Like Vanilla Ice on the shoulders of David Bowie and Queen?

But, yeah, the issue is not really that difficult. Fair use does not allow pirating ppls work for self-promotion — even low budget YouTube videos. It’s pretty clear that the band (who I refuse to name) does not meet the criteria.

As a non-lawyer, I personally think it would come under fair use and IMHO, it is okay. However, that is an irrelevant view, because really the only opinion that matters is in fact the photographer(s) whose work you are displaying as a screen grab and the rules of copyright law.

To me this really highlights the changing way (or medium if you will) in which photography can be displayed and more importantly, how the internet can potentially be used to lift a photographers profile (this site being a good example). Or alternative, to slam a photographers profile - it is a double edge sword. Unfortunately, I wonder if copyright is really reflecting the online mediums we have today?

@40: you raise some good points. Personally, I would be happier with a work for hire scheme where the photographer was PAID MORE UP FRONT and the client was just given the photographs. Why? Because money now has more value to me than the promise of money down the track through re-licensing.

Now that is just my opinion and I know many, many people won’t agree with it. Which is fine.

However, it should be noted that I do not do work for hire. Why? Because there is a system in place which allows me to re-license imagery when I can. Until this system of licensing and copyright is removed and replaced with a work for hire scheme, I will always license my work because it is POTENTIALLY a better deal for me.

On a slightly different note, thanks PE for such a great site. I thoroughly enjoy reading your site each morning over a cup of tea.

The sharing of business information and practices on the internet now is a very different environment from the 80’s and 90’s in photography. People really did not discuss what things “cost” or what things were worth. So encouraging good business practices amounted mainly to educating photographers about contracts, rights, taxes, negotiation, etc. All of this has a place today, certainly. And in a more rational marketplace it would be good enough today. But that is not where we are, and I agree, in some markets and with some products, you could argue it is the bottom-line-price only, or if you want to call it that, work-for-hire. Because we do have a wfh-defacto marketplace now. Certainly photographers retain rights, but in many cases those rights are not worth the trade for an up-front price that would be more realistically tuned to costs in the real world. You think of police forces having residency requirements and yet paying wages that don’t suppor that, it is the same thing.

If these discussions can have any value it is to publicly “out” the double standards in billing practices and hew all the players towards a more realistic model. I think there is plenty of slush in the fund that could be distributed better to middle-players and achieve cost savings for magazines. And the way we do it is to acknowledge the true cost of the work at realistic market rates. Since it is all being paid to third-parties now, that rate is easy to determine, just look at your bills. I think you will find that on average magazines pay more now than they used to.

As a researcher for a University I did “work for hire”. I developed several quite nice chemical tests that a large chemical company once wanted to buy, but they were instead published in a journal for everyone to use free (they cost pennies per assay). I was working on salary so never felt robbed of any potential income.

In Canada we have the same idea of “work for hire” for photography, and many photographers have releases that claim copyright for themselves on their work if they feel it’s important. All the commercial guys I know don’t bother, they get paid up front and hand over the images without worrying about future potential uses of the images, especially if they would need model releases from their clients to use them anyway.

On copying as theft, we also have a Canadian system that has been in place for a very long time where we pay a royalty on each and every cassette tape, CD, and DVD. This goes to a central fund and the big publishing companies dip into it to pay royalties to their artists for any copied works that go onto these materials. Whether or not the publishing companies actually trickle this money down to their artists is a question.

While they lobby for this system to be extended to hard drives, these same companies are running ads telling us that all copying is theft.

So, from what I’ve seen, copyright is a big advantage to companies who buy content, aggregate it and mass market it. Thus the interest that Disney has in extending copyright each time one of its movies gets near to falling into public domain. Let’s remember that copyright was created to protect book printers, not authors.

I’m going to make a million dollars on one of my photos one day? The million dollar prices for prints are being paid to collectors, not to the photographers or their estates. The original author got what he got for selling the print in the first place, subsequent sales benefit the galleries and collectors. This is the same system for painters and sculptors. A painter may still own copyright to his painting but he’s not getting a cut of that multi-million dollar sale from one collector to another as far as I know, copyright or not.

