Techdirt. Stories filed under "cameras"

Digital Camera Review Taken Down By A Botched DMCA Notice That Makes Claims Of Trademark Infringement

Tim Cushing — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 13:12:20 PDT

We've seen the DMCA takedown process abused to stifle criticism or remove unflattering content from the web. Knowing that, the first reaction to reading about a website being forced to remove a product review after being hit by a DMCA notice is to assume some overzealous representative of the affected company is simply using copyright's powers for evil.

DigitalRev recently posted a review comparing GoPro's Hero 3 camera with Sony's HDR-AS15. Not long after that, a DMCA notice arrived from GoPro (or rather, its "brand representative"), demanding that the review be taken down. So far, so censorious. But the DMCA notice sent didn't describe any sort of copyright violation. Instead, it headed off into a completely different IP area.

The notice starts out like many others:

We are providing you this letter of notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 17 USC??512(c) to make Softlayer.com aware of material on its network or system that infringes the exclusive copyrights of Woodman Labs, Inc d/b/a GoPro (“Company”). We hereby affirm that the undersigned is authorized to act on behalf of Company whose exclusive intellectual property rights we believe to be infringed as described herein.

Barring the extraneous question marks, this all looks perfectly normal. But the next paragraph reroutes the entire DMCA.

We have a good faith belief that the Internet site found at digitalrev.com infringes the rights of the Company by using the following trademarks of the Company:

“GOPRO” Registered: 3/3/2009 US Registration# 3032989

“HERO” Registered: 12/20/2005 US Registration# 3308141

At this point, the notice's issuer, Patrick Hayes (Brand Manager for Woodman Labs), is in uncharted territory. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice is for copyright violations only, as can readily be determined by name of the notice itself. Hayes reasserts his trademark violation claim a few paragraphs later, along with a sentence that briefly raises copyright again before returning to the misguided effort at hand.

As you may know, if this information is not removed after notice that complies with the DMCA, the Internet Service Provider may also be held liable for the copyright infringement.

I have a good faith belief that use of the trademark(s) described above in connection with the domain and URLs described above is not authorized by the trademark owner, and such use is not otherwise permissible under applicable law.

I represent that the information in this notification is true and correct and that I am authorized to act on behalf of the trademark owner.

Hayes really shouldn't be "representing" that any of this bizarre IP melange is "true and correct." Most of it isn't, starting with using a copyright-only takedown form to shutter a review over alleged trademark infringement. Then there's this: the trademarks mentioned are character marks for the name of the product itself -- "GoPro Hero" -- suggesting that DigitalRev is not allowed to use the name of the product when reviewing the product. This is not how trademark law works. At all.

Hang on, though. It gets a bit weirder from there.

As I mentioned earlier, the first reaction is that GoPro doesn't like DigitalRev's review and wants it removed before many more people can read it. (That was DigitalRev's first instinct as well, as detailed in its follow-up post on the subject.) Fortunately, DigitalRev screencapped the relevant part of the review.

There's nothing in that review that looks like it should trouble GoPro enough to overreact in this fashion. In fact, commenters on the site point out that DigitalRev's reviews of GoPro products usually range from "positive" to "overenthusiastic." So, if the review isn't the issue, what is?

Thankfully, another rep from GoPro responded quickly to clear up the confusion... by adding more confusion. The official statement, left at both Reddit and PetaPixel reads as follows:

Thanks for the heads up on this issue. The letter that was posted next to the review on DigitalRev was not sent in response to the review. Obviously, we welcome editorial reviews of our products. This letter was sent because DigitalRev is not an authorized reseller of GoPro products and they were using images and had incorrect branding and representation of our product in their online commerce store. As part of our program – we ask merchants who are selling our product to use authorized images. That is why DigitalRev was contacted. But – our letter did not clearly communicate this and that is something we will correct.

There are a few problems with this, but first and foremost is the fact that the URL specified in the takedown notice is the review's URL. Nothing involving DigitalRev's online store was mentioned in the letter and no offending URLs listed. Not only that, but this rep claims to have spotted offending 'images,' something the mentioned trademarks don't cover. A comment left at PetaPixel by GoPro's social media rep adds this to the conversation:

There are a few things that are muddling this situation at the moment. The notice was sent to digitalrev.com not because of the review, but because digitalreview.com is not an authorized reseller and are using our trademark and product images inappropriately. The notice is in regards to the sidebar, not the review itself, but we can see why it seemed like it as the url links to both.

