Are Flickr Images Abused By Foreign Businesses? 227
eldavojohn writes "My friend Drew was notified via Twitter that one of his Flickr images had been selected as poster child for freeloaders who abuse the benefits system in an Elsevier news story in the Netherlands. The original image clearly gives an CC BY-NC 2.0 license to the image which doesn't appear in the story — a story which generates revenue for Elsevier. My friend doesn't speak Dutch so he's a little confused about what, if anything, he can do in this situation. I'm reminded of a family's Christmas photo showing up on a billboard in Prague and I wonder if photo sharing sites are treated as free to abuse regardless of copyright by foreign businesses? Has anyone else heard of this sort of thing happening with images from social photo sharing sites?"
How can you be a freeloader? (Score:4, Funny)
When information wants to be free?
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You must be new here. Information only wants to be free when I don't want to pay for it.
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No no no, information just want to have a normal life, with a home, a loved one and a couple of kids playing in the yard. Information is sick of being portrayed as the posterchild of the open source movements and just want to be left alone. Information wants to be anonymous.
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Re:How can you be a freeloader? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the issue is that it's corporations that want you to have to pay for everything, but the same corporations don't seem to have any problem ripping somebody off for their work. It's one thing to pirate other people's work if you provide yours for free to all comers, but quite another if you're suing to enforce your rights while ripping off other parties.
Plus, a lot of those people saying that would pirate whether or not there was any moral justification for it.
Re:How can you be a freeloader? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's one thing to pirate other people's work if you provide yours for free to all comers
Actually it's not okay to pirate anyone else's work, whether you provide yours for free or not.
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It's not just corporations. Very few users of cracked software work fulltime as unpayed volunteers.
Re:How can you be a freeloader? (Score:5, Informative)
A blogger that I follow, Michael Yon [michaelyon-online.com] has quite a problem with people stealing his work, even people who should know better such as Michael Moore (yes the movie producer Michael Moore and I've seen the theft of rights with my own eyes) has stolen his work. In one thread a poster recommended a reverse search engine Tineye [tineye.com], to find photographic copyright violators on the web. You just upload an image or the URL of an online image and TinEye searches its web repository for copies or near copies of the image, Now an average Joe can keep tabs on who and for what his or her photograph are being used for, and if desired put a stop to there illegal use.
So we now know who the real "freeloaders" are... (Score:2)
Elsevier.
Re:So we now know who the real "freeloaders" are.. (Score:4, Interesting)
BoingBoing does the same thing with Creative Commons photos all the fucking time, and nobody ever calls them on it. I guess it's because it's "open source friendly" and Elsevier isn't?
Either way, sounds like hypocrisy to me.
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just few days ago I used CC-BY-2.0 image on the webpage and attibuted the author. Use of quantifier (nobody) is not justified.
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The difference is that this image is CC-BY-NC [creativecommons.org].
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Why do you do it? (Score:2)
Of course it's a violation of copyright to use other people's photos without permission. But why on earth would anyone want to put up their family photos for the whole world to see in the first place?
Re:Why do you do it? (Score:4, Funny)
Very good question. Given how almost everybody does that, it should not be difficult to find out. Maybe someone who does can enlighten us? Here on /.?
I fear, however, that the answer will lead to even more troubling questions.
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So other relatives etc can see them that may a) not be in the picture or B) want to see their long distance relatives?
That's like me saying why does anyone want to see the inside of someones computer or 'insert other geeky shit here' it's not like we all don't have geeky shit so why do we need to share it with others?
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You missed the whole world part. Your a) or B) can be accomodated perfectly well without putting the picture on a blog for the rest of the planet to see.
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and an awful lot of people are not technically savvy enough to accommodate any of your solutions..
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And they suffer the consequences. There are far harsher penalties in life for not being smart/savvy enough.
Accomidation (Score:2)
You missed the whole world part. Your a) or B) can be accomodated perfectly well without putting the picture on a blog for the rest of the planet to see.
Spoken like a truly dense technical nerd. Normally that's a good thing, but not in this case.
