<b>Edit:</b> If you're downvoting please explain why. I think I'm making a valid point, I'm interested to hear another opinion. And downvote me for the quality of my argument, not because you disagree. That suppresses valid and interesting debate.
Surely not. In fact, in some countries (e.g. France) this phrase does not even make sense legally (under french copyright law, it is not possible to put something in the public domain until the term is due).
You're putting it for public viewing, but the copyright remains yours, and it does not implicitly allow third parties to make money out of it without compensation.
> You WANT it to be distributed - isn't that the whole point?
That does not make it public domain. Nor does it need to.
Yes.
> And then, even the "droits d'auteur" are broken down in the patrimonial rights and the creation attribution—you can cede your patrimonial rights (rights to profit from the picture), but never the creation attribution: the picture will always be your creation.
Sure, but the fact remains that, under french IP laws, it is legally impossible to put something in the public domain yourself, as the creator of that thing.
And checking SQLite's "copyright" page (which made me realize this nit of french IP law) there seem to be places where the very concept of "public domain" does not exist.
This image only became famous but virtue of the fact that it went viral on twitter and the wider web. If she'd not tweeted it - and as someone with no press contacts - had attempted to sell it directly to media organisations I'm betting she wouldn't have had much success.
I think it's pretty hypocritical to try and leverage free services like twitter for self-promotion and personal brand-building then completely back-track on that ideology and claim some kind of restriction on a particular post cos it suddenly has been delivered to a wider audience and may suddenly have value.
The issue here is separate, for-profit redistribution in other media, which definitely requires prior consent from the originator.
So you can make the argument that publishing the image forms part of a publisher's content proposition from which they benefit (more viewers, more magazine sales or whatever). But you can make the same argument for twitter itself: twitter's value and the wealth of it's owners is derived exclusively from content it's users post. So can a user claim compensation from twitter for the value it has derived from their posts?
The same argument applies to say StackOverflow. I've spent countless hours answering questions and helping people out. SO sell ads against this content, and my content drives search engine click-throughs. Do I have a claim against SO?
> But has anyone done that?
Good examples of paid-for TwitPic photos include pictures in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, or the pictures taken of the Boeing which emergency-landed in the Hudson.
> Whey would they pay, given that it's available anyway?
Because they have to—the user only relinquished part of her rights on the picture, namely distribution on the Twitter/TwitPic medium, not her entire rights. If you think that were the TOS to change, the users would still upload pictures, you're so very wrong—see the TwitPic debacle recently and how MobyPicture gained a few k users because they state in their TOS that they can't sell their users' pictures without prior agreement.
You seem to think that your analogy is good, but I don't think it is. Were a magazine to publish SO answers in a Q&A section in a paid magazine, I think SO would be subject to licensing fees. In that case, the relationship between SO and you is governed by their TOS. Check them out, you'll have your answer.
Gives them. If you're posting pictures on Twitter or putting comments on SO, you can hardly fault them for displaying those.
But when AP starts selling your twitter pictures or SO comments on its feed, it's a whole different bucket of filth, and a very, very different situation.
We're discussing the second case here, not "I put a comment on news.yc and news.yc displays it".
I hate being self-promotional, but this issue is exactly the reason we created Picuous, which is a Vimeo/SoundCloud/Scribd for pictures: pictures can be embedded legally, carry automatic attribution, and can be tracked by the picture owner. Using the pictures in the player is free, using them in other contexts is pay-for.
We want to change this traditionnal diffusion/monetization/ownership Bermuda Triangle… People interested in this problem should check it out: http://picuous.com. All feedback is welcome on martin@picuous.com.
If you're downvoting please explain why.
Public domain means anyone can use the photo as they see fit, which is not why the photographer put it out there. She is exercising her copyrights by licensing the photo (royalty free) to whatever service she uploaded it to. (It's always in the ToS that by uploading, you give them some sort of license, but you usually do not give them the copyright.)
Now, it is possible that she uploaded to Twitpic, which specifies in its ToS that by uploading, you give them license to publish and relicense the photo. If that's the case, then it is possible the various news agencies went to Twitpic to get a license to use the photo (for free or for some fee paid to Twitpic), but my guess is that is not what happened.
Think of it this way: if you wrote a book and posted a link to it on twitter, would you be happy if someone else started selling it on Amazon?
But I still question the ethic of these media companies that skim the internet, looking for 'free' content that they then go on and sell (either directly as a print media/with a paywall or indirectly though ads) to others.
Is it free for anyone to use it as a desktop background? Certainly so, in my world. But I am disgusted that this again highlights how user generated content is ripped off and sold. There's no law against it, but I still consider it shady.
Actually, there are. The entirety of copyright law deems this an infringement. Just because you have access to something and it is easy to copy does not give you the right to do so.
When you post a picture to twitter you are essentially saying Hey everyone look at my photo!. In my view it is then impossible to justify later freaking out and saying Holy shit everyone is looking at my photo!
After reading the article, I think the "victim" here may even agree with me. Her quotes didn't give the impression that she felt particularly wronged in the whole affair.
Authors want their books distributed. Musicians want their music distributed, too. They just want to make money, as well.
Honestly, I'm not disagreeing with your main point, which is interesting. I just think we have to work on the terminology. Because anyone can see that there's a big difference between snapping a picture and putting it on Twitter, vs. writing a book and trying to sell it.
(+1, by the way. You made a good argument. You might want to remove the "<b>" though, that kind of formatting doesn't work here).