So Your Company Has Been Found Using Alex’s Photographs Without Permission
myrmecos.net
myrmecos.net
I've had people send nasty emails after I moved or got rid of an image that they were hotlinking. People have called me all sorts of ugly names because a free app that I wrote didn't have a feature they need. People have posted nasty stuff because I didn't provide them phone support at 3am for a GPL open source utility that I released. All this because I can't always manage to reply to people needing support for my free-time projects. I'm sure a lot of you here have known the same type of treatment.
WHAT!?
I had one guy literally stalk me until he found a DNS registration with my phone number (will never make that mistake again)
I also had some dude, some how, figure out my cell phone number. He started calling me at 3am. He would always say that he "wanted to talk to me about his ideas."
I had to change my number to get away from that one.
The end is the same result (no feature) but with a bit more comfort for both parties.
"All options are open to me, and I plan to decide in the next 48 hours."
Charge upfront.
When I wrote it, I had originally written "optimal" as "efficient", but "optimal" has multiple meanings here.
The point is, if you would arrive at a requirement of $x to implement the thing in an exercise where you decide to entertain all requests as a request for a legitimate bid, then don't quote an arbitrary figure of $y. Quoting $x works out the best for everyone in all possible cases, where the approach to quote an arbitrary figure falls down in more than one place.
What? Why am I a jerk for getting paid well? Or do you suggest that huge pile of money won't change my mind? If I still say no I think that means the quoting instructions were followed incorrectly.
> Quoting $x works out the best for everyone in all possible cases
Quoting $x is much more likely to result in resentment because it's the bare minimum to get me to agree. If I charge triple that or more I'm much less likely to be disappointed later.
And it's no big loss to me if I don't get paid to make this feature. That was my default state of being. So I aim high.
Hell if you give me 10 million USD to build a random feature on an open source project, I would subcontract to someone happy to do it for 9 million.
I don't think this is true.
Same result? Agreed. More comfortable for the developer? Okay, sure (if being dishonest/disingenuous is no discomfort). More comfortable for the requestor? It depends on the person. I would loathe this, for example, and it would evoke in me a far worse feeling than a flat out "no" would; these kinds of responses abound in plenty of other areas of life, and they're very much one of those things that contributes that kind-of-kills-me-a-little-on-the-inside feeling. I suspect that I'm not alone.
But then, I'm not the kind of person who's going to be harrassing anyone over feature requests. I also suspect, though, that the inference that lots of the intended targets will be placated by this kind of response is probably overstated.
EDIT:
To give an example, an acquaintance of mine listed a room for rent last year. He got about, I dunno, a little over a dozen responses of varying quality; some were from people who essentially put in the least effort possible, while others had both indicated that the author had actually put some thought into considering whether it would be a good match and provided relevant info about themselves for review. His response to almost all of them? To treat the best of them with the worst; they got no response. The result as I'm gazing over his inbox? That slightly-less-optimistic-about-humanity feeling.
The key here is that the requestor doesn't "deserve" anything, and the developer wants to be fucking left alone...
"No, leave me alone" is much a better response than, "Sure, I'll think about that!" when the latter isn't true, the recipient would've been okay with the former, and hasn't given reason for you to believe otherwise.
Note also that I didn't bring up the comfort of the requestor; I mentioned it only because iaw specifically brought it up and said that lying would comfort them...
I wouldn't have written my comment at all if iaw had said, "The end is the same result, but it's more comfortable for the developer, and it gets the requestor to fuck off." But that's not what (s)he wrote.
I wonder if there's an Android app that will let me intercept calls and immediately reply to them with a custom recording - something like "Calls from this number are blocked, direct further contact to caller.014@example.com"
I've found a way to mitigate this is to never release pre-built binaries. Just distribute a makefile and source. The kind of people who are not deterred by that will be less likely to expect that level of support from the developers.
This certainly limits your audience, but if the program is just something you made as a hobby and are releasing because "why not?", then I'd rather have a small low maintenance audience.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/one-mans-endless-...
I assume that Wild has registered copyright on all his works so that his firm can sue for statutory damages (easy) rather than actual damages (harder to prove).
Suppose Wild is reading Quora answers about insects and notices that someone has left a comment where they pasted in a photo from his Web site. Super easy to do. Also super easy for him to send an e-mail to his copyright contractor, and a free $750 (minimum) in statutory damages.
I have registered copyright on works before, very straightforward, opens some unusual opportunities. There's actually a great startup idea here:
(1) Create a large quantity of high-quality unwatermarked stock images. (2) Register copyright on each work. (3) Sell them on a web site and use search-engine marketing tactics to make it a really high ranking Web site. (4) Wait 2.9 years, then sue every Web site and user who picked up the images.