Most people don't want to access password protected galleries - especially older people (you know, the ones you wanted to see the photo?) just will not look at them. So to password protect family photos is to greatly inconvenience someone you know for sure would w
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Spoken like a true world class moron. The alternative to posting it on a blog is not limited to password protection. You can share a lot of things from google or yahoo's photo sites WITHOUT using a password or making them public. People using these sites have access to these techniques via helpful buttons that are there in plain
What's moronic is equating hidden with protected (Score:2)
You can share a lot of things from google or yahoo's photo sites WITHOUT using a password or making them public.
The only moron I see here is someone who thinks any images put online without an authentication barrier are in fact really hidden... the ultimate security through obscurity.
If you put it online, and you do not password protect it, you can assume someone you do not know ill be looking at it someday. Either compromised browser by friend/family using your link or curious admin, it doesn't matter how
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Believing security through obscurity does not work at all is a pretty limited point of view. Sure it is not the strongest possible type of security, but there is a huge difference between it and no security. Enough in a case like this to make all the difference that is needed. Your leak scenarios are laughable and your assumptions extrem
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Security through obscurity is not security in any way, shape, or form.
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Just email it, or make a facebook page that is private. Those are things the average person is already doing.
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For non-techies? I hope you're not suggesting Facebook as a viable option...
Re:Why do you do it? (Score:4, Insightful)
So your extended family can see it without a lot of hassle.
Here's a better question: why not put it up for the whole wide world? Let's say you're the 1 in 1,000,000 that winds up on a billboard in Hungary. Who cares? If anything it's kind of cool. You were never going to get paid for your photos, and now you still aren't. Big deal.
vs. cool (Score:2)
Sorry, I think this holds the seeds of a flawed position.
You phased it softly - you touched on the yearning to escape the crushing mediocrity of life. But as a policy, "all you get is cool rights" is already accepting being the Boiled Frog. Watch what happens if it's a highly undesirable billboard!
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As TaoPhoenix alluded to, what if your likeness is being used to promote (i.e. make money for/increase usage of/improve the public image of) something that you vehemently oppose, or that paints you in a bad light, or whatever?
I hardly think you would be happy to be used in the advertising for an extreme political party that has views at the opposite end of the spectrum to you, or even on a less extreme level, if you were used to promote Windows while being a rabid Mac/Linux/whatever fanboy. In the actual in
Wrong take (Score:2)
I hardly think you would be happy to be used in the advertising for an extreme political party that has views at the opposite end of the spectrum to you, or even on a less extreme level, if you were used to promote Windows while being a rabid Mac/Linux/whatever fanboy.
Why? I would be pleased indeed, because of how amusing it would be to have their "spokesperson" come out strongly against what they were using the photo for. No harm to you and a chance to ding something you dislike. That's all win from you
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Here's a better question: why not put it up for the whole wide world? Let's say you're the 1 in 1,000,000 that winds up on a billboard in Hungary. Who cares? If anything it's kind of cool. You were never going to get paid for your photos, and now you still aren't. Big deal.
Congratulations, you have just been selected to be the new genital herpes poster child.
Sometimes people flat out don't agree with the company or products advertised, and don't want to be associated with said entities at all. What if your boss finds you in an ad for the competitor? What if it's an embarrassing medical condition?
Why on earth would it be OK in any way for corporations to profit from your images without prior consent? Let them hire their own photographers, or use existing images in accord
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I think "why not?" is exactly the right answer.
Sites like flickr are convenient, and it's easy to share with family and friends that way. If a stranger or two sees them, who cares -- most family photos are mundane and innocuous (and indeed I'll bet that most people are proud of their family).
There are plenty of paranoid types on slashdot, who encrypt their root disk even though there's zero chance anybody cares about the information there, but not everybody is that way...
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Here's a better question: why not put it up for the whole wide world? Let's say you're the 1 in 1,000,000 that winds up on a billboard in Hungary. Who cares? If anything it's kind of cool.
Because people have developed this idea they should be compensated every time their existence is beneficial to someone else. This behavior was learned from companies who nickel and dime consumers for everything.
So for a company to be sued for using a personal photo without permission is karma the way I see it.
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Picture a billboard in some foreign land.