Writers and photographers have somehow inherited this rights and licensing system which seems a lot more time-consuming and complex to me than the straightforward “work for hire” system. Pay me what I figure it’s worth for me to produce the content for you, and then do with it what you wish afterward. That way I don’t have to worry about tracking its use and I can get on with creating more content for more pay.

Whaddya think? Are most average photographers out there making money off of multiple licensing of their prints for years on end, or on the initial production and sale of the image? Weddings, seniors portraits, event photography, news reporting, editorial? How important is the sale of one of those images years afterward to the bottom line of making a living? Would it be better to ask for more up front and hand over unlimited rights? In my case as a creative I made all my money on the front end.

I sculpt wood and sell the objects, I don’t license them. I can’t imaging doing any drywalling or roofing on a licensing fee system. Making Jewelry? Painting? Why is photography different? Or rather, why are corporations happier with the licensing system than with paying up front in a work for hire system? Could it be that they get a better deal?

Kim Taylor

I single one person out but it is everyone, it is the nature of blogs to referential.

I think in a lot of cases it can become more self-serving than educational. You are looking for traffic so you post things that you feel will bring traffic. Not your own things of course. Others.

Upside is the community and the discussion, as far as that goes. Downside is the norm it perpetuates on the web that the “screen” is a free space. Well, that’s one attitude, and my question has always been, forget copyright, forget fair use, what are we encouraging here? What social norm with respect to value are we saying is ok? Is this what artists and creative people are going to do-give away a large volume of “work” for free? I ask it as a question.

NYT as an article today on artisan websites which is tangentially relevant

http://tinyurl.com/29gjt2

I deliniate is this way: If someone does a screengrab of one of my images, and then uploads that PNG file to THEIR server, then they have clearly crossed the line.

If someone merely LINKS to my site, and they only provide a URL there, then it’s just fine.

It’s when they grab the image, and put my image on THEIR site; that’s when they get an email from me.

You have done both, here, on your site, but again, you have a relationship with these photographers, which on some level, throws it into a grey area. (Plus, it doesn’t hurt that you’re complimenting them as well, and showing their work in a very favorable light).

Thomas wrote:
“On a slightly different note, I would like to ask PE this: do you ask the photographers work you display on this web site for their permission before hand?”

I was curious about this too and my belief is that this is in fact a legitimate example of fair use. (and some of the work appearing is self-submitted) This is a not-for-profit discussion group involved in a valid educational discussion and comment on the photography itself. As such, the photographs are ends in themselves. They are not used for anything other than as a reference to their own making.

The Copyright Office has some pretty easy-to-read material on the matter:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
The Richter Scales would do well to read this.

Of note:
“There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.”

The fact that so many people believe they are ‘photographers’ or that it’s just a ‘photo’, do not help matters one bit either.

For all those pukes crying ‘it’s on the web, it’s free’ or my absolute favourite ‘it’s just a photo’ so lighten up, you need to learn the cold hard reality of copyright and what it means.

As for the value, well, if copyright didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be companies like Getty and Corbis with multi, multi million dollar revenues per annum and there sure wouldn’t be as many photographers around. No doubt about it.

This will continue to be a problem and I agree with the above posts about a technology solution and force. Forget education, that will only go so far and that won’t be far enough.

On a slightly different note, I would like to ask PE this: do you ask the photographers work you display on this web site for their permission before hand?

As I said, it is not the “most” people I worry about, it is “few” other creative people who are making their own websites or commercial ventures that appropriate content whole-hog. I think that until it happens to you, and you see the cost, then that changes your behaviour.

Every few months or so I do a google search and come up with a a few other blogs that “repackage” content from NYT for example, and they will actually run the pic that ran on the NYT site. It amazes me that they think this is ok. And they have advertising too. I am sure that the revenue is slim, but minus the photos, all they have is column of text! So the photos are integral. One day the shoe will drop and someone will start appropriating their content without permission, I really hope.

nuff said.. i love you. haha.

In terms of our images on the web, the real car analogy is that we’ve parked our car on a public street, left it running with the keys in it, and spray-painted a note on the hood, saying “Steal Me”. Because it’s just that easy to drag and drop an image off of a website.

In terms of education, do you not think that a million college students who were swapping “free music” over Napster were not “educated” that what they were doing is/was illegal? So clearly, education provides no solution to the problem. Same with copying DVDs. Yes, it is about force. And in our case, it’s about a technological solution.

