to begin with, there would be no income, and hence there is no loss of income either, because zero minus zero is zero.

So no, "stealing" is not stealing. It's really not the same as stealing, say, a car, where the car has a monetary value that it is worth exactly once and where the car is gone after the theft and the damage is exactly the value of the car.

Claiming it's the same thing and claiming enormous damages for allegedly lost income is really sour grapes and the stomping of John's dinosaur horde. Nobody denies its a problem and there is a real need for a solution, but the solution has to be adequate to the problem of copying, not to the completely problem of physical theft. Mixing up the words is not going to help.


How would you feel if someone decided that it would be okay to use your car without your permission, but only while you were sleeping, so you would still have full use of it when you need it? They would replace the gas they used, so there would be no cost to you.

Yes, there is the added mileage on the car, but I'm just using this as an analogy, imperfect as it is, where someone uses your property but you are still in possession of it.

Edit: this example is meant to illustrate the idea of someone taking something from you but you still have it.

[rxmd]

How would you feel if someone decided that it would be okay to use your car without your permission, but only while you were sleeping, so you would still have full use of it when you need it? They would replace the gas they used, so there would be no cost to you.

Yes, there is the added mileage on the car, but I'm just using this as an analogy, imperfect as it is, where someone uses your property but you are still in possession of it.

I guess I would be pissed. If someone copied my car the car maker would probably be pissed. The copied car wouldn't affect me much as I haven't made my income dependent of being the only guy in town with a car. I wonder, though, why it is relevant how I feel in this case.

I think, however, that the analogy is flawed because the problem of copyright infringement revolves around loss of income.

[Aristophanes]

How would you feel if someone decided that it would be okay to use your car without your permission, but only while you were sleeping, so you would still have full use of it when you need it? They would replace the gas they used, so there would be no cost to you.

Yes, there is the added mileage on the car, but I'm just using this as an analogy, imperfect as it is, where someone uses your property but you are still in possession of it.

Wrong analogy. The car was not copied. Using a car depreciates a physical asset and adds risk to the consequences of a crash or insurance claims.

Digital files of any type are designed to be copied with no fidelity loss to the original, therefore no depreciation and no risk of compromise of the content's initial production fidelity.

What depreciation there is a loss of market power as every copy makes the one before it less valuable.

The law has attempted to make copying an act of theft. It is not working because the technical structure of digital data is to enable copying. So they've gone after sharing copied files, but the cost of remedy and enforcement vastly exceeds the economic losses. They've tried digital locks on content, but all have so far been broken and this looks unlikely to change. They've made it illegal to break such a lock, but all it takes in a world of infinite copy capability is a single, anonymous transgression to make that attempt useless.

Copyright protection is different than theft by legal definition. It's a question of deprivation (theft) versus authorization (copy rights). Merging the two has complicated the economics. There may be a theft of economic opportunity, but if that is the case, then why make a product that can be infinitely copied anonymously? A large part of the blame has to go to producers of content who want all the economic benefits of digital and then want to be free riders on the state to enforce what are civil, private property rights. This socializes the loss and creates monopolies of content, such as the numerous extensions of copyright.

So then content suppliers turn to moral arguments. But the whole point of commercial law is to take the morality out of contract so adjudication is done on the terms and not the emotion or subjective perspective.

Then people start threads about theft of content which turn into society-bashing morality arguments. And here we are.

[btgc]

How would you feel if someone decided that it would be okay to use your car without your permission, but only while you were sleeping, so you would still have full use of it when you need it? They would replace the gas they used, so there would be no cost to you.

I think copy of image of my car is closer analogy. Besides that, copy of image created by me. I still can use and sell my picture. I still can use my car (artists and software developers).

There's difference between those who copy music, movies or software for their OWN USE and those who copy to SELL. I know your argument (theft is theft) but those who use for own will NEVER buy same product for money. Well, almost NEVER. So owners can not count this as lost income. EVER.

[Paul T.]

I think, however, that the analogy is flawed because the problem of copyright infringement revolves around loss of income.

No, it's not about loss of income.

It's a fundamental right, enshrined in international law as stated above, that one's creations are recognised as one's own. That's what copyright is.

Taking my creations without my permisssion is unethical, in my view. It's also illegal, in the view of international law.

Not taking your views personally, because this is a discussion forum, and I'm not equating you with some of the sharks who've tried it on for me but... what is the public interest in taking people's creations? Who benefits?

If you want to overturn centuries of copyright law, you have to come up with a better justification than "just because someone's taken your property doesn't mean you've lost anything."

[semilog]

Okay, folks. If "stealing is stealing," was this "stealing?"

http://freedomforip.org/2011/09/15/mackie-v-hipple-settlement/

http://www.pdnonline.com/news/Photographer-Settles-3142.shtml?imw=Y

And if so, who was "stealing" from whom?

[Aristophanes]

No, it's not about loss of income.

It's a fundamental right, enshrined in international law as stated above, that one's creations are recognised as one's own. That's what copyright is.

Taking my creations without my permisssion is unethical, in my view. It's also illegal, in the view of international law.

Not taking your views personally, because this is a discussion forum, and I'm not equating you with some of the sharks who've tried it on for me but... what is the public interest in taking people's creations? Who benefits?

If you want to overturn centuries of copyright law, you have to come up with a better justification than "just because someone's taken your property doesn't mean you've lost anything."

1) You are assuming your creations are entirely original. This is highly debatable. Centuries of copyright law still argue this point with no clear consensus and enormous variation between Western nations' common law.

2) The law of copyright is a civil law that you must enforce personally at your expense. Copyright is seen as a limited, private protection. In the greater scheme, all ideas and their representation belong to society as original creators die. Copyright was invented to protect commerce, not as an ethical standard. Whether it is "right" or "wrong" ignores the commercial motive upon which the concept of copyright was built.

3) Copyright is not a "fundamental right" in many societies, nor is it legally enshrined as such. It is an invention of Western law. Different societies have signed on to international conventions, and then ignore them as they are incompatible with their cultural regimes of expression.

4) Before one gets to the issue of permission, one must express protection. If you post a digital file, you are, by definition, not protecting it. Copyright is not passive; you must actively enforce it in your own interest. You cannot and should not rely on the ethics of someone else to protect your private property. Once you get to that point...epic fail.

[flip]

I can't resist: http://www.answers.com/topic/africa#Oxford_Companion_to_the_Photograph_ds

"Western travellers and explorers also photographed in East Africa. Joseph Thomson (1858-95), for example, used the camera not only to record and classify Africans but also, fusing photography and local magic, as ‘medicine’, a ‘soul-stealing machine’, and a ‘magic gun’. Such behaviour provoked considerable indigenous resistance to being photographed. Despite initial opposition, however, photography was widely accepted in coastal towns by c. 1900, in the urban hinterland by the 1920s, and in rural areas by the 1950s-1960s."

[Paul T.]

1) You are assuming your creations are entirely original. This is highly debatable. Centuries of copyright law still argue this point with no clear consensus and enormous variation between Western nations' common law.

No.

I have worked, and still work, in the field of copyright. I make my entire living with copyrighted work. Your assertion is... bizarre in the context of a photography site - I think you're confusing the difference between plagiarism and infringement of copyright.

Agreed, in China there's less consensus about copyright, but once the nation's amassed enough IP I'll imagine they'll change their approach. In the West, however, the consensus on copyright is unchallenged - and i haven\t heard any convincing arguments against it here.

[Paul T.]

Not always IMO. Arshile Gorky spent a lot of time working from (stealing ideas?) Pablo Picasso as well as the early work of Joan Miró.

Human creativity should remain a collective effort, the concept of limiting the flow of designs and ideas from one artist or designer to another should be very limited, frankly the "protection" feels too broad to me.

Yes your photo itself should be protected, but NOT the idea of it.

This, for clarity, I absolutely agree with.

If I've written a book with new facts/stories/insight, those pass into the public domain. And that's a pleasant and good thing, whether it's acknowledged or not. I'm not sure if Georges Braque was happy when Picasso ripped off his ideas, but them's the breaks.

[rxmd]

No, it's not about loss of income.

Of course it is. This is in fact all it's about. If someone copies some creation of yours, nothing happens to your intellectual property itself. The work is still yours as it was before. The only thing that happens is that your possibility of extracting revenue from it are somewhat diminished. Coincidentally, practically all intellectual property lawsuits tend to revolve around revenue somehow.

I also disagree about the "fundamental right" and the "centuries of international law" bit. It's only 121 years that the US, for example, started to make it even possible for foreign authors to exercise copyrights, and 60 years since the US acceded to an international treaty on intellectual property. Neither the US Bill of Rights, nor the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, nor the European Convention of Human Rights of 1950 mention intellectual property. The European Charter of Human Rights of 2000 does, but only in a weak wording that is different from practically all other rights in the text (not a right that every person has, but something abstract that merely "shall be protected"). It's a fairly recent thing, and in particular, one that countries tend to ignore as long as it benefit them and that, unlike actual fundamental rights, only gets enforced where it benefits the enforcer economically.