> If the infringement appears on a personal blog, forum, or web page, I usually ignore it. If I have time, which I generally don’t, I may issue a takedown notice to remove infringing copies from personal sites most likely to feed downstream infringements. If the infringement occurs on a corporate or organizational webpage, product, broadcast, or similar, even if it is just a small internal image, I generally submit it to ImageRights.
> Social Media - Personal People acting in a personal capacity are welcome to share my photographs on blogs, web pages, and social media accounts without prior permission, provided that all images are accompanied by a link back to www.alexanderwild.com. Failure to attribute an image properly may result in a takedown notice to the web host.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/2014/02/_historyi...
If the infringement appears on a personal blog, forum, or web page, I usually ignore it. If I have time, which I generally don’t, I may issue a takedown notice to remove infringing copies from personal sites most likely to feed downstream infringements. If the infringement occurs on a corporate or organizational webpage, product, broadcast, or similar, even if it is just a small internal image, I generally submit it to ImageRights.
If it were just like you described, then nobody would ever be liable for copyright damages, because they'd just say "oh, my brother owns the site, I just posted, so you can't sue either of us."
And even then, the MPAA, despite it's considerable legal power and ability to get laws altered, still has a difficult time getting damages out of people. "In 2011, for example, the producers for Hurt Locker sued almost 25,000 BitTorrent users—and almost all the claims were voluntarily dismissed by the studio, because it was taking too long to track down all of the defendants via their IP addresses."[1]. That's not difficult for the reasons I said, but it's still difficult, and that's talking about a violently litigious entity with very deep pockets. A regular company or a freelancer is going to have an even more difficult time.
[1]http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/bittorrent-illeg...
>Members of the general public don't routinely pay for photos in a forum post
Just because lots of people do it doesn't make it right. Rehosting someone else's photo is a violation of their copyright, and should require that you buy a license for the photo. If it's not for sale, then you can't do it, period.
Last year I was accused of copyright infringement. I knew was completely in the clear - I hadn't ever heard of this person or seen their creation before. After dismissing some typo-riddled communication I though was bluffing I found myself named in a lawsuit. Turns out that knowing I was right was a whole world away from proving it in court. I was told it would cost me tens of thousands to defend myself. And the best possible outcome was for me to win my fees back. In the end I paid the other person to go away. The entire process was expensive, time consuming and incredibly stressful. I lost days of sleep worrying about what could happen.
My case could have been resolved so much more easily without lawyers. I was actually interesting in monetizing and this person needed eyeballs on their product. I would have gladly sent them traffic if they agreed to an affiliate set up. The problem was that once lawyers start getting involved then the bills start adding up quickly. From then on it was classic sunk cost fallacy. Backing off means paying thousands of dollars for the privilege of being sued. No one wins but the lawyers.
Sure, this company is going to be stopping some people from stealing images. But their business model is built on profiting from uncertainty and fear from the people they accuse of theft. This guy is an artist, yet he's so flippant about supporting an industry that profits by making the world a slightly worse place. He'd rather line the pockets of some lawyers than have to go through sending "dozens" of emails a month.
You've been party to infringement a million times over. We all have. Start on your first birthday. http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp
Move on to the derivative-work picture collages you made in preschool.
That copy of 'Peter Pan' that your parents made.
The songs you played when you were learning to play the tuba.
The first music your friends shared with you.
I could go on.
If the infringement appears on a personal blog, forum, or web page, I usually ignore it. If I have time, which I generally don’t, I may issue a takedown notice to remove infringing copies from personal sites most likely to feed downstream infringements. If the infringement occurs on a corporate or organizational webpage, product, broadcast, or similar, even if it is just a small internal image, I generally submit it to ImageRights.
There's also this:
Considerably more effort and attention went into researching and vetting your case than went into Getty’s ham-handed, largely automated process.
And this:
Q. You are wrong, I did license that image, and I resent being accused of something I did not do.
Goodness! My heartfelt apologies for my mistake. If you forward the license agreement or receipt to my lawyers, we will drop the case and I will fully refund your original license payment, while you may continue to use the image(s). I have made an erroneous accusation before, and I felt terrible about it.
The impression I'm getting is that he's being very careful not to make erroneous accusations. I'm sorry for what happened to you, but this doesn't seem like the same kind of thing.
In his Ars Technica article he claims to have been sending 5 takedowns per day (that's more like hundreds a month). The dozens per month are just the minority he's deemed commercial. He's continuing to go with takedowns for all of the rest.
> But their business model is built on profiting from uncertainty and fear from the people they accuse of theft.
It seems clear that he's the one making accusations; he just hands it off to them. Its not some automated system or evil lawyer going after obvious innocents, unless you're accusing the artist himself of initiating malicious lawsuits.