Clearly, to speak to your question, yes, absolutely, the citizen has made a clear choice to ignore copyright law. “Music is free, man. So are those pictures. It’s digital, man, it didn’t cost you anything. Want a toke?”

If a person absolutely knew that a small bomb would explode inside their G5, if they opened a stolen picture in Photoshop, clearly, they would not do it. Until that happens, as long as it’s this easy, people will continue to lift. Education or not.

I can be as liberal as the next guy, “hoping” that people will play by the rules, but in this case, I study the Bible of 2×4 To The Head, to get their attention.

So does that mean that the technology has actually created a world where more restrictions are required to be a good citizen, or has the citizen abrogated his or her burden to use technology responsibly?

It would be ironic if the technology we create to “free” us of certain drudgeries and limitations creates less freedom and more limitations.

Force vs. education is an interesting dichotomy. Or enforcement vs. education. And especially with regards to “the masses.” How often do we see some overly restrictive measure put into place because of the actions of a very few? So it is tricky. You don’t want to live in a police-d state, although to a large degree we do. I think there is a distinction to be made between the case at hand here, the posted video, and whatever appropriation is going on in “the masses.” I think I don’t care too much if johnny schoolboy lifts my picture off the web for his book report, neither autie mae making a calendar of my nifty macro photography. That kind of appropriation is fine by me. What irks me is people leveraging other creative works to make their bones, and you can’t tell me that ANY form of technological enforcement is going to stop that-remember we are talking about savvy creative people, not auntie mae here who gets her mail on AOL. Any DRM is going to fail miserably, and only serve to make things difficult for the large mass of innocent users, or if not innocent, not a threat to me.

My concern is only the value of creative works on the web, and this is something that needs negotiation, and probably litigation to determine. You can build all the web speed bumps you want, but to my mind, it still is education in the form of a realistic understanding of what the benefit is, what the harm is, and what the money does.

I am a commercial photographer like you. I am certainly not condoning the practice. But my point was, in terms of the masses out there, if you CAN do it, then they WILL do it. Whether it’s easy file sharing of songs, or bluetoothing files back and forth from PDA to PDA, or doing ScreenGrabs.

Yes, I do believe that Technology can find a way to make it not possible. For example, if i buy a song on itunes on one of my Macs, and then move it over to another one of my Macs, iTunes prompts me for a password to make sure that i PAID for that song. If I don’t have the password, I’m out of luck. No song played. Pure and simple. Technology provided the solution.

In my neighborhood, the city can put up speed limit signs til they’re blue in the face, and people still speed right thru them, because they CAN. There are no external limitations for force the change. But, if the city then comes along and installs speed bumps in the road, whether out of plastic or out of asphalt, then, miraculously, people slow down, because they don’t have a CHOICE.

We’ve all seen those websites where, if you run your mouse over the image, you get a copyright warning, or worse, the image goes BLACK. So yes, that does slow someone down, (until they realize that they’ve only got to resort to Command Shift 4, then crop it, then drag thru it.

Technology is the answer. Force is the answer. Not education. How did education work with Napster? Don’t answer that.

Again, I’m on your side.

But I don’t think you can make the justification that just because Apple offers a feature it’s indiscriminate use is ok in any circumstance. This is the kind of lazy web 2.0 thinking that got the creators of that video in trouble. They thought that they didn’t really have to bother too too much to get permission from the creators of all that content to do the parody.

Ever wonder why the credits of a movie are so long? And why there are always in the order they are in-because someone negotiated that! Big surprise I know, but every appropriated song, film clip, video clip, artwork, etc was cleared by rights and permissions. It is a huge task, too bad it cripples our “creativity.”

I think a lot of people want to hide behind lazyweb standards and “claim” they are “creating” when the reality is, yes, it is a lot harder to get permission, but much much harder to be forgiven.

It is not the “job” of technology to “police” the web. Tech is inert, it has no agenda per se. There are good uses and bad uses of everything. It is up to US to decide how we want to allow or deny our work to be used, distributed, credited, etc.