Finally, I also dislike the term "intellectual property" itself, because it invokes the illusion that the two are conceptually the same. They are not. The two are conceptually different. Both should be protected, but they need different mechanisms for protecting them, simply because of the particular nature that an author's rights do not diminish if his works are copied.

Not taking your views personally, because this is a discussion forum, and I'm not equating you with some of the sharks who've tried it on for me but... what is the public interest in taking people's creations? Who benefits?

In a discussion about whether stealing a car and downloading a picture are conceptually the same, that is a bit of an off-topic argument. To answer your question, I direct you to Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/) as an example. The site is full of the people's creations, and don't you agree the world is better off with having free access to all that?

Eventually a lot of human cultural production revolves around being able to make creative use of things produced by others. I think that at the moment we are not very good at using this potential fully for the best of society. You now have the choice of sitting in the dinosaur trench together with Disney and Sony and worry about protecting your income stream, or to consider the benefits of society as opposed to your own. I see that it is important that creating something must pay off, and I agree with that, but I think we've allowed this to go over the top.

[Paul T.]

...
Finally, I also dislike the term "intellectual property" itself, because it invokes the illusion that the two are conceptually the same. They are not. The two are conceptually different. Both should be protected, but they need different mechanisms for protecting them, simply because of the particular nature that an author's rights do not diminish if his works are copied.

Your argument is curiously old-fashioned. You treat a creation as a physical artefact. It is not. A book is a book, whether printed or distributed electronically. Because it is easier to copy an eBook does not make it more morally right.

You keep using the analogy about the car, or whatever, but it is just that, an analogy. I could use the analogy that, if I happen to have the correct skeleton key, I can come and live in your house. You have lost no income stream, but nonetheless I am taking and using something that is yours. I could argue that this benefits society and is a better use of resources. But nonetheless I am taking something of yours, without your consent, and that is wrong.



...
I direct you to Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/) as an example. The site is full of the people's creations, and don't you agree the world is better off with having free access to all that?
This is an entirely different argument - reproduction of books written a century ago or which are out of copyright is entirely different from the notion of abandoning copyright altogether.

If you're arguing for a simple reduction of copyright terms, then do so.

.
Eventually a lot of human cultural production revolves around being able to make creative use of things produced by others. I think that at the moment we are not very good at using this potential fully for the best of society. You now have the choice of sitting in the dinosaur trench together with Disney and Sony and worry about protecting your income stream, or to consider the benefits of society as opposed to your own. I see that it is important that creating something must pay off, and I agree with that, but I think we've allowed this to go over the top.

I went out with my son today and bought four books, round 45 bucks. They're cheap entertainment. Are they worth less than a burger and fries? No, I don't think society would particularly benefit from giving them away for free, when it means that the authors would then likely not be able to write any other books.

I note in all of this, you are extremely casual about the definable loss suffered by authors and photographers by the abuse of their copyright. While you are extremely vague about the benefits to society that lead on from this.

Most fundamentally of all, I'd like to disagree with your implication that undermining copyright, or IP, somehow benefits "the people" or "society".

I presume this is why you align me with Disney and other large corporations, in what is an old propaganda technique to try and align those defending copyright with international corporations, when in the main it's individual artists, photographers, writers, directors, who create important work, not corporations. Demolishing copyright will ultimately prevent people from creating - and in the consequent digital rights grab, it is the big corporations like Google who will benefit, not "society".

[furcafe]

Well, the creator also loses control of the work. Not if its merely copied, but if the copier decides to do something w/it or take credit for it. True, it may be all about money for "evil" Disney & Sony, but that's not true for every creator of a copyrighted work.

Also, while the U.S. Bill of Rights doesn't mention intellectual property (though the 1st Amendment arguably protects those forms that may be characterized by "free speech"), Article I, section 8, of the U.S. Constitution explicitly provides Congress with the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." And, as I have posted in this & the other "theft" thread, the recognition of intangible economic interests (since you don't like the term "intellectual property") is very old w/respect to trademarks & patents & still pretty darn old re: copyrights; the fact that they haven't been universally applied across nations & cultures doesn't negate the fact that these are not exactly new ideas. To repeat myself, IMHO, the difference between digital copying & mechanical analog copying is a matter of degree, not kind.

As you have recognized, I think your scientific background accounts for the difference between your perspective & others, like Mr. Hicks. However, I don't think the science model necessarily applies to the world of creative endeavors. E.g., I'm not sure the loss to society from copyright enforcement (even overzealous enforcement by Disney, et al.) is the same as restrictions on the exchange of scientific & technical information. I can see a lot of tangible harm from scientific discoveries not being shared (artemisinin comes to mind: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/health/for-intrigue-malaria-drug-artemisinin-gets-the-prize.html), whereas the harm from not seeing another work by Richard Prince, hearing another sample of "Funky Drummer" in a hip hop song, or even those poor Girl Scouts not being able to sing "Happy Birthday" doesn't seem to be as bad.

Of course it is. This is in fact all it's about. If someone copies some creation of yours, nothing happens to your intellectual property itself. The work is still yours as it was before. The only thing that happens is that your possibility of extracting revenue from it are somewhat diminished. Coincidentally, practically all intellectual property lawsuits tend to revolve around revenue somehow.

I also disagree about the "fundamental right" and the "centuries of international law" bit. It's only 121 years that the US, for example, started to make it even possible for foreign authors to exercise copyrights, and 60 years since the US acceded to an international treaty on intellectual property. Neither the US Bill of Rights, nor the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, nor the European Convention of Human Rights of 1950 mention intellectual property. The European Charter of Human Rights of 2000 does, but only in a weak wording that is different from practically all other rights in the text (not a right that every person has, but something abstract that merely "shall be protected"). It's a fairly recent thing, and in particular, one that countries tend to ignore as long as it benefit them and that, unlike actual fundamental rights, only gets enforced where it benefits the enforcer economically.

[Aristophanes]

No.

I have worked, and still work, in the field of copyright. I make my entire living with copyrighted work. Your assertion is... bizarre in the context of a photography site - I think you're confusing the difference between plagiarism and infringement of copyright.

Agreed, in China there's less consensus about copyright, but once the nation's amassed enough IP I'll imagine they'll change their approach. In the West, however, the consensus on copyright is unchallenged - and i haven\t heard any convincing arguments against it here.

You are missing the point.

From where you sit copyright is settled law.

Not only does China ignore most IP issues, they actively pursue breaking down the very signatories encourage and engage in active braking down of what are perceived as "Western" walls:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/opinion/how-china-steals-our-secrets.html?scp=10&sq=China&st=cse

I have extensively worked in many developing nations and there are deep cultural divides about the ownership of content. There are economic reasons why a a person earning under $1/day does not concern themselves with a Disney copyright and national trends usually make that person more important in the eyes of politicians than some Western lawyer. Ultimately most of the world's IP laws are lip service which is precisely why private enforcement in the digital, internet-linked domain is mostly futile.

I worked in consumer protection in Vancouver, Canada and had a woman, a potter, whose work was quite well known and striking, walk into our office and ask for assistance. Her most popular line of products, extensively handcrafted in her workshops by a dozen employees, were being copied and imported into consumer retail outlets in very similar formats only months after being released into high-end crafts shops locally. We referred her to legal counsel, but did track down (on the premise of safety concerns vis-a-vis potential lead content in the pottery) some information for her and found out that the originating factory in Southern China was owned by the largest property development owner in Vancouver!

Yet there was little this woman could do except pay a staggering amount for legal remedy, and then only locally in enforcement. Most of the copied product was going to the US. She even saw copies of her work in Hawaii not months after she'd released a new line. Effectively, she was without remedy despite every lawyer and government official understanding her property rights had been violated. It was an issue of pure commercial muscle running over her rights. An ethical stance will not win that contest. This is a moral every photographer on this website should know.

A law is only settled once its enforcement provisions are consistently applied. They are not with regards to copyright, especially for small producers. If they were, we would not be having this discussion. In the field, copyright is less respected than enforced by a vast margin. This was so in the days of photocopies and even more the norm in the digital age.

[L David Tomei]

The patent prosecutions in which I have been involved, and the over 30 patents that I have had issued, I learned one important thing: Don't play amateur lawyer. Now when it comes to my images being used by others for commercial purposes, I am faced with a lot of questions that still need to be addressed. The purposes of this forum is to share opinions and experiences, and clearly not to resolve legal issues that many photographers face today.
My best wishes to all. David

[Paul T.]