Now imagine a picture of you, your little sister, and your parents on that billboard.
Now imagine it's an ad for a condom company, saying that all this could have been prevented...
Is that "kind of cool", or not?
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Because they don't really care if random people see them, and it makes it much much easier for their relatives and friends to see them.
your friend still has the copyright (Score:2)
Re:your friend still has the copyright (Score:4, Informative)
The going rate for use of a photo is, according to the Dutch photojournalist union, 700 euro's per use of a single picture in low resolution. Plenty of jurisprudence, so getting that shouldn't be a problem. TS's friend can contact the NVJ (http://www.nvj.nl/rechtshulp/) for assistance. Don't worry, their English is at least as good as most Dutch slashdotter's.
Re:your friend still has the copyright (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe he should start by contacting Elsevier/Reed Business: http://www.reedbusiness.nl/contact/voorwaarden/gebruiksvoorwaarden/index.cfm?articles_id=29A897BD-9E7D-451E-BD73-4229943FB264 [reedbusiness.nl]
The bottom of the page roughly translates to:
We respect I.P. If you suspect your rights are being infringed, we request that you send us the following information:
-postal address, telephone number and email address
-description of the infringed work
-description of the place you found said work
-statement why you think said work is being infringed upon
-statement that the above information is correct and you are the rightful owner or are empowered by the owner to act upon his behalf
-sign the above letter and include a copy of an identity card
Send this to:
Reed Business bv
Afdeling Juridische Zaken
Postbus 4
7000 BA Doetinchem
The Netherlands
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Certain people have not respected IP rights and stolen work to make huge amounts for a long time. The copyleft movement resulted from firm stealing IP, re
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If you go to the Chinese equivalent of flicker, you find a picture of a panda bear that matches your blog update about how polar bears are relatives of panda bears.
Underneath the picture is some text in Chinese that you don't know what it means. You go ahead and use the picture in your blog without any attribution. One week later, you get physical letter with some Chinese written in it. You don't know what it means, so you ignore it and throw it out. Your blog remains unchanged.
So: if the Chinese texts in the example above were references to the copy right, what went wrong? You didn't translate the text when you found the picture? Or, when they contacted you, they didn't contact you in English?
That couldn't really happen - CC licensed photos in Flickr have an icon which points to the license, which is translated in dozens of languages.
Should the contact with the newspaper be made in Dutch, rather than English?
Considering that Elsevier's website is completely in English and the company operates in the UK and USA, I think it's safe to assume they can read English.
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I can follow your reasoning, but lack of understanding is not an excuse. If you ignore the chinese warning signs and walk on to a random military base, you're still going to get shot, and it's a safe assumption that chinese bullets are just as deadly as english ones.
Yes, and "oh well". (Score:4, Insightful)
If you upload full size images to Flickr, etc, you're really just asking for someone to steal it and use it without your permission. So if you're that worried about it... don't use Flickr. But if you absolutely must, then you can take the annoying step of putting a watermark across the whole image, or, if you don't like to deface your work, there's also no reason you can't downsize the image to something like 800px at a low to medium DPI which makes it practically unusable for print.
All of that said though, people who steal images and use them without permission are, at least in my mind, in the same boat as people who steal music, warez, etc... if they can't get it for free they aren't going to buy it anyway.
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"there's also no reason you can't downsize the image to something like 800px at a low to medium DPI which makes it practically unusable for print. "
Hmm.... DPI stands for Dots Per Inch and is usable only for printing and CRT's.
PPI in other hand stands for Pixel Per Inch and is usable only for TFT/LCD monitors or even projectors.
What we search here, is the resolution what would be X * Y where X is wide and Y is height. people should not talk about DPI or PPI when talking about saving photo accuracy and print
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Careful - there are multilateral agreements that are enacted in the individual countries who signed and ratified the treaties; there's no "international court" or body of "international law." (probably you know this, but many people reading the phrase "international copyright laws" get confused).