Some people's sense of entitlement to creative, but easily replicated, works never ceases to amaze me. Whether you like Tidal and those involved or not, this week we saw its launch being met with backlash online that included comments that amounted to "Why would I pay $20 a month for this when I can torrent it free?". People acted indignant over being asked to maybe pay for some of the works they consume. As though they had a right to have a copy of the works simply because they were technologically capable of getting their hands on one without paying for it.
And then creators and artists are vilified for going after those who steal/distribute copies of their works.
I can't imagine how stressful it is for those who have to deal with these constants acts against them.
Having all of these rich and famous musicians complaining about how they're not making enough money isn't going to go very well with the general population.
What does Tidal do to help unknown and struggling musicians? The whole thing seems to only really be about protecting the revenue streams of the musical elite.
It's the attitude that was on display regarding it though and it's the same attitude seen previously when Spotify was launched i.e. I want this for free, I believe I'm entitled to this for free and I will get it for free regardless of how you, the artist and distributor, feel about it.
Musicians, etc. produce products, as any other non-service based industry does, and nobody is entitled to those products for free...yet because these are digital products a large amount of people seem to think otherwise.
Do you think the people who think that creative works should be free are in the majority or are they just the loudest? I seem to get the impression that most people want artists to get paid. If anything they don't want a bunch of middle-men making all the profits.
Of course some middle-men are important to the ecosystem. A publisher willing to speculate and give an advance in exchange for a future percentage of sales seems like the right kind of incentive structure to have for the industry.
I think they're in the majority. They may not shout about it, but I think in terms of music consumption in this case they're a silent majority.
Only 25% of Spotify's 60m users pay for the service. People use YouTube for their music without having to pay. Others torrent. I would say that those paying for music in this day and age, whether it's streaming, vinyl enthusiasts or whatever are the minority.
Because that's how it works by default. I'm not saying it's right or that you should agree, but you should at least understand the perspective.
By default, we have the right to do anything that we have the ability to do. The exceptions are just that: exceptions, and which have to be justified.
Now, you could say, "that's the law, therefore it's obvious that it is an exception", but we don't really take the law as an ethical system. Or do you feel that it's perfectly OK to get works for free in places where that is not illegal, like Switzerland?
You have an intuition that copying works without paying is wrong. That's fine, but you shouldn't be amazed that people who don't have that intuition feel free to do so. Even if you still condemn them for it (which is fine).
So if you have the ability to break in somewhere and take something, you should have the right to do it?
Most people don't realize there is a victim in my example. The person who I would've bought the TV from. Except they are far less a victim that someone who has their TV stolen. Because I may have instead just stuck with mine and never gotten a bigger one had I had to pay. The problem is that when aggregated accross the whole population, lots of people who would've bought one now don't, and that is where the damages come from. Of course, the big players in copytright claiming the extremely high numbers for their damaging only work to further get people to dismiss this line of thinking.
This isn't a matter of scarcities at all (other than the time of the end user), let alone engineered/artificial ones. It's a matter of "I'm too lazy to setup my own web server to share my cat GIFs, so I'm gonna just use Imgur instead, since they've already done the hard part".
Fantastic! My email address is my profile. Please send me a list of your requirements with advance payment through Paypal - I'll eat the fees - as I am unable to locate any checks or money orders from you. I look forward to doing business with you!
Please explain how.
There are many other ways. Is it hard to think them up yourself? Private foundations, crowdfunding, tangential services and showcases (he's already doing that), etc...
This isn't some novel idea, it's how a great amount of our works are produced today even though we also have copyright. Without copyright, we would lubricate different models for the knowledge economy. It's not like the world could only possibly be the exact way we do things now.
First, software packages are typically collaborative works of many people, improved over time. A photograph is created by a single photographer in an instant (excluding editing time for rhetorical purposes).
Second, photographers are not fungible resources, while software developers are, even controlling for skill level. The photos I take aren't the same as the ones you take, nor are those of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.
I am not. I have not said anything about software. I think all copyright should be abolished (slowly, responsibly). I have considered the ramifications for different types of arts. Relatedly, I think the areas to which we have (by convention) chosen that copyright should or should not apply in law is arbitrary and sometimes silly (e.g. copyright of fashion).
> Second, photographers are not fungible resources, while software developers are, even controlling for skill level.
Software developers are not fungible resources. Two authorings of software to the same requirements will be substantially different; same for photography.
Clearly, there's an analog scale between these two poles. But, take for a moment an http request library. Given a certain spec, multiple programmers (or teams of programmers) might take different approaches to meet that spec -- but the result is functionally the same, and if they faithfully follow the spec, they are all going to be more or less interchangeable.