No, I understand and agree with your point, that there are plenty of people who wish to make money by stealing other people's ideas - and as I pointed out, in China there's a very cavalier approach to IP and copyright.

Copyright is never settled law, it's a constant battle. But again, I contend that in this battle, don't fall for the canard that it's the big corporations for copyright, vs the little guy.

Rather, it's the photographers, artists, writers all, who need copyright, to fight off rapacious corporations like Google, Getty, Amazon and others in a new digital landgrab every bit as egregious of those of the American robber barons.

And on a forum devoted to photography, we should stand up for those who've had their work stolen, like the OP on this thread.

[Aristophanes]

No, I understand and agree with your point, that there are plenty of people who wish to make money by stealing other people's ideas - and as I pointed out, in China there's a very cavalier approach to IP and copyright.

Copyright is never settled law, it's a constant battle. But again, I contend that in this battle, don't fall for the canard that it's the big corporations for copyright, vs the little guy.

Rather, it's the photographers, artists, writers all, who need copyright, to fight off rapacious corporations like Google, Getty, Amazon and others in a new digital landgrab every bit as egregious of those of the American robber barons.

And on a forum devoted to photography, we should stand up for those who've had their work stolen, like the OP on this thread.

Copyright was never a legal evolution to protect works based on ethical or moral grounds. There is a different principle of moral rights to art, some of which intersects with with copyright depending on jurisdiction. But they are distinct legal concepts.

Copyright is a legal protection granting a limited monopoly over the expression of an idea. That sounds nicely moral, but the history of the law was to promote that monopoly as a means to leverage commercial interest in the value of the product. That is why copyright and patent are siblings; one was literary and the other mechanical.

I find it ironic that photographers who post their work online are morally upset by copyright violations. The whole process of posting online is to share, which is only accommodated by copying. In a world of pure copyright, whenever we posted an image and someone looked at it, we'd be able to charge a fraction of a penny, even here on RFF. The sheer amount of free material posted online undermines the concept that all photographs have some inherent commercial value and shold benefit from copyright. They are protected by copyright in theory, but in practise, good luck. It's a tragedy of the commons because it is extremely difficult for one person to assert their copyright in a sea of free alternatives. The cases we read about, (re buses, dance steps in Seattle) are the exceptions, not the rule.

I have no problem with the moral assertion that someone should be able to charge for their work if there is a counterparty to purchase said work. They should be free to bargain fairly. Where it breaks down is when someone turns that work into an infinitely and freely copied digital format. The digital format breaks down the copyright wall so effectively as to render its enforcement assumption nearly useless. The only ones who have the $$$ to pursue are usually larger corporate entities, so I fail to see how that is a canard. It is a market dynamic all individual photographers must be aware of.

When I look at the Luminous Landscape article, what leaps out at me is the $250 minimum, no bargaining price the author sets. To me, that's an ignorant market failure as to the value of the photograph in relation to its intended use. Chasing down payment on a photograph is a very poor market substitute to intended use bound by contract. Demanding money based on a moral argument is highly dubious when it is clear the author did too little to protect their work in the first place. Then he blasts away at the Everyman "they" who are stealing. He's blaming society for the loss of revenue from his private property because he did not protect his private property adequately in the first place. And instead of requesting a more appropriate price for the image, he spends more productive time writing about the issue. This approach limits my sympathy. YMMV.

The big corporations then try and deal with this problem by having the laws written passing the cost of enforcement over to the taxpayer by semi-criminalizing the matter. This is socialiazing the risk, but only for those in the US who have the ear of key government prosecutors. Their argument is moral but their objective is the bottom line at taxpayer expense.

[Paul T.]

You imply copyright legislation was primarily enacted by large commercial interests - in the UK, notions like image copyright were introduced by creators like William Hogarth. Who self-published, backed by no-one.

And in the other corner, building a new business based on a copyright landgrab, is Google.

I know who I side with.

[Gabriel M.A.]

How would you feel if someone decided that it would be okay to use your car without your permission, but only while you were sleeping, so you would still have full use of it when you need it? They would replace the gas they used, so there would be no cost to you.


Law-making and law-enforcement (or any kind of basis of power) based on feelings has not had a good track record in all of recorded history.

I may feel good that some girl I like take my shirts in the middle of the night while I was sleeping, clean up anything that may have been soiled and bring it back before I woke up. I would feel really awful that some weird-looking dude do the same. Making a law based on these feelings may not have any justification under a normal democracy.

However, any resulting damages that arise during these acts may be illegal, regardless of feelings. Unless, of course, one can demonstrate these feelings deprive you of any income.


If issues were easy, laws wouldn't be so complicated. And laws are as flawed as the men who write them.

[semilog]

But again, I contend that in this battle, don't fall for the canard that it's the big corporations for copyright, vs the little guy.

The "little guy" does not write the law. (A subset of) big corporations effectively do. The RIAA and MPAA have had particularly large roles here, and they assuredly are not interested in "the little guy" -- or, for that matter, in the progress of Science or (most of) the Useful Arts.

Many others have pointed out the deep irony of copyright extension being driven largely by the threat of Mickey Mouse passing into the public domain, while the Disney fortune was amassed largely on the basis of retellings of stories that Walt found in the public domain literature.

[Paul T.]

We are not talking about proposed US legislation - we are discussing the principle of copyright and whether someone else can use your photo without permission and without paying.

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

This discussion has sent me back to my books and the evolution of copyright is a fascinating story in and of itself.

Copyright was never considered of importance for most of the history of the English speaking world. For example, the earliest applicable law seems to be the English Licensing of the Press Act of 1662, which, far from protecting the rights of authors, was concerned with suppressing them or, at least, the rights of those authors with whom the government disagreed. Before the invention of the printing press, of course, the dissemination of knowledge was a non-issue. It was something that a few weird clergymen got up to, when not otherwise employed, and let's hope they washed their hands afterwards.

Incidentally, the English law seems positively benign, next to legislation on mainland Europe. There, the Church (i.e. the Roman Catholic Church) was obsessed with stuffing back into the bottle the genie that nasty Johannes Gutenberg had so inconveniently released.

Nearly fifty years more passed, before the parliament of Queen Anne decided to provide some, very limited, protection to authors. It took another one hundred and thirty years before the first copyright act, which looks at all modern, was introduced by the author, parliamentarian and judge, Thomas Noon Talfour.

It's quite as entertaining as any bodice ripper and well worth looking into.

[jan normandale]

I love this thread... one of the best in months. Some arguments I like more than others. I've had my photographic images appropriated, taken, borrowed, stolen and I've confronted the borrower, appropriator etc and the response was ".. so what"

I don't think "people who take" give a flip. These are the people we're talking about. And when the corporations do have a massive image DB they will pursue borrowers and appropriators. Just wait. These predators pick individuals not Getty Images they choose their targets carefully. So the argument is distilled to "individuals are prey" and corporations like Getty are "appropriation proof" due to their size. Gotta love "free enterprise"

[gdi]

Intellectual property being stolen implies that you then don't have it anymore, which is obviously not the case, hence the need for a distinction in terms. This is all the argument is about, not whether intellectual property exists or not or whoever makes which laws.


Neither the US Bill of Rights, nor the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, nor the European Convention of Human Rights of 1950 mention intellectual property. T



This is a great thread - I've learned a lot.

I had not given much thought to arguments against copyright in the past, so I found the way you and others are parsing the discussion rather strange. But after conducting research, I have learned a little about the debate techniques of each side - like trying to limit the definition of theft as depriving someone of property - thereby eliminating the possibility of unauthorized copying being theft, though there is abundant evidence that a general definition of theft are not that narrow. That is the definition that the anti-copyright crowd wants to force on everyone; while the pro-copyright crowd wants to force everyone to consider it theft due to the moral connotations of the word.

Same for the desire to eliminate the use of the term "intellectual property"; you don't want to acknowledge the term even though it has common usage in the public, commercial, and legal realms. So you specifically state that there is no mention of "intellectual property" in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, though the intent would be clear to most people that the words "Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author" represent the concept of intellectual property. But I have to agree that the term intellectual property isn't specifically in it.

I saw an interesting term for the approach of trying to pigeon-hole definitions to support your side of an argument (both sides of this argument do this) - "linguistic peeving" - or adopting one usage of a term you believe is right and claiming any other usage is wrong.

I found that term, and an excellent and seemingly unbiased analysis of this argument in a two part article on a copyright related legal blog. It really was fascinating to read and provides good evidence as to how each side makes their arguments. The first part of the article is here:

http://www.copyhype.com/2010/09/is-copyright-infringement-theft/

Unfortunately, the article never really concludes on the "philosophical" question of whether infringement is theft, but it really helps put the argument in perspective.