In the particular case here it's more than likely an error, and as others have said, contacting Elsevier, will probably result in a satisfactory conclusion. If contacting the people using the image doesn't work, I
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If you upload full size images to Flickr, etc, you're really just asking for someone to steal it and use it without your permission. So if you're that worried about it... don't use Flickr. But if you absolutely must, then you can take the annoying step of putting a watermark across the whole image, or, if you don't like to deface your work, there's also no reason you can't downsize the image to something like 800px at a low to medium DPI which makes it practically unusable for print.
Of course these techniques also make the picture less usable for its intended use, being viewed on the web...
I loathe the idiots on flickr who do that kind of crap -- I can't count the number of times I've wanted to see the details in some picture, but I can't because the photographer (who in most cases clearly likes the idea of his photo being viewed) only uploaded a low-resolution version of it. Watermarks are even worse, as they actually make the picture ugly.
The chances of a random picture being used
Just write to them in English (Score:2)
Almost everyone in Netherlands can read English, and the majority can also write and speak it to a decent level. So you don't need to be worried about the language barrier.
I'm pretty sure that copyright law here is similar to the US, so you can just email them and tell them to either remove the picture OR apply with the terms of the licence.
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"Almost everyone in Netherlands can read English, and the majority can also write and speak it to a decent level. So you don't need to be worried about the language barrier."
I have noticed that the ability to comprehend a foreign language is lessened considerably if you ask people to hand over some money.
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You see, Dutch copyright law says that since copyright's intent is to prevent counterfeiters from nicking the profits of creators, Dutch copyright law only applies to works which are to generate a profit. In other words, if you cannot demonstrate you were in any way harmed monetarily by Elsevier, you aren't any worse off than you were before so you shouldn't complain. I don't say I agree, but that's the law.
[citation needed]
I'll give you two examples of non-commercial use leading to fees: LJN:AV2506 LJN:AU9504
Simply email them! (Score:5, Insightful)
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NL had Bono Act before US (Score:3)
We don't always respect patents, when it comes to software patents, but we do with copyright, although not with the same absurd duration.
Come again? Netherlands and the rest of the EU had a life+70 copyright term five years before the United States extended its own copyright term to match. See European Bono Act [wikipedia.org].
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That's not law, it's a directive. Countries in the EU are not forced to follow it, but are encouraged to do so.
For example, here in Dutchlantis, you are allowed to make copies of copyrighted work for own use, and are allowed to download said copies from the internet, while not breaching copyright. Using usenet or rapidshare to download movies, music and books is perfectly legal here. Uploading (or distributing) however is not.
I think that is what he meant by absurd copyright laws (YOU BREAK LAWS FOR DOWNLOA
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EU countries are not just encouraged to follow a directive, they're legally required to do so -- ie. implement in national law -- by a set date. For the copyright directive above, the implementation date was in 1995, and it appears that the Netherlands have implemented it along with every other major EU country.
Contact info (Score:3)
Original article: http://www.elsevier.nl/web/Nieuws/Nederland/288453/Gemeente-wil-aanvragers-uitkering-eerst-thuis-bezoeken.htm [elsevier.nl]
Elsevier editors email: redactie.elsevier@elsevier.nl
Posters above already mention that 95% of Dutch people speak English so I would just send them an email.
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Look, some schmo who can barely make an HTML taking a picture and not attributing it is not the problem. I'm not saying we should start another Spanish Inquisition, but these people make their money writing articles. They _know_ that they have to mind copyright, or in the case of Creative Common licenses, at least give credit where credit is due.
I'm not saying sue, but a note in their mailbox telling them to follow proper accreditation is not uncalled for.
CC is a shitty license for photography (Score:5, Interesting)
Generally speaking, Creative Commons is a fine license for most sorts of creative output for one simple reason: piggybacking. If you make music, you can use somebody's CC'd vocals in your track, they can use your drum loops or guitar riffs. In writing, you can use somebody else's characters, somebody else can use the world you've created. And so on.
For photography, it sucks. The photographer gets nothing out of it. They produce, but there's no reciprocation. Your photos get used by other people, sometimes they'll do something cool with it (I've had some of my stuff used as the basis for illustrations) but usually it's to illustrate some bullshit article on some crap blog. This is where the bigger problem with CC comes into play: your work gets tied to people who use it.
