White House Makes Full Copyright Claim on Photos | Hacker News Reader

White House Makes Full Copyright Claim on Photos

themoderatevoice.com

15 pointsAndrewWarner14 comments

The second sentence of the disclaimer in question:

"The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House."

is clearly about "approval or endorsement". It's not saying the photos can't be manipulated, it's saying the photos shouldn't be used to imply "approval or endorsement".

Various information supporting the White House's position, including references to case law, can be found here: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/...

Including the political materials clause is important. The official White House photographer(s) shouldn't be doing press work for the next DNC news letter.

Whether what the statement says is in accordance with the law is a subject for lawyers, but it's quite clear that the statement is not about copyright.

However, it is written in a very weird way that attempts to imply that you can't do certain things with the photo - "This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph."

Ok, that's nice. I could still print one out and use it to wallpaper my house or wipe my butt if I felt like it, based on my understanding of the law, but IANAL.

It also says that the photo cannot be manipulated in any way. I'm not sure on what basis that could be enforced other than copyright.

However, the full statement never actually makes a claim of copyright.

I would have thought that using the photos to imply endorsement ran afoul of the law for reasons other than copyright.

It may very well be that copyright is the only enforcement, or the most effective, for any usage restrictions. People, like those at ad agencies, understand copyright. Note that flickr only has Creative Commons and All Rights Reserved options. There is no entry for public domain, nor for the kinds of restrictions that the government would like to put on these photos. No Derivertives is not necessarily strong enough to avoid implied endorsement. As a citizen, while I agree that the works should be effectively public domain (or copyright free, if there's a difference), I don't want to see the public works I've paid for misused like are outlined in the OP.

The definition of "news organization" is technically in flux at this point in history too.

I was wondering why this is just coming up now (vs since the whitehouse press first released photos of the president). I suspect that the office of the president was in a more respected position in the past, such that no one would even think that implying presidential endorsement was a good thing to do, or people just aren't offended enough about misappropriation of public content that this wouldn't work as an advertisement. It was the Whitehouse that had them take down the ad in Times Square. In some respects, I consider it unfortunate that nothing is sacred anymore, but I can see where this would lead. Where do you draw the line between commentary/satire and commercial use?

Apparently it's possible to put "No known copyright restrictions", e.g. how the New York Public Library does it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nypl/4058784908/

Anyway yes, use of photos like this runs afoul of a rather separate area of the law known as "personality rights". However to my knowledge these are enforced more lightly (and also less well known) in the US than in other countries --- e.g. in Korea, some photographers taking general street scene photographs in public places often get approached by people who end up in their shots and demand that the photos be deleted, get threatened with lawsuits, etc.

"Note that flickr only has Creative Commons and All Rights Reserved options. There is no entry for public domain, nor for the kinds of restrictions that the government would like to put on these photos."

This is not true. Please read the copyright status next to the image here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4333446300/

which clearly indicates the photo is a United States Government work, and links here: http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml

Well, it's nice that Flickr provides other options, but I only bothered to test my own account and I only see CC and All rights reserved, and there is no indication that any other option is provided or special exceptions are made for specific accounts. If I was downvoted, whoever it was, for not having access to the flickr account of the US government so I can see all the options provided to that account, I apologize.

That's nice. How many flickr accounts have the option to set "US Government work" as the license for their photos? No one other than the whitehouse account, so far as I'm aware.

A quick Google search shows:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/statephotos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/usepagov

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fccdotgov

The usage of this copyright designation (which apparently has to be set manually by Flickr) is described here: https://forum.webcontent.gov/resource/resmgr/flickr_best_pra...

Which is a US government document describing the use of Flickr for government works.

So, out of several million (>10mil according to most estimates) Flickr users 3 of them have one additional setting available. This is roughly equivalent to the EPA allowable limit for cyanide in drinking water, which is to say: comparatively insignificant. For everyone else (>99.99997% of flickr users) the only licensing options available on flickr are "all rights reserved" and a few variations of the creative commons license.

I only flipped through about ten pages of thumbnails, but as far as I could tell every photo on their stream is accompanied by a link entitled United States Government Work which points to http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml

    A work that is...prepared by an officer or employee of the United
    States Government as part of that person's official duties, is
    not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no
    U.S. copyright restrictions on reproduction, derivative works,
    distribution, performance, or display of the work.

I agree that the notice on their profile could be worded better, but I think they make the copyright status of the photos crystal clear by consistently linking to that summary of the relevant laws.

IANAL either, but I'm confused about something here: Note that the licensing link on the photos points to this page (http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml)

Should the paragraph attached to the whitehouse page flickr photos be treated as an addendum to this page? If so, why not place the addendum on the page?

It would seem that the specific claim attached is based on the first caveat listed: That of publicity rights of the the Obamas.

Since the Copyright terms page EXPLICITLY states that derivative works may be prepared, my non-accusatory instincts suggest that this is really just poor wording in an attempt to prevent further publication of these images, in whole OR manipulated, for any advertising purposes without express permission by the Obamas.

This will be challenged very quickly, and the White House will have to back down. Bad move all around.

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