A quote in the article that I found very interesting is by copyright "guru" Ben Sheffner regarding the labels used by both sides:

"I just have a hard time getting too worked up about what label we attach to copyright. And I suspect most non-philosophers agree. Consider this thought experiment: Go to a studio head and say, “I’ve got a deal for you. I’ll give you your copyright wish list: repeal first sale, make Justice Ginsburg’s concurrence in Grokster the controlling opinion, delete Cablevision, Perfect 10 v. Amazon (and a few other Perfect 10 cases while we’re at it) from the law books, and codify a “making available” right. But here’s the catch: From now on, you are forever forbidden from referring to copyright as ‘property,’ and must instead call it a ‘set of social relationships.’” Or go to a copyright skeptic, and say, “I’ve got a deal for you. I’ll give you your copyright wish list: reduce the term of copyright back to 14 years, expand fair use, eliminate the derivative works right, and repeal the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. But there’s the catch: From now on, you must refer to copyright as property; no more of this ‘set of social relationships’ mumbo-jumbo.” I’m confident both the studio head and the copyright skeptic would take those deals in a heartbeat. Ultimately, it’s the substance, not the label, that matters."


That seems to makes sense to me - in the end, the labels (and the associated parsing) just don't matter that much....

[Aristophanes]

This discussion has sent me back to my books and the evolution of copyright is a fascinating story in and of itself.

Copyright was never considered of importance for most of the history of the English speaking world. For example, the earliest applicable law seems to be the English Licensing of the Press Act of 1662, which, far from protecting the rights of authors, was concerned with suppressing them or, at least, the rights of those authors with whom the government disagreed. Before the invention of the printing press, of course, the dissemination of knowledge was a non-issue. It was something that a few weird clergymen got up to, when not otherwise employed, and let's hope they washed their hands afterwards.

Incidentally, the English law seems positively benign, next to legislation on mainland Europe. There, the Church (i.e. the Roman Catholic Church) was obsessed with stuffing back into the bottle the genie that nasty Johannes Gutenberg had so inconveniently released.

Nearly fifty years more passed, before the parliament of Queen Anne decided to provide some, very limited, protection to authors. It took another one hundred and thirty years before the first copyright act, which looks at all modern, was introduced by the author, parliamentarian and judge, Thomas Noon Talfour.

It's quite as entertaining as any bodice ripper and well worth looking into.

Thanks for bringing up the religious issue. The US resisted copyright in part because who could proselytize if publishers were copyrighting Bibles!

And we are NOT talking Roman Catholic bibles here.

Religious freedom was very much tied to the concept that words be 'free"...and with words went ideas...and with ideas went concepts like slavery.

The vast majority of copyright is based on economic self-interest. The vast publishing and media empires of mid-20th century America turned copyright into a force of enterprise, not individual morality.

I don't align myself with the technogeek "all information is free" mumbo jumbo. But I do take the Luminous Landscape article author to task for his overpriced work and self-important rant about the morals of the ubiquitous "they" supposedly being inferior to his artistic celebrity. Gimme a break.

It's a decent photo but $250 for a brochure or poster art from an obscure university? If you start talking price you need to talk value and methinks this guy overvalues his works by a few factors and then got caught having to bargain in retrospect. That's just bad business, not a comment on general social mores. Violent crime is down all over the Western world yet somehow our moral compass is horrendously adrift. Get some perspective. Maybe people are so busy with BitTorrent they haven't the time to mug strangers anymore.

[Al Patterson]

Stealing is stealing, copyright infringement is copyright infringement.

At least in Sweden :)

Stateside they can be exactly the same...

[mfunnell]

Yet sometimes "stealing" really isn't stealing, at least not to my mind. I was thinking of this when somebody e-mailed me a link (http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/book-drove-them-crazy_634905.html?nopager=1) to a reprise of Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind and thought about how I acquired my copy of it.

When that book was first published in the late eighties, the way things worked here in Oz was that when a British publishing house acquired the UK rights to a (non-Australian) work, they automatically acquired the Australian rights. The UK publishing house could then decide whether the ideas in the book were suitable for "colonial" types to read, and if considered too dangerous they simply would not allow publication in Australia or shipping of the work to Australia. (Oh, they might also not allow it if they figured it was "too intellectual" for low-brow colonial types, and so might not have a market, or any other reason they might decide to not allow it here.)

I had read reviews of the book but felt myself unable to comment on a book I hadn't actually read. So I asked a friend of mine to buy a copy while she was in the US and bring it back for me. This was illegal, because a bunch of pommy publishers had deemed the book unsuitable for the (former) colonies. My friend was at some (albeit small) risk of arrest when clearing customs here in Oz. (In practice, nobody in Customs would have noticed - and on those rare occasions when they did they merely confiscated the book rather than bringing charges. But still...)

OK: so the author made a sale he otherwise would not have made. How did I steal from him? Please let me know.

The law changed, a little bit, after that. Yet I can recall a conversation I had with an American author who had been invited to Oz to give a series of lectures on his most recent book. He was bemused to discover that the book he would be talking about could not be legally sold in the country he would be speaking in. He had wondered why his sales figures were non-existent here - and why, under those circumstances, he was being invited to speak. He would have liked the revenue from the sales. He would have liked it even more if his ideas had been allowed to circulate freely. He asked me why Australia allowed this crazy control over our intellectual life to be granted to British publishers. I had to point out to him that all attempts to change this or any other arrangement were strongly opposed by the music industry who felt that any alteration of Australian copyright law risked them losing their ability to charge $35 in Australia for a CD which sold for $12 in the US or ten quid in the UK.

The laws around this have changed further still in the intervening decades but the interests of record and movie companies (which must always be pandered to) have still prevented our spinless politicians from properly fixing this circumstance.

And I still don't think I stole that book. I think I bought it. Tell me why I'm wrong.

...Mike

[Aristophanes]

Stateside they can be exactly the same...

Copyright is not criminal theft except in cases of mass infringements for commercial intent, which is more akin to fraud.

Copyright violation is primarily a civil matter between private parties.

Calling the police to report a copyright infringement will get you no response. Calling a lawyer will cost you $300/hour.

[rxmd]

You treat a creation as a physical artefact. It is not. A book is a book, whether printed or distributed electronically. Because it is easier to copy an eBook does not make it more morally right. [...] You keep using the analogy about the car, or whatever, but it is just that, an analogy. [...]

Paul, it is quite exasperating that you seem to keep addressing your responses to me, while actually responding to a lot of phantom arguments that I haven't made. Nowhere have I argued that copying an eBook is morally right. Nowhere have I used a "car analogy" without making clear that it is an analogy (e.g. by using terms such as A, B, X and so on) and/or without making clear where I myself think it is flawed. Elsewhere you started bringing up "physical" property and pretending that this was something that had come from me. Elsewhere you identify me with the call for abandoning copyright altogether. And so on.

I think it would be helpful if we could all afford ourselves the little intellectual integrity to make it clear whether we are responding to arguments someone has actually made, particularly the person we're responding to, or to arguments that seem to be somehow floating in the air, or merely to your own fears and projections with which I have nothing to do. In the interest of intellectual integrity I myself in turn will refrain from lining you up with evil corporations, because my dislike for their behaviour is probably besides the point here and has in turn little to do with you.

This is an entirely different argument - reproduction of books written a century ago or which are out of copyright is entirely different from the notion of abandoning copyright altogether.

Again, Paul, the notion of abandoning copyright altogether is something which I haven't said, not anywhere. Either you are projecting that onto me, or you are responding to it in general in a post that just happens to address me. I don't appreciate either.

Your question was literally that you wanted me to justify "what is the public interest in taking people's creations". As your question neither mentions time periods nor methods of "taking", it appears to be a general question. Therefore, it is best answered with a general answer. The general answer to that is the public domain. Project Gutenberg is just a particularly good example for the public domain, one that illustrates particularly well why and how it is beneficial. So, the public obviously does have a general interest in taking people's creations, and has in fact a right to do so, even though "taking" does not imply (as you seem to have meant) sanctioning the downloading of your copyrighted image.

The objective of copyright is to afford just a little protection and incentive to creative people such as you and me, by affording us a way to make a living off it. This is a protection granted to us by the public, for free, and consequently one which, in my view, entails a moral obligation for us to give back to the public in the form of giving them access to our works and creations. Rather than quabbling about lengths and periods and so on, however, I would very much prefer to arrive at some kind of reasonable extended, durable definition of "fair use". But that is only my own opinion.

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

But that is only my own opinion.

I rather think that this is the problem. It can be very difficult for some people to be as honest as yourself about the difference between their opinions and their desire for the world to correspond to their desires. I certainly have made that mistake in the past and, no doubt, will do so again. It is this that is the cause of so much conflict and there would be far less if people followed your example, rxmd.

Aristophanes's...