If I take a picture of a dog biting a dark skinned man and release it with a CC license, it can get legally picked up by a neo-nazi site/magazine, printed and credited to my name. Not only do people whose politics I find to be morally repugnant get to use my work, they get to tie me to their publication. Boned. Think that's unlikely? How about this example [wordpress.com], where a french girl's self-portrait was used to illustrate an article about a lawsuit involving hotel pool sperm.
CC licenses aren't to blame for your problems. (Score:4, Insightful)
This story is written poorly (shocking for /., I know) because it has little to do with any of the players mentioned: Creative Commons (as opposed to other license writing organizations or other licenses), photography (as opposed to other artistic media), or Flickr (as opposed to other hosting services). This is just another instance of a wealthy organization (which can certainly afford the expense for due diligence) allegedly infringing someone's copyright. It can be dealt with on that basis and resolved amicably for the copyright holder. And, as with so many other copyright infringement cases, how amicable the resolution is for the alleged infringer is, at best, of secondary importance particularly because the license allows the licensee to do so much (derivative works, for example).
Speaking directly to your complaints: First, there are so many different CC licenses and they say significantly different things. So we can't have a reasonable discussion about them by lumping them together and referring to them as if they're a cohesive unit except to note that they're written and published by the same organization. Second, photos are no more exempt from extraction, reuse, and building upon (making derivative works) than any other form of expression (particularly with digital photo manipulation tools we have today). Third, I think the heart of your complaint has to do with what are referred to as "moral rights" in some jurisdictions. But moral rights have little to do with the CC licenses and far more to do with regional powers conferred to authors (moral rights aren't in the US, for instance). Any proper discussion of them would be independent of the copyright licensing for the work. If you want the power to reject the reuse of some work because of you disagree with a potential derivative work, you probably should not license the work to them at all under any license. Then, should they commit copyright infringement and make an unauthorized derivative work anyway, you get to see how CC licenses had nothing to do with that.
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For photography, it sucks. The photographer gets nothing out of it. They produce, but there's no reciprocation
This complaint makes no sense whatsoever. "The photographer gets nothing out of it." If this refers to money, then what's the issue? The photographer intentionally released it under a license that doesn't require payment of royalties. "They produce, but there's no reciprocation." If "reciprocation" refers to making the derived work free-as-in-speech, then what's the issue? If you want that type of reciprocation, you use CC-BY-SA. If you don't want that type of reciprocation, you use CC-BY.
Your photos get used by other people, sometimes they'll do something cool with it (I've had some of my stuff used as the basis for illustrations) but usually it's to illustrate some bullshit article on some crap blog.
If it's under a fr
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If you want that type of reciprocation, you use CC-BY-SA. If you don't want that type of reciprocation, you use CC-BY.
As I understand it, the "share-alike" clause only applies to derivative works. Does combining a photo with a text story make the whole thing a "derivative work" of the photo? I'm not sure, although a quick look at Wikipedia suggests it might do.
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As I understand it, the "share-alike" clause only applies to derivative works. Does combining a photo with a text story make the whole thing a "derivative work" of the photo?
Yes, it does.
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You're assuming people actually want this "piggybacking".
I've seen a lot of CC licensed music using the no derivatives license.
CC licenses have been enforced already in .NL (Score:5, Informative)
Just so you know, five years ago, a Dutch judge ruled that Creative Commons licenses are enforceable. See here: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5823 [creativecommons.org] . This is the Adam Curry case from 2006, for those who follow the history of such things. There was also a later scenario [creativecommons.org] in 2009 that he also won.
Summary from the Wikipedia article [wikimedia.org]:
I guess it depends on local laws (Score:2)
We were out with a school friend of my girlfriend. She was very attractive; blond hair and blue eyes; she looked like a super-model. While sitting outside at a cafe, some guy snapped some photos of her, very indiscreetly, here in scenic Heidelberg. She snapped at him, and informed him that taking close up pictures of a single person in public was illegal, and even stated the paragraph in the law. He backed off.
I'm not sure if she was bluffing or not . . . and she died of breast cancer a couple of years
Non-issue (Score:2)
As Cooks Source knows well, *anything* on the internet is public domain and therefore open season.