And no, I don’t think the Richard Prince example is relevant here, certainly you can look at it out of context and say, what is the difference, but the context of what he did was just as important as the image he was appropriating, and as important as the meaning he was creating with it. There was a quote floating around where Prince said something like “he didn’t think of advertising as having an author” or something similar, and that is very interesting. On the one hand he is absolutely wrong, images have “creators” but you have to go back to the context of what he was doing at the time, tearsheeting magazines for Time Inc. and essentially that means ripping out all the ads to leave the “content” to send tears to the contributiors, so at the end of the day he was left with all this “trash” which he reused in his own work. Fast forward twenty five years and now with our over-commercial culture you could argue that a commercial photographer is an (art) star in a way that they never were in the 80’s, with few exceptions like Avedon, Bailey, Skrebneski, etc. The crossover is more common, meaning either art has gotten very lazy or advertising has gotten very good.

We all look at people like Warhol in terms of appropriation and say, well what is the difference, and the difference is the culture, it is not revolutionary anymore to appropriate the lo-culture and deposit it on the doorstep of the hi.

With regards to the video in question, it is funny, for about as long as it lasts. It is nice to see all those guys in ties (GITS) on covers of Business 2.0 put to some funny use. Which is enough it seems in a youtube universe. The issues it brings up however have more to do with the kind of creative work a culture can develop and sustain when that culture is essentially bloated and gaseous at the dinner table. Endless mash-ups of other more interesting work doesn’t really cut it long term.

—-

As long as the technology allows such easy lifting, as in “just drag and drop onto your Desktop”, or even the more difficult “Command Shift 3″, the uneducated, (or lazy), (or devious), will continue to lift images.

And I can’t imagine Apple Computer discontinuing Command Shift 3 or 4.

Some internet technology makes it at least harder to steal images, but until it’s virtually impossible, it simply will continue.

Education is good, but until technology steps in and helps prevent this, I can’t see it changing.

In other-other words, do I get to “use” or “perform” shall we say works from other artists on my site just to get hits? To raise my technorati? I always feel a twinge talking about other peoples work and posting photos of theirs which I try to avoid, since it is not up to “me” what I get to post. Well fair use, say for education makes sense. But so little of what passes on blogs is “education” it is all “interesting so I thought…” which is only a step above myspace friends.

As far as copyright goes my opinion is that when it works, great. But we have these here internets and clearly it is not working. I regularly search google for my pictures and they come up all the time scraped off NYT. Yes, credited, but I am never contacted. And the old excuse is everyone else does it.

I think artists on the web have to give some thought to this, just how can we actually make money instead of simply feeding “interestingness” for others. Because big media absolutely will monetize this space, that is what this writers strike is all about. Will the writers get a piece of online delivery? So far the only people to make money online are the distributors, the aggregators, etc. But here we are making this shit and giving it away for free to get attention. Seems like it is lowering the value of “work” overall, or making it so that only “stars” or those who attain a level where attraction matters are going to make money. The middle-ground will not.

http://tinyurl.com/2rrxc9

Commercial uses are also generally not covered. (Such as, let’s say, promotional materials for a band for example.)

Lane Hartwell -Thank you for standing up for your copyright but, take the dollar.

Owen Thomas - You’re a gentleman. It was your face that they’re fussing about and you’re the only one not whining. Thanks.

I would be fine with the anti-copyright zealotry of the Bay Area Scoble-ites if it wasn’t used in such obviously self-serving and hypocritical ways. Scoble cries “steal my work!” but he just means his photography, which is no more than a hobby to him. He’s not offering anyone free use of his book in, say, a freely distributed anthology.

> I just don’t see the upside for anyone when the original creator of a work cannot be found.

I so agree with this statement. All the clueless folks talk like she’s getting more PR than she’s ever had. Well yeah, BECAUSE SHE CALLED THEM ON RIPPING HER OFF. If she hadn’t done that, no one would have even knew her photo was in there, and there’d be no benefit to her at all. And for the folks saying she can point to it in her resume and get PR value that way are just as clueless because she was never informed herself (at least that’s what I understand at this point) of the use of the photograph.

It’s common sense that they benefited from her photo, and she got nothing in return. Furthermore, it extremely suspect that this falls under fair use in my honest opinion, but we’re going to need a few really big, really well-known, and very transparent mishaps to happen like this before people get a clue.

I think the reference to samples in music is a good one actually. There was a period of time where people sampled without worrying about it. Then some big-time legal precedents were set, and now no one does it on a major album release without clearing it first.