But I do take the Luminous Landscape article author to task for his overpriced work and self-important rant about the morals of the ubiquitous "they" supposedly being inferior to his artistic celebrity.

...also illuminates the discussion well, I believe. It seems to me to be all about perceived value. If you think that an image I offer is worth one cent, then that is what it is worth, to you. The same applies if you think it is worth one million dollars. The conflict arises from the technology of reproduction and has been a problem since Gutenberg and that damned moveable type.

I rather think that we're only looking at the beginning of the conflict. The technology of 3D printing is evolving rapidly. How will intellectual property be enforced, when you can pour a few powders into the appropriate hoppers, press a button and a few days later, drive your new car off the print area?

[mfunnell]

How will intellectual property be enforced, when you can pour a few powders into the appropriate hoppers, press a button and a few days later, drive your new car off the print area?Having consulted the auto companies - purely about saftey :rolleyes: - the state will refuse registration to any such vehicle, regardless of it's design.

...Mike

[Paul T.]

Paul, it is quite exasperating that you seem to keep addressing your responses to me, while actually
Well, I was responding to your specific arguments, which is why I quoted you.

And while you might find it irritating that I associate some of the other arguments with you, I find it unhelpful that you attempt to associate me with companies like Disney, it's cheap propaganda.


Rather than quabbling about lengths and periods and so on, however, I would very much prefer to arrive at some kind of reasonable extended, durable definition of "fair use". But that is only my own opinion.
Seems entirely reasonable.

I entirely disagree with what I see as an implication that copyright is a privilege, not a right. Admittedly rights are always available for negotiation. This debate started because someone had his photo taken from him. It's an interesting debate, because he left his photo easily accessible, and asked too much money ( rather like a car owner who left his keys in the ignition ) but yes, the act of taking his photo was morally wrong.

If it were me, and let's face it the photo is nice but hardly great, I'd settle for a formal apology, an explanation and a credit somewehre. I've done exactly this in the past, to a retailer who used my stuff - because they were nice. But I detest the notion that people think they can use other's work with impunity.

My work is still my work, whatever the domain. Of course, some uses vary - musicians have generally always accepted that live shows will be bootlegged, but to assume one has the RIGHT to bootleg their music is wrong, parasitical and doesn't benefit society.

[rxmd]

Paul, it is quite exasperating that you seem to keep addressing your responses to me, while actually [...responding to a lot of phantom arguments that I haven't made] (you conveniently left out this key bit when quoting me)Well, I was responding to your specific arguments, which is why I quoted you.

OK, I guess creative quoting is also a form of creativity.

You arguably quote me, but then you start talking about all sorts of things that follow neither from the text you quoted, nor from any other statement of mine in the earlier discussion. Examples: "creation as a physical artefact", "the notion of abandoning copyright altogether", "physical possession", "you are saying that it isn't stealing, because someone is taking something you didn't really use". Those are not "my specific arguments that you're responding to". These are things you've read or heard from some people, but not from me, yet you make them sound as if you were responding to me there.

These things are in your own head, from wherever, but not me. Please be so kind as to distinguish between things that I've actually stated and those that you merely associate with me somehow when responding to me.

I find it unhelpful that you attempt to associate me with companies like Disney, it's cheap propaganda.

Don't you think it's a bit of a cheap shot to repeat that after I already pointed it out myself?

[Paul T.]

OK, I guess creative quoting is also a form of creativity.


Your quote is immediately above, I shortened for brevity alone... don't take this so personally. remember, you're trying to diminish my livelihood, and I don't take it personally!




Don't you think it's a bit of a cheap shot to repeat that after I already pointed it out myself?
Actually, no, because while I find many of your arguments well-founded - from your perspective, with which I happen to disagree - I found your first mention of Disney a cheap attempt to tarnish my viewpoint by association.

It's also a repetition of a cheap shot used in this debate at large, part of the fallacy that watering down copyright will damage only evil megacorporations, not individual producers.

This is merely a forum, I have no disagreement with you personally, only your arguments and some of the others on this thread.

Alack, as someone who is supposed to produce IP, I see I've spent an hour or more getting diverted. An occupational hazard. But today is a vacation day and I take off for the coast. Enjoy yourselves...

[sevo]

It's also a repetition of a cheap shot used in this debate at large, part of the fallacy that watering down copyright will damage only evil megacorporations, not individual producers.


Complaining about cheap shots won't do if immediately followed by no less cheap polemic. I've come across next to no statement demanding a watering down of copyright - the whole subject of the debate is how and by whom royalties should be collected.

And there also is no doubt that most of the current proposals at national or international lawmaking level are by lobbyists of either the old or the new media corporations, and disregard the interests of the authors and end users alike.

[semilog]

And while you might find it irritating that I associate some of the other arguments with you, I find it unhelpful that you attempt to associate me with companies like Disney, it's cheap propaganda.

Look, if you support the copyright status quo (as your comments seem to indicate), then it is disingenuous to not acknowledge that the status quo is a direct product of immense lobbying efforts by Disney and other MPAA and RIAA signatories.

The current law is their law. Bought and paid for. For example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#Support).

If you wish to separate the law-as-written from a more abstract and general view of copyright, you might want to make that distinction explicit.

[semilog]

And there also is no doubt that most of the current proposals at national or international lawmaking level are by lobbyists of either the old or the new media corporations, and disregard the interests of the authors and end users alike.

Right. To pretend otherwise is absurd.

[charjohncarter]

Thou shalt not steal, but that was many years ago. As someone said here, she doesn't even realize that this is stealing. Photos done by someone else are the new Napster.

By the way Bill, very good subject thanks for opening it up.

[Paul T.]

Look, if you support the copyright status quo (as your comments seem to indicate), then it is disingenuous to not acknowledge that the status quo is a direct product of immense lobbying efforts by Disney and other MPAA and RIAA signatories.



yes, you're right. Arguing that a photographer shouldn't have his photo used by someone else is EXACTLY like siding with Disney.

Yes, you're right. Of course someone outside of the USA is referring to a specific US copyright law that you personally are exercised about. (What, there are other countries outside the USA? Incroyable! )

Yes, you're right. This is a photography site. Of course we should argue against maintenance of copyright for photographers, musicians, writers and other content creators.

(You couldn't make it up. This is like watching turkeys vote for Christmas).

[Aristophanes]

I entirely disagree with what I see as an implication that copyright is a privilege, not a right. Admittedly rights are always available for negotiation. This debate started because someone had his photo taken from him. It's an interesting debate, because he left his photo easily accessible, and asked too much money ( rather like a car owner who left his keys in the ignition ) but yes, the act of taking his photo was morally wrong.

If it were me, and let's face it the photo is nice but hardly great, I'd settle for a formal apology, an explanation and a credit somewehre. I've done exactly this in the past, to a retailer who used my stuff - because they were nice. But I detest the notion that people think they can use other's work with impunity.

My work is still my work, whatever the domain. Of course, some uses vary - musicians have generally always accepted that live shows will be bootlegged, but to assume one has the RIGHT to bootleg their music is wrong, parasitical and doesn't benefit society.

Copyright can be both a privilege (legal monopoly) and a right (assigned to you).

His photo was produced in an infinitely copied format. He asked too much. His work was appropriated and infringed, and the cost to remedy is not worth it.

I question the photographer's morality in how easily accessible and vulnerable a format he left his own private property. Do we often leave $250 items lying around? Do you leave your iPhone on the table at dinner in the restaurant and then rail at all the other customers after it goes missing?

The impunity exists solely because of the cost to remedy. If you cannot afford a lawyer and legal costs, don't post $250 photos. Forget the other guy's morality. Be paranoid and assume everyone will steal. Worry about protecting what is yours. Drive defensively.

If you want the right, then accept the responsibility that comes with it. How often people forget that simple truism.

[semilog]

yes, you're right. Arguing that a photographer shouldn't have his photo used by someone else is EXACTLY like siding with Disney.

Since neither I nor any other serious person here is making any such argument (i.e., that photos should be used without permission), let me help (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Strawman) you.

Yes, you're right. Of course someone outside of the USA is referring to a specific US copyright law that you personally are exercised about. (What, there are other countries outside the USA? Incroyable! )

See above. The content of WIPO's rules and other trade agreements are driven by exactly the same multinationals that drive the content of US copyright legislation. You may have noted that I used the phrase "for example."

You understand what the word "example" means, yes?

For someone who claims to work in the field of IP, you don't seem terribly interested in how IP laws, rules, and treaties actually come into existence, or what their underlying intent is. It is a strange form of incuriosity.

---

In any event, perhaps you have opinions about some of the serious questions that are are actually under consideration by legislators, treaty negotiators, and courts:

Exactly how long should copyright persist before a work passes into the public domain?

Should there be criminal penalties for simple cases of copyright infringement? (As there are for actual theft.)