I think a photograph is qualitatively different. If I were to ask a photographer to "take a picture of an ant", I could get radically different results that are not interchangeable.
I know I'm not going to convince you, so I'm not going to keep trying, but I think abolishing copyright would provide a dire challenge to people who create visual art for a living.
There exist creative ways to program, and there exist uncreative ways to photograph.
The typical photograph is more creative than the typical program, but you've mostly just shown the effect of specs.
The above is honestly how people who are currently greyed-out in this thread seem to feel. (Though they don't say it as clearly.) It really is a supreme case of entitlement.
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Edit: last sentence originally read supreme sense of entitlement; to be clear, the last sentence is my own personal judgment. I don't agree with these people, and I am fine with the existence of bits I am allowed to view but not to copy, i.e. that in a sense are owned by someone else who has an exclusionary right to them, that they can use to keep me from doing certain things without their permission.
> It really is a supreme sense of entitlement.
That doesn't follow. Why do you attribute such disrespect to people who prefer a different economic/social organization for creative works?
I am a content producer. By trade, by hobby, by lifestyle. I license my works as CC0 as much as possible, and use copyleft for software so that those same works can't be held against me by the copyright system I'm trying to escape. I simply value my freedom of expression, including a philosophy of sharing works, and I also think it would lead to increased economic efficiency for the society.
It's a different perspective, I don't see a reason why you must call it "a supreme sense of entitlement" when I am one of the people creating these works that I want to be shared. It's just a different way for us to structure our resources and freedoms.
Because there are plenty of people out there who say exactly that. Granted, in general, they are not content producers themselves. People who believe that they are entitled to these things because they wouldn't pay for them anyway.
Probably you do, and that's a fine perspective. I was just offering a different point of view for the sake of discussion.
Personally I think we'd be fine without that law, and anyone who wants high-quality amazing photos can pay to have them captured. Many of us would do so. But when the photo is distributed, without copyright law, people would be free to share it. That doesn't prevent someone from wanting (and paying for) the photo to exist in the first place. My appreciation for a photo is not detracted by another's simultaneous appreciation of it.
He also states it's reasonable to agree with such law, which it undoubtedly is.
But I think he's being reasonable too, suggesting there could be alternatives. Like most of us here, I make my living out of copyright law. But I'm far from sure it the best way to deal with compensating creative, trivially reproducible work.
For what it's worth: I'm not sure it's the "best" way, but I'm more sure that it's the optimal way in a market economy. Things should cost what they're worth to buyers, and coercion (which is what infringement is) should be taken out of that equation.
Copyright is a very double edged sword at best.
If you want to appreciate the photo, the photographer has a gallery on their site you can visit and freely view. The photos are definitely gorgeous. But we're not talking about appreciating the photos. We're talking about hosting the photo yourself or using it commercially.
Making these photos is very expensive. If someone pays so much for a photo, they'll surely want exclusive rights. Why would I pay tens of thousands of dollars for a photo I'd like to use commercially, and then share it with others for free? It's better to have the licensing be cheaper, and have lots of people be able to pay for the photo.
This is like saying "bands should give their music away for free, because the record label already paid to record it."
Say he can take a really nice photo. To take this photo he has a number of expenses, he needs a certain amount of training, he needs to take a certain number of bad pictures before finding the good one.
Now right now he makes a living selling 1,00 copies of this photo to various organizations and publications.
Now say he can't do that. He can only sell it once. Two things happen. First is, to make the same amount of money, which is enough to cover his expenses and his failed photos, he needs to charge 100 times as much money. A $400 photo is now a $40,000 photo. The second things is, while before there were maybe 1,000 people willing to pay $400 for the photo, right now there might not be anyone willing to pay $40,000 for it.
There would especially be nobody willing to pay $40,000 for it when they know that as soon as someone else paid the $40,000 for it, they could get it for free.
In fact, even the people who had a budget to $400 for it before might not be so eager, because most of the photos they would get are now free. They just have to wait for someone else to get it first.
So this guy, who before was making an alright living taking photos, and a couple times a year getting a great photo that can sell a hundred copies, now has no means of supporting his photography.
Previously he could take photos that 100 people would be willing to pay $400 for and get by. These are very high quality photos. Maybe the majority nobody cares about. But if he can only sell them once, he can't afford it, and nobody can afford to buy it. Because of this he can't afford to take it, and the picture never exists.
Right now, de facto, anything that's released on the internet, licensed or not, is going to be there forever. Copyright's existence doesn't change that. For the commons this is a good thing. He can take legal action against people who are using his works without license, but he isn't targeting blogs and international sites and other places he can't reach.
Because of this scenario he is able to produce his works, and at the same time his work will be available across the globe. The only places targeted are companies who are trying to make money and think his work might be a free way to do this.