We would never attempt to restrict anyone's freedom to share their opinion about us or our products, positive or negative.

Even if this rep is correct and Woodman Labs meant to target improper use of its trademarks, it missed with both the delivery system and the URL specified. A DMCA notice can't stop trademark infringement. Furthermore, while a hosting company can be held liable for contributory trademark infringement, it's usually a result of the host mishandling takedown notices (and some conflation of copyright and trademark by the presiding judge), rather than a foregone conclusion. Then again, if you want to hold a service provider liable for this sort of infringement, it helps to use the standard process -- directly contacting the site owner and asking him or her to remove the infringing items. Using a DMCA notice for alleged trademark infringement is just plain wrong, although various GoPro reps' insistence that the trademark infringement includes "images" most likely explains the existence of this half-copyright, half-trademark aberration.

However, the most probable explanation for this IP circus is probably contained in this blog post from last November, which details the author's brief altercation with Patrick Hayes and Woodman Labs over a parked domain containing the word "gopro." The letter he received accused him of "domain infringement," and while the tone of the letter was generally cordial, Patrick Hayes made the assumption that any registration of the term "gopro" could only be related to Woodman Labs' products.

GoPro does not authorize any of its resellers (or anyone else) to use “GoPro” or “HERO” in domain names. Your registration of goprodivemaster.com is unfortunately in direct violation of this policy. We understand that your intention is simply to sell and promote our products, but GoPro cannot risk misleading customers into believing that they are interacting directly with GoPro when they are engaging with your website or your organization. The use of our trademark terms in your business name may cause confusion, and is prohibited under international trademark law.

Even if the domain redirects to another site, this is not a permissible use of our brand terms.

Please understand: GoPro has spent years building its brand name—only the company itself is legally represented as “GoPro” or the manufacturer of the “HERO” line of cameras. We need you to kindly discontinue the use of our registered/trademarked name as soon as possible.

The author points out that his parked domain had nothing to do with GoPro or its cameras. He also points out that this issue will certainly surface again, considering the Professional Association of Underwater Instructors uses the term quite often in relation to its instructor development centers. Additionally, he did a little detective work and checked out the WHOIS information on the email address and found the domain was associated with MarkMonitor. So, it appears GoPro is outsourcing its IP protection to a company that seems to take a pray-and-spray approach to takedown notices.

Quite possibly it takes little more than having the word "gopro" appear in a URL (like the review above) to summon the bot-fury of MarkMonitor and Patrick Hayes, "Brand Manager." This explains the bizarre trademark claims and the incomprehensible takedown of a positive review. If this is indeed the case, GoPro is probably considering taking the job back in-house, seeing as its reputation is being damaged further with each retelling of this unfortunate saga.

UPDATE: GoPro's Twitter account claims that five other URLs were included in the takedown notice, but were scrubbed by DigitalRev prior to publishing. However, it has not posted the unedited version for verification.

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Salt Lake City Police Dept. Makes The Move To 'Always-On' Eyecams

Tim Cushing — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 00:05:00 PST

In the beginning, there were dashcams. Cops utilized these to provide Fox's primetime programmers with glorious footage of high speed pursuits and the occasional drunk shirtless man falling down. It provided a record of traffic stops and PIT maneuvers, but the downside was that it failed to capture anything out of range of the windshield. Sometimes, given inter-departmental meddling, the footage showed nothing at all or ceased to exist.

Then, suddenly, everyone had a camera. Nearly every citizen with a cell phone was able to shoot credible (if shaky) footage of law enforcement events as they unfolded, rather than how they were "recalled" during depositions and courtroom appearances. This turn of events caused some consternation among some members of the law enforcement community, who felt that recorded observation was a one-way street and that street had the PD's name all over it. While it was tougher to make unwanted footage cease to exist, it was not altogether impossible.

Now, the next wave of law enforcement-related camera technology is being put into use: always-on "eyecam." Salt Lake City is rolling out a new line of eye accessories for its force, becoming the first police department in the state to do so.

The Taser AXON Flex on-officer system is a small, light-weight camera with 14 hours of a battery life that an officer clips to an item like a headband or sunglasses so it can record whatever that officer is seeing or doing.

Nationally, only about 2,000 units of the on-officer system are in the field, and Salt Lake City would be the first department in Utah to use the technology, said Rick Smith, Taser founder and CEO, who attended the presentation.