Foreign works both ways (Score:3)
When you say, foreign, remember that copyright violations are pretty common in the USA too, both by individuals and by organizations. From the perspective of most citizens of this planet, the USA is also a foreign country :-) (and GPL violations happen without regard for national borders, too)
Is is harder to take action against people in other countries. You may have to travel there to appear in a court, in extreme cases, and you may have to demonstrate financial losses as a result of the use of your image.
Many countries give a legal moral right to be identified as the author/creator of a work, and also give the creator ongoing rights to say how the work can be used. This may strengthen the poster's case here, although in the US, using creative commons may be seen as waiving some of those rights. Here in Canada, the rights are inalienable: you can't ever get rid of them, which in principle may not be compatible with some creative comments licenses (and GPL for that matter): there's no "public domain" in the same legal sense as in the USA.
Write a letter in general terms in the first instance - e.g., "I am writing because you are making commercial use of one of my images without permission; who would I contact in this matter?" Be firm but very polite at all times.
If you are prepared to settle for acknowledgment, and perhaps a small payment to compensate you for your time, then when you do get a reply, be polite and accept their offer if it's in the right ballpark, or negotiate for a little more. If the reply is unsatisfactory, immediately seek legal advice from a lawyer who specializes in cross-border/international copyright disputes. They are expensive, but you should get a free consultation that will get you started.
Do not be rude, arrogant, or demanding - not only is it likely to make people act defensively, rather than trying to cooperate with you in finding a friendly ("amicable') solution, but it can also actually weaken your case if you do end up with legal action. Similarly, be terse, don't volunteer information. Saying "I don't have much money, I'm a student" for example is also saying "I can't afford to sue you, you can do what you like!"
Do not attempt to base any sort of argument on the Wikipedia pages on copyright; every time I look at them I find errors (often with people fiercely defending them), and I'm not even a lawyer. Reading the actual copyright acts is difficult without legal training - e.g. knowing that a phrase like "time shall be of the essence" in US law might mean "if you don't make the deadline, all bets are off", or finding a footnote on page 50 that says, "hereafter, and everywhere in this document, the term "Ship" shall mean "Ship or hovercraft", or discovering some other law that amends the one you were reading... and even after reading the law, what matters is how individual judges ("courts") interpret it. Sort of like how different Web browsers react to the syntax errors that riddle most HTML pages - the specification says one thing, people do another, the Web browsers resolve it. Except that judges are human, of course, and consider each case as it happens. This isn't so much a criticism of Wikipedia as a note that, like any other resource, you have to know its strengths and weaknesses. For that matter I've seen official government web pages on copyrights that had serious errors in them (such as giving incorrect figures for duration, and then a while later silently changing them!) so it's all a bit of a minefield.
Again (Score:3)
Elsevier is known for doing this. Get a Dutch lawyer, sue and make a buck. You're very likely to win. See Adam Curry's and other cases against them.
Foreigners? How about BoingBoing and others? (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a reason why their masthead lists two lawyers but no staff photographers. They would rather pay the lawyers to spew squid ink about fair use than to pay anything to the people who contribute the art. This attitude, of course, is not unique to this site. A number of sites do it.
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/02/04/george-bernard-shaws.html [boingboing.net]
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/02/06/startups-of-londons.html [boingboing.net]
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/ol-space-food/ [wired.com]
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Or how about newspapers? http://www.lazylightning.org/thisweek-ignores-creative-commons-licensing [lazylightning.org]
Or rag mags? http://www.lazylightning.org/citypages-feels-copyright-infringement-deserves-a-one-time-pass [lazylightning.org]
Or Esquire? http://www.flickr.com/photos/bill_roehl/5173042830/ [flickr.com]
Or restaurants? http://www.lazylightning.org/pardon-my-french-uses-photo-without-permission [lazylightning.org]
This is simply the fact that people think that everything on the Internet is fair game for them to copy and use without the author's consent. If a bunch of
Flickr's recommendation (Score:4, Funny)
1. be really ugly
2. have a cheap, crappy camera
3. just take really bad, crooked, blurry shots
4. Photoshop a cheesy top hat, moustache, and monacle onto all your photos
It looks like a lot of folks on Flickr have already implemented these security measures.