This isn't "So your blogger has been found using Alex's photographs" or "So your art project has been found using Alex's photographs". It's company.
If we are in some communist utopia where the companies using those photographs for free are also giving their goods away for free, then I don't think he would care.
But if an airline uses your photograph to advertise without credit and still charges you full fare to fly, and profits off them, why is that right? Shouldn't those profits go to the commons too?
You haven't a clue how much those photos cost if you had to pay the full price for their creation. Think a trip to a foreign country + plus some seriously expensive macro lenses, lights and a very good camera. Plus the photographer likely would want some salary as well.
That means those images are going to cost at least 10k, which is likely too much for e.g BugsBeGone to use one for their website. The price would of course come down if more people could share the images, from which the natural conclusion is to allow all people to share the image, provided they pay a fee for the right to do so.
>at the cost of its peoples' freedom of expression?
This is copyright, not patents. The existence of these photos doesn't in any way prevent you from taking whatever photos you want to take, nor limit how you can edit yours. Sure you can't take his photos, but you couldn't do that without copyright either because they wouldn't exist in the first place.
Then a bunch of people who want to use it for their websites pool their money, so that they can each pay a fraction of the 10k. You know, crowdfunding.
I think this is a false question, as you never had the rights to the work of others in the first place.
I disagree that nfoz's suggestion is a good one. (See tptacek's followup to lultimouomo[1]). But it doesn't mean the question is invalid. (See lultimouomo's initial reply to tptacek[2]).
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9313558 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9313549
That's fairly inefficient in several aspects, and by "inefficient," I mean that it's not likely to lead to artists creating the works that people want to consume.
First, this reduces the artist to only producing works that a single entity (person, company), or a small group of entities, wants to commission. If a thousand people each want a picture of a wasp $10-worth, that's very different from two sponsors each paying $5,000 for that image, and everyone else paying zero.
Second, it makes it nearly impossible for an artist to create work "on spec" and then collect payment on it later. Again, the artist is taking a ton of risk since he/she is looking for a massive payment from one or two patrons, vs. small payments from many consumers. Also, how is a photographer to advertise his or her work online, if anyone can just copy the image to their hard drive?
Third, it restricts authors to only extracting value from their art at the time of creation. If a photo becomes wildly popular a year or two after it was created and sold the first time, then the author can't get paid for it.
Fourth, as a potential patron who is a rational actor, I have a strong incentive to comb the Internet for a free photo before I pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to commission a new one. Won't this stifle the funding for creation of new works of art?
This has, sadly, been subverted in many cases ... but it's still strong reasoning.
Unfortunately, while this is already the case in theory in many jurisdictions, it's not the case in certain others, where the duration of copyright is effectively set to "current year minus first appearance of Mickey Mouse plus twenty years" thanks to the interests of a particular company whose name rhymes with a "D" and ends with an "isney". :)
They could definitely do that. The government could choose to hire him as a nature photographer, give him a very nice salary and release the photographs into the public domain. Or we could pay him per work to do it.
But we don't do that. We don't want to pay taxes to let him fly around the world and photograph things for the good of the commons. If society is not willing to accommodate him, why would he be willing to sacrifice himself to accommodate society?
Things like research can end up belonging to the commons but there's no tragedy of the commons argument about it. Instead your parent in this case I think was just pointing out that this is stuff that wouldn't exist at all if it weren't commmercially protected.
The term "tragedy of the commons" simply refers to a different concept. It's just not what it means. It means common resources become less useful over time.
This is not a statement about investment; it's just that the effect that is described is quite specific. You don't have to use an incorrect term to describe what you're talking about.
I want that. Many people want that. And my tax dollars do do this already. Provincial and federal governments actively fund the development of news, education, and artistic media in many jurisdictions.
It could center around the "right to copy". Hmmm, what could we call it?
That conclusion does not follow. The pictures will become public domain if and when the copyright expires on them. Assuming that happens.
That's why plenty of artists - plenty of nature photographers among them - died relatively penniless.
http://europeansectionlgm.typepad.fr/photography_and_cinemat...
That's a friend of mine who died 3 years ago, he made the most amazing pictures. 50,000 of them in a archive in his home in Suprasl, and we can't even find the funds to properly digitize them so they will likely be lost sooner or later.
That's why plenty of artists [...] died relatively penniless.
can you expand on this? how does lifelong copyright cause artist poverty? i'm not signalling either dis- or agreement, but your claim needs to be substantiated.
https://hornraiser.utexas.edu/project/54e79bbc14bdf7205ddd5a...
[1] "Will The Insects Unlocked Project Damage The Commercial Insect Photo Market?" - http://www.myrmecos.net/2015/03/27/will-the-insects-unlocked...