As the use of these cameras becomes more widespread, hearing a police officer offer to "fire up the Taser" may no longer cause certain citizens to instinctively curl into the fetal position. In fact, there's an (admittedly small) chance that these new cameras will keep unnecessary force to a minimum and provide useful documentation for use in investigations, court cases, etc.

"It really improves our ability to be professional and document events as they occur," (Police Chief Chris) Burbank said. "Imagine being able to capture the emotion."

Smith said any use of force is inherently high risk and controversial.

He said there are often differing accounts of what led an officer to use force in a particular situation and equipping them with cameras will help with investigations and retroactive reviews of decisions that were made, he said.

"It holds everybody accountable," Smith said.

More transparency is a good idea, but much like any recording device, it's only as trustworthy as its operator -- and those who control use of the footage. Burbank mentions that the camera has already cleared a Salt Lake City officer accused of "behaving unprofessionally" at a traffic stop. This is all well and good, but there needs to be a serious effort made to curb the tendency to turn an "always-on" camera into a very selective accomplice.

The cameras run continuously, but an officer is responsible for activating and deactivating the device. That means the department will have to set strict guidelines about camera use and making sure the cameras aren't being shut off, Burbank acknowledged.

The first step might be to change "guidelines" to "rules," so there are no grey areas surrounding the specifics of camera usage. This is not to say there's little potential for an upside, though. In fact, more law enforcement agencies should look into equipping themselves with something like this, with the caveat being that the resulting footage is treated as an "impartial record" rather than "police property." Leaving the on/off switch in control of the officer wearing the camera is both unavoidable and prone to abuse by those who would rather hide certain actions and activities. And as long as law enforcement members are interacting with the public using "always-on" cameras, there really can't be any further complaints about citizens responding in kind. The camera may be an impartial observer, but the operator very rarely is. If transparency is Burbank's ultimate aim, let's hope the guideline process is opened up for public comment.

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Police Delete Aftermath Footage Of Suspect Shot 41 Times

Timothy Geigner — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 07:55:00 PDT

We've written several times before about the prevalence of recording devices and the protection citizens deserve in being allowed to film public servants doing their public duties. Some police departments seem to get it better than others, such as the DCPD policy for not confiscating cell phone cameras or deleting footage. Other departments, such as those in my hometown of Chicago, seem to think they can just take your property without a warrant as a way to stave off criticism of their poor behavior. But sometimes we get an example of why this debate is so important, when an officer of the law goes to the egregious lengths of killing a citizen and then his fellow officers attempt to cover up the evidence.

Tom Landry writes in about one such extreme example, featuring Texas police pumping 41 bullets at a man, having a police dog attack him, when the officer's stated and still ridiculous reasons for doing so were pure fabrication. Then, a fellow officer confiscated a witness's camera and deleted footage of the aftermath of the incident. Michael Allen Vincent, a man who allegedly had several traffic incidents with police in the past, had led policeman Patrick Tuter on a high speed chase before pulling over into a cul de sac. That's when Tuter ordered Vincent out of the car, before discharging his weapon 41 times, for reasons we'll get into later. As you might expect, all the noise attracted the attention of neighbors.

[Mitchell] Wallace and his wife were asleep when the gunshots began, but they quickly made it to the porch to see Allen's passenger being pulled from the truck and a police dog jumping into the cab. The German shepherd bit Allen in the neck and jaw area and dragged him out of the truck and onto the pavement, Wallace said. Police officers pulled the dog off, flipped Allen on his stomach and handcuffed him before checking his pulse. Autopsy results are pending on the cause of Allen's death.

Wallace took cellphone pictures and video after the shooting stopped, but he said Mesquite police confiscated the phone and deleted the video and pictures. The phone was returned four days later, he said.

First, I have a few complicated theories on what the cause of death may have been. Most of them involve an officer shooting at an unarmed suspect 41 times, having to reload at least once mind you, and/or a large dog dragging someone out of a car by the neck. Secondly, this confiscation of the camera and the deletion of footage is a blatant violation of the 1st and 4th amendments, as the article notes.

The law states that police need a court order to confiscate a camera unless it was used in a commission of a crime. The only exception is if there are exigent circumstances, such as a strong belief that the witness will destroy the photos, therefore destroying evidence. Under no circumstances do police have the right to delete footage.