Should the police be spending resources on simple cases of copyright infringement? (As they do for actual theft.)

What should copyright holders be allowed to do -- with or without due legal process -- to suspected infringers?

What should copyright holders be allowed to do -- with or without due legal process -- to the common carriers that may be used to transmit data by suspected infringers?

What should copyright holders be allowed to do -- with or without due legal process -- to third parties (e.g., Google, Bing) who happen to index data transmitted by suspected infringers?

Should these common carriers and indexers be obligated to monitor, crawl, and/or log traffic by everyone in order to ensnare suspected infringers?

If so, how should the privacy of the majority who are not infringers be protected? And can it be protected at all?

If so, who should pay for all of this stuff?

And finally: should I be in prison because I am the proud owner* of a Taiwanese bootleg** of Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow, on transparent orange vinyl?

*It was a gift.
**Pressed back in the days when Taiwan was even more of a no-copyright haven than it is today.

[jan normandale]

There's no intent to throw this thread into another direction but this is so close in my mind that I'm thinking everyone here will be interested to see how this one plays out between Sobel and Eggleston.

Sobel has sued Eggleston for printing new "larger" limited editions of original (smaller in dimensions) limited editions. He is claiming dimunition in value as damages. Should be interesting. A search for "Eggleston - Sobel lawsuit" should provide lots more reading and discussion

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/05/45348.htm

[Bob Michaels]

Bill Pierce (or anyone with a truly informed opinion): We are having a discussion on another thread, Robert Capa - Video, if it is OK to use a Magnum photo or video without permission so long as it is attributed and is for non-commercial use. The attribution is because the images are watermarked "Magnum Photo".

I have my ideas but I am the odd man out.

Please, tell us what you think.

[rxmd]

Bill Pierce (or anyone with a truly informed opinion): We are having a discussion on another thread, Robert Capa - Video, if it is OK to use a Magnum photo or video without permission so long as it is attributed and is for non-commercial use. The attribution is because the images are watermarked "Magnum Photo".

I have my ideas but I am the odd man out.

As mentioned in that thread (http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1855543), it would be important to mention that these photos are only available in a video, i.e. not as individual pictures, and are downscaled and compressed to extremely low quality, unsuitable for reproduction. This unsuitability is pretty important under fair use considerations.

[Aristophanes]

Related info..

http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2012/03/27/perhaps-many-photographers-dont-understand-the-value-of-usage/

Interesting article.

The major point I take on this is that the author did not control nor contract for their work up front, and instead had to chase down compensation. They were lucky to be negotiating with an institution with deep pockets for a commercial outlay and were not feisty, lawerying up to challenge copyright due to the involvement of the ex-student who had a copy of the photo.

Chasing down infringement is simply poor business as it adds legal costs, outcome uncertainty, and lost productivity to the mix. Arguing copyright without contract is very difficult if multiple parties are involved. If the photog publicly contested the matter, they could be viewed as a "difficult" professional for agencies, clients etc. to deal with.

If you share your work it may likely be infringed at your cost to remedy. The right of copyright comes with responsibilities.

[rxmd]

Here's another nice take on whether downloading is "theft" or not, this time it's a court decision.

A programmer downloaded code from a company server in an unauthorized fashion. Sued by the company for theft of property, he lost in the first instance. However, now the 2nd District Court of Appeals has reversed the decision (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/04/code-not-physical-property/), stating that downloading does not constitute "assuming physical control" and that it does not "deprive [the company] of its use"; hence it does not meet the definition of theft of property.

The code in question is the source code of a computer system for high-frequency stock market trading; the usefulness of this software for a company is highly dependent on no one else having it, in other words there were some real damages involved, but according to the court this is not a case of theft (nor, in fact, of espionage).

[Bill Pierce]

Originally posted by Bob Michaels:
Bill Pierce (or anyone with a truly informed opinion): We are having a discussion on another thread, Robert Capa - Video, if it is OK to use a Magnum photo or video without permission so long as it is attributed and is for non-commercial use. The attribution is because the images are watermarked "Magnum Photo".

=============================

From my perspective the current copyright laws are hopelessly outdated and offer very little protection to the individual photographer. (That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t file for copyright, just that in many cases a copyright suit isn’t worth it nor is the copyright going to make you aware of the many internet thefts.) I really look at it as a matter of courtesy - not profit vs non profit, big vs. little - just courtesy. Email, phone, contact the photographer or organization. My experience is that in the great majority of cases someone with a relatively small, non-profit website is usually given permission. From my perspective, if you take something without asking, you are a thief. If you didn’t realize you were taking somebody else’s property, you are an idiot.

[Bob Michaels]

............................. From my perspective, if you take something without asking, you are a thief. If you didn’t realize you were taking somebody else’s property, you are an idiot.

Bill, thanks for stating your opinion

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I question the photographer's morality in how easily accessible and vulnerable a format he left his own private property. Do we often leave $250 items lying around? Do you leave your iPhone on the table at dinner in the restaurant and then rail at all the other customers after it goes missing?

What's immoral is blaming the victim. Do you also think its ok to rape women who dress in slutty clothes? They asked for it by doing so, so its their fault, right?

[furcafe]

I wouldn't read too much into that decision, because from a legal perspective the real "codes" at issue are 2 federal criminal statutes (which are interpreted more narrowly than civil statutes), specifically Congressional intent regarding 2 terms in those statutes: (1) whether Congress intended to include intangibles like computer software as "property" under the National Stolen Property Act (which dates back to 1948) & (2) whether the computer software was used in "commerce" within the meaning of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996.

If the case isn't appealed, my guess is that we will see attempts in Congress to amend 1 or both statutes.

Here's another nice take on whether downloading is "theft" or not, this time it's a court decision.

A programmer downloaded code from a company server in an unauthorized fashion. Sued by the company for theft of property, he lost in the first instance. However, now the 2nd District Court of Appeals has reversed the decision (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/04/code-not-physical-property/), stating that downloading does not constitute "assuming physical control" and that it does not "deprive [the company] of its use"; hence it does not meet the definition of theft of property.

The code in question is the source code of a computer system for high-frequency stock market trading; the usefulness of this software for a company is highly dependent on no one else having it, in other words there were some real damages involved, but according to the court this is not a case of theft (nor, in fact, of espionage).

[mfunnell]

What's immoral is blaming the victim[...]I'm sorry, but no matter how strongly you feel about matters of copyright it does not justify you drawing analogies which are invalid (for reasons I will not discuss) and highly inappropriate. Calm yourself.

...Mike

[jippiejee]

PKR, when I email one of your pictures to a friend ("Gotta check out out this photographer!"), because I like your work so much, do you really feel like I've stolen it from you? Or is this maybe what culture is all about? Sharing what touches us? Singing the songs we love in the shower. Reciting the poem that moved us? "Stealing" is not an appropriate word when it comes to culture. It's bars of soap that can be stolen, not expressions of life.

[mfunnell]

Are you someone who lifts images (no accusation - just an argument)?No. I am not.I always wonder - as it looks like the sides in this dicussion are between those who own imagery and those who steal them.Therin may lie the problem - you seem to see only two positions.
(There are those who want their images published at any cost..)

I'm sure you feel "steal" is too strong a word, but that's what it is. If you take something that isn't yours, with out permission, it's theft.

Steal From Wiki:

"Theft, the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StealAnswer the question I asked in post #92 (http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1851032&postcount=92) and we may have some basis to discuss how closely "theft" maps to the wrongs of copyright violation.

You might also want to think on the analogy Chris drew, with the concept "crimes against property" in mind. That might lead you to what I found objectionable.

...Mike

[jippiejee]

If you email a link to a web site - that's fine, and expected. If you rip the photo and make changes in photoshop and claim it's yours and not mine - and then try to copyright the image, using the current law to defend your theft - I call my attorney.

If you buy a gallery print and make a scan of the image - take the work offshore and print posters of the image - with all copyright data removed - I call my attorney.. but he can't help if the image was sourced from a printer in Mongolia.

I could go on.. It's theft. Make your own images, don't steal mine. But the current art students tell me.. "You're old, you don't get it - everything is free now". They are being taught this in the local art schools.

I almost get the feeling you didn't answer my question.

[emraphoto]

i think the point was missed. nobody is blaming the victim, merely identifying a reality and suggesting appropriate behaviour in accordance with the new order of things.

we can argue the moral code until we are blue in the face (which we seem to be doing) however most folks i speak with (a whole whack of nobody, broke and generally cynical folks with cameras) no longer see this as an issue to shed tears over.

to ignore this as a new reality would be folly. to adapt your way of dealing with it and seek new funding models would be advisable. the chance of the status quo returning to what we once thought it to be is very, very slim.