This does also highlight the need for due diligence if you're using images that you've found on the Internet though. This is often easier than you might expect -- you just have to upload your image to Google image search, and it will do a pretty good job of helping you track the original creator.
The Software Freedoms [0] don't mean you get to scarper off with other people's hard work. They mean that, once you have paid and received permission to use the work, you shouldn't be restricted in your use of the work.
Software is a thing that we use to get work done, a thing that doesn't necessarily work correctly or sufficiently or whatever other reason you might want to change it. We have a need to protect the rights of users because, without said rights, the user could potentially end up in a situation where their livelihood is significantly impacted by the failing software.
A work of art, on the other hand, is meant for consumption. You can't make a photo so integral to your workflow that replacing it with another photo could be detrimental to your self. Most programs are not reasonable substitutes for each other. Most photos of bumblebees are--more or less--perfectly acceptable substitutes, not because all photographers are equivalent and interchangeable, but because your need to have that photo is not more important than the photographer's need to eat.
The Software Freedoms are not about copyright. Copyright is just the mechanism through which the GPL operates, in an ideology that believes that software should not be copyrightable. It's the belief that these two things are so fundamentally different, that copyright is not the appropriate means to protect software developers, that led to the creation of the GPL. The GPL is nothing more than a hack on top of the copyright system to make copyright--for software--useless. It is not an overall indictment of copyright.
I am not one of those who would espouse that all FOSS software should use unrestrictive licenses. CC0, or attribution based Free software licenses definitely have their place, but I think that the world would be poorer without a license like the GPL. The GPL ensures an even playing field so that someone can't take a large Free project, add a small piece and compete with the original project using different rules. If someone wants to compete against a GPLed project, they either have to play by the same rules or build their own project from the ground up.
Instead of "copyright or not copyright", I think the Free software movement has shown that there is a range of restrictions that can be beneficial. Picking the appropriate restrictions for your project is an incredibly important task. When looking at CC (Creative Commons) licenses, I think it becomes a bit more obvious what things are valuable. They definitely benefitted from being able to look at the history of Free Software development when these licenses were developed.
I know there is a growing movement of people who are extremely enthusiastic about very unrestrictive licenses. However, I can't help thinking that they miss something -- only thinking about a binary world of very restrictive (all rights reserved) and non restrictive (at best attribution only). To be honest, I love the thought of living in a world where everything was CC0 and everyone would willingly encourage people to take the source code and make derivative works. Of course it isn't. Even in a world without copyright, this would not happen because lacking legal means, companies would pursue technical means of making it difficult to make derived works. Because of this I tend to license my work as GPL because I know a thriving, fair community can be served this way. The restrictions (made possible by copyright) are valuable.
that's wrong. FSF is concerned with preserving software users' freedoms. abolishing the copyright without further changes to the legal landscape would have terrible consequences for those rights: even though you would be able to sell copies of any (say) software no matter how you procured it, you wouldn't get the source and wouldn't have the freedom to modify it for your needs.
The GPL ensures an even playing field so that someone can't take a large Free project, add a small piece and compete with the original project using different rules.
that's true, but we don't need copyright to ensure creative works users' rights. the GPL is a hack, using the copyright (law meant to restrict your copying rights) to subvert those who try take away your right to copy. we don't need copyright for that any more than we need copyright to have other public goods funded by taxes, for example. all that is needed is a law codifying the software users' freedoms formulated in the GPL.
I love the thought of living in a world where everything was CC0 and everyone would willingly encourage people to take the source code and make derivative works.
that's also the GPL world.
Including reselling the work. This is one part I don't understand. One person pays full price and sells it to everybody else at a lower price, until the product is free as in, yes, free beer.
One step at a time I guess!
That's still fairly sketchy, but hardly the case of blatant republishing of photos that he's alluding to. I can actually see them arguing fair use.
[1] http://cdn.orkin.com/images/ants/red-imported-fire-ant-illus...
Using a $500 photo intuitively seems worse than using a $5 photo. But if the offender had no intent - ie. a grandmother that didn't know you can't just copy anything from Google Images - would be bizarre to have punitive damages be a multiplier of the original license cost.
If you're an amateur happy snapper, you'll get hardly anything. If you're a world famous photographer, you'll get significant amounts.
In one regard, that seems fair - and in another - grossly unfair.
I wish it did! Most infringement of a commercial work seems to incur criminal penalties (though you can recover civil damages as well).
* The infringement must be not only intentional but willful, which implies not only that the infringer deliberately used the photograph, but did so with full awareness of their duties under copyright law; that's a higher bar than simple intent.
* To be a felony, the infringement must not only have a goal of commercial advantage or private gain, but that advantage itself must be with respect to the reproduction and/or distribution rights of the original author.