This is a grey area, and the CC license is vague (Score:3)
This article has a good discussion of the problems inherent in the CC licenses [epuk.org].
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Form http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode [creativecommons.org] Section 4 subsection b.
Looks quite cleat to me. The licence text doesn't even mention "commercial".
Screw with the system (Score:3)
Just use some steganography software [jjtc.com] to embed a version of the DeCSS [wikipedia.org] code into your pictures. I prefer the haiku [cmu.edu] version myself...
Common stego won't work in this case (Score:2)
isnt there a rule about this (Score:3, Funny)
If you dont want your pictures all over the internet...dont put them on the internet. Sorry but whining about the use of pictures placed on imgur or flickr is the equivalent of dumping a pile of random pictures on a table in the break room of a busy office then complaining when one of them shows up on someones desk.
Just talk to them (Score:4, Informative)
Google can do this too - read their ToS.. (Score:2)
Anyone using one of those so-called "free" service providers should take those events as a lesson.
I know I'm repeating myself here, but you ought to not only read the Terms of Service, you should also try to understand what they mean, and keep in mind the contract maxim: the first part giveth, then the later parts taketh away including your shirt.
If you not only read the words in chapter 11 of the Google Terms of Service [google.com], you will see that they can get away with that the moment the mag would take a Google s
Re:whatwhatwhat (Score:4)
Because you didn't do anything creative. The photographer is the one that's responsible for pretty much all of the creative work with regards to a photo. You can't copyright a performance of a play, but you can copyright the play itself. Photography is the same way, you can copyright the depiction, but not the seen.
And ultimately, the photographer is the one that decides what is and isn't going to happen in the photo.
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My life is an ongoing creative work. Any photograph of me is a derivative of that work.
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You can't copyright performance art.
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As usual, it's complicated [betterphoto.com]. The usu
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Right, but that's a different matter. The photographer always has the copyright unless it was done as a work for hire. It doesn't mean that he can publish the photo as the subject does get a say in whether or not the photo is shown or what is done with it.
It's gotten so bad in the film industry that you can't have anything which can be identified anywhere in the movie, even if you're shooting on location without the permission of the party owning the mark. Even if it is out of focus and not noticeable to mo
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AFAIK, it's all about context.
If you've been photographed in a public event, it's okay to sell the photo for articles about that event.
It's not okay to use the photo as part of an advertisement or sell the photo commercially as a poster.
The question is whether there is any harm to the person photographed.
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"Because you didn't do anything creative. The photographer is the one that's responsible for pretty much all of the creative work with regards to a photo."
So supermodels should work for free too, since they don't talk, they don't dance, they didn't create the clothes nor did they do their own makeup.
They are getting all the money just for putting their index finger down their throat then.
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They are paid to do some very specific things (e.i. they are contract workers), that has nothing to do with what they don't do. It also has nothing to do with photography.
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That would be the end of press photography.
Re:whatwhatwhat (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:whatwhatwhat (Score:4, Insightful)
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"I bet the famous Afghan girl never saw any of those millions that the photographer did."
You are mistaking journalistic photography for commercial photography. Steve McCurry took that photo for National Geographic. He probably makes pretty good money working there, but I can assure you it's not millions.
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Re:whatwhatwhat (Score:4)
I never understood why photographs can be copyrighted. If somebody takes a picture of me, then why do they own the picture?
I bet the famous Afghan girl [eworldpost.com] never saw any of those millions that the photographer did.
They did the creative work, however, without a model release from you they are limited in how they can use it commercially. As for the Afghan girl, NG reports:
Asked if Sharbat would benefit financially from her famous image, Matson said she was "being looked after." [nationalgeographic.com]
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Seems that photographer is probably missing a lot of royalties on that photo. The photograph is copyright-able because it is the result of a creative process, another photograph can also photograph the same object and copyright his image as well.
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Poor Drew is depicted as a benefit-fraud. Replace 'commercial use' by 'slander' and re-apply American law, please? Any effect on the likely outcome if this came before an American court?