Seems you didn't like the way Chris made his point.. I do agree with his argument. Are you someone who lifts images (no accusation - just an argument)? I always wonder - as it looks like the sides in this dicussion are between those who own imagery and those who steal them.

(There are those who want their images published at any cost..)

I'm sure you feel "steal" is too strong a word, but that's what it is. If you take something that isn't yours, with out permission, it's theft.

Steal From Wiki:

"Theft, the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steal

[Aristophanes]

What's immoral is blaming the victim. Do you also think its ok to rape women who dress in slutty clothes? They asked for it by doing so, so its their fault, right?

Wrong analogy. You're improperly equating criminal actions with civil ones.

Try and make an insurance claim on your house for a break-in if there was no evidence of forcible entry because you left the doors unlocked. Sure, the cops will come and file a report...that says you left the doors unlocked!

If you are irresponsible in protecting your own private property through copyright, then you must pay to enforce. If that is beyond your means, you lose. You cannot even call the cops to report such an action because it is not a crime.

If you leave digital files unprotected or in the hands of others who have less strident reasons to protect the inherent IP, then you create your own risk where none existed before.

Read that last paragraph again until you get it.

[Paul T.]

For someone who's supposed to be a lawyer, IIRC, you don't half talk some rubbish.

If you leave your back door open, someone comes in and steals your possessions, and the Plod happen to catch him - he's likely to be banged up just the same. As the OP opined, stealing is stealing.

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Wrong analogy. You're improperly equating criminal actions with civil ones.

Try and make an insurance claim on your house for a break-in if there was no evidence of forcible entry because you left the doors unlocked. Sure, the cops will come and file a report...that says you left the doors unlocked!

If you are irresponsible in protecting your own private property through copyright, then you must pay to enforce. If that is beyond your means, you lose. You cannot even call the cops to report such an action because it is not a crime.

If you leave digital files unprotected or in the hands of others who have less strident reasons to protect the inherent IP, then you create your own risk where none existed before.

Read that last paragraph again until you get it.

You don't get it. You will, though, when someone sues you and the courts slap you down so hard you'll have to sell your children into slavery to pay for your stupidity. I've seen a few of your kind run with your tails between your legs when the letter from the lawyer arrives. They have always paid without going to court because the cost of doing so would bankrupt them (not simply the cost of hiring a lawyer..they knew they had violated the law and would be spanked for it in court).

Yeah, it costs me some money to get the letter sent, but I always get it back because they pay the attorney fees too. Its worth the trouble.

Intellectual property is protected by law even if, as you say, the doors are left unlocked. I'd love to see you try an idiot defense like that in court. The only way you'll survive that is if the judge laughs himself to death.

[Aristophanes]

From my perspective the current copyright laws are hopelessly outdated and offer very little protection to the individual photographer.

Civil laws like copyright are not there to protect you.

They are a set of rules permitting you to protect yourself and your works that are an assigned extension of you.

It is YOUR responsibility to protect your copyright. You may resort to the law as necessary, at your cost, on your time. There are jurisdictions with punitive compensations (the US) for the outlay effort but in an international, digital world...good luck enforcing those. Most jurisdictions have no such protection and likely never will due to severe income disparities and related political realities. Most cases I have seen are not resolved and the copyright owner usually is forced to suffer in sullen resentment. I see more failures than successes.

The major problem in this thread is the complaint about the behaviour of others. Copyright assigns a legal right to you for your work but it is a very difficult moral dictate that runs into historical, international, and cultural issues a every turn making consensus near impossible.

Relying on complex, esoteric, and easily infringed laws to be internalized by everyone as a moral compass does not replace taking responsibility for your own works independent of that assumption. Assuming others will behave to your works as you expect them to is inadequate protection of your own property given the clear lack of societal consensus and easy capacity to infringe. Turning it into a morality play is a sign of failure, much as it sounds right to stand on a soapbox and yell "Thief"!

[Aristophanes]

You don't get it. You will, though, when someone sues you and the courts slap you down so hard you'll have to sell your children into slavery to pay for your stupidity. I've seen a few of your kind run with your tails between your legs when the letter from the lawyer arrives. They have always paid without going to court because the cost of doing so would bankrupt them (not simply the cost of hiring a lawyer..they knew they had violated the law and would be spanked for it in court).

Yeah, it costs me some money to get the letter sent, but I always get it back because they pay the attorney fees too. Its worth the trouble.

Intellectual property is protected by law even if, as you say, the doors are left unlocked. I'd love to see you try an idiot defense like that in court. The only way you'll survive that is if the judge laughs himself to death.

I am a lawyer. I have written those letters. I've worked for a judge. I now work writing laws. Very few people ever get spanked in court because the cost of getting to court is so astronomical with the cost of pursuit even higher, very often running into solvency issues. I detailed a case I worked on in an earlier post.

The successes you claim are extremely rare, mostly local, and are nowhere near the norm. This is openly acknowledged in every statistical study and through Bar or law commission reviews. My advice is to control your product absolutely and only relinquish it through contract. If you become a chaser of copyright infringement, you are doing something wrong on the business side of being a content producer.

Meanwhile, I just noticed my kid is watching a YouTube video of some old Boney M track in clear copyright violation. The reason why some letter has not been filed is because the cost to enforce outweighs the economic loss (look the later term up in a legs dictionary).

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I am a lawyer. I have written those letters. I've worked for a judge. I now work writing laws. Very few people ever get spanked in court because the cost of getting to court is so astronomical with the cost of pursuit even higher, very often running into solvency issues. I detailed a case I worked on in an earlier post.

The successes you claim are extremely rare, mostly local, and are nowhere near the norm. This is openly acknowledged in every statistical study and through Bar or law commission reviews. My advice is to control your product absolutely and only relinquish it through contract. If you become a chaser of copyright infringement, you are doing something wrong on the business side of being a content producer.

Meanwhile, I just noticed my kid is watching a YouTube video of some old Boney M track in clear copyright violation. The reason why some letter has not been filed is because the cost to enforce outweighs the economic loss (look the later term up in a legs dictionary).

I don't believe you. You are not a lawyer and you don't 'work writing laws'; if you did you would be a congressman or a state legislator, and politicians don't hide behind anonymous internet handles. You're some loser who can't make a living with his photography, so you're here pretending to be something you're not so you can discourage those of us who are making a living at it.

The Youtube video is still up because the owner doesn't know its there or doesn't care. It wouldn't cost a penny to get it removed. The DMCA forces providers like YouTube to remove copyrighted material if the owner simply asks. I've done it hundreds of times with blogs, facebook, myspace, etc. and a few times with YouTube where someone has used one of my photos in a video. There's no money to be made from the YouTube infringer, but it gets the video off the internet.

[Aristophanes]

I don't believe you. You are not a lawyer and you don't 'work writing laws'; if you did you would be a congressman or a state legislator, and politicians don't hide behind anonymous internet handles. You're some loser who can't make a living with his photography, so you're here pretending to be something you're not so you can discourage those of us who are making a living at it.

The Youtube video is still up because the owner doesn't know its there or doesn't care. It wouldn't cost a penny to get it removed. The DMCA forces providers like YouTube to remove copyrighted material if the owner simply asks. I've done it hundreds of times with blogs, facebook, myspace, etc. and a few times with YouTube where someone has used one of my photos in a video. There's no money to be made from the YouTube infringer, but it gets the video off the internet.

You can believe what you want. I am in Canada and I work for the Government of Nova Scotia, though I spent 7 years with the Federal Ministry of Finance and worked in international trade relations in the Pacific Rim (I am from Vancouver and have my undergrad in Economics) where IP issues were always a top-5 item, largely based on complaints from copyright holders.

I've never made a living though photography. It's just a hobby. I simply offer my perspective having watched many frustrated copyright holders complain to government only to be told they have no recourse other than the expensive legal option. Most of them end in failure.

I have no agenda to discourage anyone. I merely point out that to avoid discouragement tend to the business side of your work and build copyright into your contracts which are much easier to enforce due the counterparty chain.

The owner "doesn't care" does not mean it is a not a copyright violation. You contradict yourself by asserting copyright as an absolute right but then make it a non-issue due the emotion of "care". If you choose to spend your productivity using the DMCA, by all means. It does cost to use the DMCA. It is a major cost-centre for corporations. That's why it is a trade issue. Perhaps you should think more about not making your photos so easy to obtain. If they go offshore, you will likely have no recourse. I have seen that firsthand uncounted times. I have gone into Wal-Mart and seen infringing designs on products imported from overseas at the loss of the copyright holder who had too few legal resources to prove the right.

This is not really a legal or moral argument. It's an economic one. The right is only valued if the costs of creation + the cost of distribution = ROI. Add in the cost of copyright pursuit to the cost of distribution and you have a problem, which is why BitTorrent still thrives; it's too expensive to chase down. And, legally or morally assaulting the mass consumer is problematic in that consumers vastly outnumber producers, especially politically. The cost of enforcement of copyright can easily cost more than the cost of production, and the outcome may be uncertain, especially if borders are involved, where the outcome can drop to nil quickly.