If you deliberately harvested this guy's bug pictures and resold them, you'd be easy to charge criminally. But slapping one of his pictures on your website is probably too fuzzy to charge criminally.
He seems to be taking a very reasonable tact by going after genuinely commercial abusers, if his description is correct.
There are four essential elements to a charge of criminal copyright infringement. In order to sustain a conviction under section 506(a), the government must demonstrate: (1) that a valid copyright; (2) was infringed by the defendant; (3) willfully; and (4) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain.
The language in (4) is actually the subject of a good deal of discussion, because it changed (to that) relatively recently.
It's not a reflection of the actual law. Maybe it's a mistake. Even if it's an accurate reflection of DOJ policy, they can rewrite it whenever, and start enforcing the law as written... retroactively, even.
I believe it is specifically the creator's responsibility (and in general, the market's role) to figure out how the creator can make money.
I am reminded of a rather blunt slogan found in cat-v (http://harmful.cat-v.org/economics/intellectual_property/) and in the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom's page (http://c4sif.org/): "Your failed business model is not my problem."
It's all still made in Japan. Every little thing on it is.
And that's a price to pay for top quality.
And so - his response is reasonable.
Problem is, if we actually did this, the protection status of those bits in real life would not comport with the results we outlined above. Specifically, we would find that many of the resulting bit sequences would be just as off limits to us. That's because copyright is not about bits, and the original characterization that it is is not a sound one.
So probably closer to $1000, if not more.
Also, who said anything about morality? This is law, not philosophy. We're firmly planted on the 'is' side of 'is/ought', at this point.
How do you figure? I think 10x is an entirely reasonable penalty for stealing* someone's work instead of paying for it lawfully. The MPAA demanded $30,000 for a $0.99 song, which I would say is completely unreasonable. But 10x seems pretty inline with a non-excessive penalty.
How do people develop this sort of attitude? It's completely illogical. Developers don't understand business?
1) There was no legal expense 2) He catches at least 50% of the violators
In that case, he would at least make as much as if there were no violators. However, he has legal costs, and probably only catches a fraction of the violators.
So the equation should be something close to:
(Price charged for violation - legal fees) * % chance of being caught = Original price of image
Evidently the law is on his side, but reading the way this page is written makes me wish that it weren't.
"It’s just a photo! Surely a photo can’t be worth that much."
I can't believe people would actually think that after having obviously done something wrong.
The problem is while things like oil and food and human labor are physically scare, information is not, and not because that information was easy to initially create, but just as a matter of fact, it is terribly easy to reproduce.
It might have more to do with psychology than anything.
It's hard to value something that isn't scarce.
The matter of fact is that artificial[0] constraints on the product of such creations are the best method we have developed to ensure that the creators continue to be paid for their work, and I'm not sure of another, feasible way. Things like generous benefactors, be them individuals, institutions, or governments, are too few and not with enough capital to support enough creators without selling their products.
If anyone has a better idea, they could revolution history forever. Apart from Copyrights, Trademarks, and Patents, however, I know of no other way that will work.
[0]when I say artificial, I am speak matter-of-factly, not to offend anyone. The interesting thing is such talent and experience needed to produce such works is scarce, it's just the product isn't.
The act is getting easier and easier to reproduce, up to a certain basic level - which seems to be good enough for commercial purposes.
The arts have seen an unbelievable explosion of activity. There are more people writing, making art and music, taking photos, creating code, and everything else besides, than ever before - not just by a little, but by an astronomical amount.
The problem is that most of the work is eh-okay. Average-and-worse mediocrity is very easy to fine. Basic entertaining competence is less common, but still not rare.
And that seems to be all most consumers want - hence the success of 50 Shades of Grey, Twilight, and the rest, and their equivalents in other media.
In the past, culture was good at distilling out the extreme talent, so historically the arts have amassed a fine collection of game-changing geniuses, while allowing the eh-okay creators to drop into oblivion.
It's Salieri vs Mozart - commercially Mozart was the loser while alive, but not so much a few centuries later.
Today it's harder to find a Mozart because the modern equivalent is probably working for an ad agency, and has limited time to produce truly game-changing genius-level work.
And it might not sell anyway. And it would probably get lost in the noise even if it did sell.
The answer is probably the much-discussed living wage. Let everyone who wants to make art get on with making art full time, without having to worry about starving or being homeless.
Most of it will suck, some of it will be okay, a little of it will be jaw-droppingly awesome.
tl:dr; It's the socially-enforced dogma that art exists primarily for profit that causes the problems. Get rid of that, and a lot of the issues go away.
We may be smug about it and criticise his business model, saying "he should give his image for free and charge for making custom picture or work for the BBC or another imaginary plan based on whatever works in our field".
But that should not be difficult for us to understand the value and the work there is behind a single picture. That's too similar to making a small fortune writing code which is what most of us are doing here.
His answers may be a little snarky and sarcastic, but the questions he is answering properly represent the attitude and tone of the people who use creative work without permission.
Refer to DH2 in "How to Disagree" by Paul Graham (2008) http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html (not that this is a disagreement... but the article is still relevant)
The reason that comment got down voted and the reason I got down voted had nothing to do with PG'S 2008 post. It had everything to do with an abrasive community...
Yet, as my old man used to say, "Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and only the pigs like it." So it is on HN...
QED Turtles all the way down.
My take has been people who work with code build up a view of copyright that is completely biased by the way open source model works. A model where sharing everything benefits your peers, because most people using open source will generally make their living off of products or services that are built using those tools.
The end result of photography is not a tool, it is an original creative work that is how professional photogrpahers make their living. Besides the very limited scope of fair use there is no general benefit for the community to be able to freely use the creative works of others who have licensed that work as All Rights Reserved other than to be a cheapskate.
Yes, it's often tedious and frustrating, and involves hours of work that I'd rather spend writing or photographing new material. On the other hand, I don't live in fear of demand letters.
That's better than chance, but not really enough to pass judgment on someone. This may be why you have been downvoted. It may also be that others read his tone (with 56% accuracy) differently.
The tone of this message is meant to be neutral and informative.
To downvoters: If copyright lawyers can manufacture morality and play on lowest instincts ("mine! go away!") so can everybody else ("stop limiting my freedom!").
On more serious note every resource that is copyrighted should carry plainly visible note about like warrnings on cigarette packs so mildly creative people can stay away from it.
Of all the varieties of infringement-related comments, the “stay off the Internet” refrains are the most toxic. In one go they both acknowledge that infringement is bad for artists while also showing no concern for the Internet, which would be poorer for their absence. “Don’t post it” is the ultimate nihilistic diss.
But US does the same for so many things, health care, collecting fines for municipal violations, keeping people locked up, providing education, politics.
It is only to be expected that many people would feed of on relationship between people and information there. No other country is so zealous about interfering with it for profit.
As for "damage to the creative environment," the person trying to making a living off their work is not the one doing damage. The people who believe they are entitled to the work of others are the ones who should bear the sole blame for that.
Tell that to all scared teenagers posting "No copyright infringement intended" because they made something cool while Sony makes its living. Being exposed to copyright law causes permanent brain damage. Your creativity might never recover. Some people don't want to make a living out of their creations, they just wan't to create stuff without anyone telling them which components they may and may not use.
That's exactly how any average creative young person that is aware of copyright feels when she comes to internet.
She can use the culture but only if she won't ever get caught.
Being exposed to unfair inhumane laws influences people brains.
But it generally does, and there is actually a procedure for dealing with 'orphan works' whose copyright status can't easily be established. Most work has the copyright statement right on it or in the metadata, and anyone who makes living from copyrighted works lodges copies with a repository like the Library of Congress and pays a fee for the privilege (about $50), because doing so is the only way to recover statutory damages if your work is infringed.
I'm just not fond about people pushing their work into other peoples faces and calling moral outrage if they take it (because they can because that's how internet works) and ransom them.
He states that he does not go after personal blogs.
I have yet to hear a decent argument that explains why commercial profit-making organisations should be able to get my work for free.
ftfy
Suggesting he should go away is ridiculous.
It's a totally flawed use of freedom of speech anyway. Freedom to speak does not mean freedom from consequences. (Especially when it comes to people quoting you.)
You lost me, there. That's a twisted reading of copyright.
I'm not saying that makes copyright bad. Laws against fraud also work by curtailing speech. But I think it's a reasonable description.
At least in America, courts only hear actual and not hypothetical controversies. Judges also do not grant a priori restraints on speech very often or very lightly. Laws against fraud criminalize (and preclude 1st amendment protection for speech implementing) dishonesty in certain contexts. But they do not restrain it by punishing the speech itself.
To suggest otherwise, that established copyright law shouldn't apply if one makes a work public, means anyone should be able to take work on Github and ignore license. Attribution? Who cares. Required contribution upstream? Upstream this. Inclusion of source code and license? Get bent. After all, the developer is using the reputation boost that the Internet provides since they can consult as a subject expert, right?
By my count this would sill be a win. And I'm a programmer and I'd be delighted if million people stole my code. And I have no faintest idea how people using my code might reduce my income.
Warning: If you're in a nation that has signed the Berne Convention, everything that's copyrightable is copyrighted unless otherwise noted.
Warning: Copyrights are known to the State of California to cause reproductive harm.
Copyright goes against physics of internet.