So the best way to counter is to take the cost of enforcement out up front as part of the distribution. Carefully control your files and contract to those who work with them. Document everything. It is far easier to pursue a breach of contract successfully than copyright. I have watched a major artist have his works infringed by a major art poster company, sold to cruise ships, and then he got nothing because the infringing poster company went bankrupt. Yet, his works are everywhere on a cruise ship as inventory in their gift shops he cannot pursue as they are based overseas and the cost to pursue would exceed his resources.

[Bill Pierce]

Civil laws like copyright are not there to protect you.

They are a set of rules permitting you to protect yourself and your works that are an assigned extension of you.

It is YOUR responsibility to protect your copyright.

Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to be aware of many copyright violations on the internet. They are the needles in a very large haystack. And, of course, the foreign needles are in the haystacks of farmers who are only concerned with the locals. (The Nixon picture referred to in the introduction to this site was used as an album cover in South America. That must have been some strange tunes.)

You sort of have a choice of disfiguring your web images with copyright notices across the center of the image or not posting a decent sized, high quality image. As we all learn from experience, there is an increasing trend among my friends to not display a large number of good images on the web, even though those images are copyrighted. Sad, but true.

[Aristophanes]

Galen Rowell vs Costco

From my memory, Costo (the big box store, not the Chinese shipping Co.) bought a large number of posters containing Rowell's photos. They trimed off the borders containing Galen's name and used them as a point of purchase display in the photo section of their stores.

Galen and his wife died in a plane crash in the middle of this suit against Costco. The Foundation stayed on top of the proceedings for the Trust set up for his kids.

I spoke with the fellow now heading the Foundation and he told me that Costco settled for a large amount of money - but could not tell me the amount as per the settllement.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19970730&slug=2552051

http://www.photosource.com/psn_full.php?type=Columnists&id=297

http://www.mountainlight.com/posters.html

That's an excellent analogy.

The cost to Costco of finding original work was outpaced by the lower cost of infringing work. All it took was a trimmer, copies, a display, and a price gun.

The photographer may have recovered some of that difference (we won't know due to the settlement) but could only do so because they had a Foundation with $$$ to pursue. Costco may still have benefitted in the end. We don't know.

How many photogs here have equivalent resources? Despite all the Leicaphiles here, I suspect very few.

And this case was from 16 years ago when digital copying was only a fledgling child, so the cost to infringe is now even lower.

Your ability to protect your work is limited not by the other party's morality but by your access to legal and financial resources. The moment you need to explain this through morality arguments or threats of litigation is an acknowledgment that you've already lost control. There is therefore the risk of not getting it back.

[Aristophanes]

The Galen and Barbara Rowell website:

http://www.mountainlight.com/

Note the prominent placement of "Image Licensing". I guess so.

Click on it and you get a slideshow. Drag a photo as a file from the show and check the resolution. Pretty low. Too low for anything else but a web-based slideshow. That's one way to protect work. Limit the functionality of the picture, limit the infringement potential.

[ryan26]

Photographer's copyrights are spoken about alot, but what we often don't discuss is the grey area surrounding the repurposing of photojournalism or documentary photography for commercial sale after the fact - which happens all the time. The commercial exploitation of a person's image and/or likeness is also infringement.

Most photographers who may be 'guilty' of this (in the eyes of those photographed perhaps) are able to hide behind the ambiguity surrounding commercial galleries, and the dual nature of photography as art, but also as commercial work.

People will be guided by their own ethic, which I think is much better than being guided by some hollow institutionalized code of ethics, but it is interesting that some photographers will play the commercial side when there is something to be made, but hide behind art when there is something to lose.

[Aristophanes]

http://asmp.org/tutorials/enforcing-your-rights.html

Note the small claims court approach for breach of contract as opposed to copyright. That's another strong incentive to contract.

The DMCA only works on US-hosted websites. It's irrelevant elsewhere.

And as for the economic argument, this is what the ASMP has to say:

"So why not sue? Because taking a case to court can be very expensive, and if you don’t win, you’re out a bundle. And if the value of your work — the market’s dollar value, not the value you feel in your heart and soul — isn’t all that high, the payback via the amount awarded by the court may not be enough to pay off your attorney."

Thanks for the links.

[mfunnell]

Photographer's copyrights are spoken about alot, but what we often don't discuss is the grey area surrounding the repurposing of photojournalism or documentary photography for commercial sale after the fact - which happens all the time. The commercial exploitation of a person's image and/or likeness is also infringement.I think you may be confusing what you term "commercial sale" with "commercial use" of a photograph. In my juristiction (YMMV):
What is "commercial use" ?

In a photographic context, commercial use does not mean the sale a picture, but rather the use of a person's likeness to endorse some product or service, or to entice others to buy it.See:

http://4020.net/words/photorights.php#commuse

...Mike

[pakeha]

Chriscrawfordphoto
Some light reading, regulation 17.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/6741497/US-chips-away-at-Dotcom

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/04/201241181246427731.html

[jan normandale]

Chriscrawfordphoto
Some light reading, regulation 17.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/6741497/US-chips-away-at-Dotcom

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/04/201241181246427731.html


well those two links make it pretty clear that the US is run by it's corporations now and not it's citizens. The courts are a sham due to the audience given to the concept of corporations as individuals and citizens with a whole bunch of other rights never, ever intended for non living entities that are beneficially controlled by the living. The citizens of the US need to take back their courts and their government. These two agencies representing the American people are off track

[emraphoto]

i am not sure the US has the corner on that market

[Dogman]

As in most other things, you only get the justice you can afford.

[jan normandale]

i am not sure the US has the corner on that market

True! However I think the US is the only country so far extraditing citizens of soverign states.

Keeping it interesting.. stealing is stealing... here's a good link on stealing art and putting it in a gallery. Lots to be found on these artists at their website, wiki, and the gallery itself

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/apr/11/net-artists-steal-london-exhibition

[jan normandale]

I wonder what they would think of some "new" artist, taking their theme to hart, and stealing their show.. you know, break in and take all the stuff. Or better, storm the gallery with "artists who are in love with their work" and take a very large number of small pieces.

Likely insured for big bucks and would give them even more press. Still, it would be interesting.

Just ask them ;D
(plus 6 more words for 10)

[peterm1]

..............................unless you are a Wall Street banker, in which case it's "business" !

[rxmd]

Here's the Thief of the Day, a 92-year-old WWII veteran, who for the last nine years has been making 300,000 copies of copyrighted movie DVDs and sending them to US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for free: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/nyregion/at-92-movie-bootlegger-is-soldiers-hero.xml

I don't think anyone will go after him though.

[rxmd]

or maybe to make it legal, (what I've done in the past) charge him one dollar for the use. But that's me..

That's still $300.000 in total. If the point is only to make it legal, you can do without the dollar and just tell him that you're OK with it on this one occasion.

Remember, this is copyright we're talking of, not trademarks; you don't lose it if you don't defend it every single instance.

[FrankS]

I'm pretty sure PKr meant $1 for all, not $1 each.

[Aristophanes]

Here's the Thief of the Day, a 92-year-old WWII veteran, who for the last nine years has been making 300,000 copies of copyrighted movie DVDs and sending them to US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for free: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/nyregion/at-92-movie-bootlegger-is-soldiers-hero.xml

I don't think anyone will go after him though.

Some exceptional photojournalism in the story. More than text ever could, the man's patriotism, personal motivation, and technical acumen are all displayed perfectly.

[Aristophanes]

correct.. a common practice in US contract law. Minimum exchange of funds for service or goods for contract purposes.. but an exchange.

This is known in the law as nominal consideration; an actual exchange of value supposedly to make a contract binding. Its usefulness in the law is questionable and may not be substantial enough depending on jurisdictional case law.

[Aristophanes]

What kind of value needs to be put on this kind of thing to make it "more legal" without putting hardship on the other half of the contract.

I've found that when assigning free use, the work will leave the control of the recipient if there isn't something "that looks binding" in writing. I want to be able to help folks without the image getting "lost", printed and sold under someone elses name on ebay..

Some jurists believe that nominal consideration is a sham. That's all. I would not count on it to properly contract for copyright distribution, especially globally. It may be one clause to demonstrate diligence rather than THE clause to bind. I posit it is antiquated. YMMV

Another way to facilitate exchange is to contract demand a copy of the final product you assign your image towards. This may have more demonstrable value and be more applicable rather than a fictional dollar bill.

[pakeha]

Update on alleged theft. Comforting to find out we may have an impartial justice system.


http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/7188234/Dotcom-search-warrants-ruled-illegal