Already a Texas Public Information Act request has been filed for a copy of the investigation into the seizure of the cell phone and deletion of footage.

Now, lest you think that this man somehow deserved to have 41 bullets fired at him before being attacked by a police dog, it turns out that Officer Tuter's stated reason for reacting so violently, that suspect Vincent had "backed his truck into the patrol car" (seriously?), was a complete fabrication as found out by his own dash camera. Tuter has since been suspended.

So, in the same story, we have police deleting footage from a witness illegally, while the illegal actions of an officer are only discovered because of camera footage. The juxtaposition perfectly highlights why the confiscation of cameras and deletion of potential evidence is such a horrendous violation of the public trust. I can think of no more clear way to demonstrate the need for strong protections for the public filming their civil servants.

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One Day After DC Police Told Not To Interfere With Citizens Recording Them... Police Seize Man's Phone

Mike Masnick — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:17:08 PDT

So, yesterday, everyone was feeling warm and fuzzy about the very clear statement by Washington DC's police chief Cathy Lanier pushing out a very explicit policy to all DC police concerning mobile phone cameras. The policy was straightforward: police cannot interfere with someone recording them. They cannot demand to know why they're recording them. And they cannot seize the phone.

It appears that some police officers didn't read the memo.

As noted by Ars Technica, the day after the policy was announced, a police officer seized a guy's camera for recording police activities. They did eventually give the phone back but kept the memory card and the guy is pissed off because the card supposedly has hundreds of photos of his daughter on there.

The DC police say that they're "looking into" the report. It would be nice to see them follow up on their original policy statement with a clear rebuke of the officers involved.

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DailyDirt: Cameras For Science

Michael Ho — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:00:00 PST

You almost can't make it to the cover of a major scientific publication like Science or Nature without a really cool picture to present your data. It seems that everyone likes pretty pictures, even scientists. So here are a few science projects with some interesting camera equipment.

The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has created the largest digital camera ever -- at a cost of about $165 million. This 3.2 gigapixel camera will be used in a new telescope being built on a Chilean mountaintop. [url]
Modifying a cheap digital camera to take infrared pictures was only part of a project aimed at mapping the photosynthetic activity around Asheville, North Carolina. Putting the cameras on balloons and merging the pictures together with Photosynth has created a nice collection of data for studying environmental and economic sustainability issues. [url]
MIT researchers have created a camera system capable of capturing images at a trillion frames per second. It's so fast it can actually track the movement of light as it travels -- under specific conditions, of course. [url]
To discover more interesting photography-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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DailyDirt: Crack A Puzzle And Score Some Cash (Or A Cool Job)

Michael Ho — Mon, 5 Dec 2011 17:00:00 PST

There seem to be plenty of seemingly unsolvable challenges that, once published openly, are completed successfully in an amazingly short amount of time. Clearly there are still a lot of unsolved mysteries left, but the strategy of publicizing problems as a way to get them solved faster is a fascinating phenomenon. Here are just a few more examples of some challenges that have been made open to the public.

DARPA's Shredder Challenge has been solved, and the winner is the team "All Your Shreds Are Belong to U.S." Now the companies that make shredders will have to create a challenge that'll make reconstructing shredded documents even harder... [url]
If you have a good idea about how to augment a camera to capture more than a picture, submit it here. The deadline is December 8th, so hurry up! [url]
The next James Bond is apparently supposed to apply online and solve a puzzle for the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Just don't break any laws to crack the code, or else you're disqualified (or worse?). [url]
To discover more interesting business-related content, check out what the deal is on StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Nikon Sued By Intellectual Ventures For Refusing To Pay The Shakedown Demand

Mike Masnick — Thu, 3 Nov 2011 19:36:47 PDT

Rob Hyndman sent over the news that Intellectual Ventures continues to ramp up its litigation efforts, with the latest target being camera maker Nikon, who has been sued for infringing on four patents. While I was just recently complaining about the lemon of a camera that Nikon sold me a year ago (and they'll never get another dime of money from me because of their response to the problems with their own camera), I'd never wish a patent lawsuit on anyone, even a company I can't stand. Intellectual Ventures claims that it had to make this move, because Nikon refused their offers to "take a license." Shakedowns sound so much nicer when you describe them as "taking a license." As for the patents in question:

6,181,836: “Method and system for non-destructive image editing” by Delean and assigned to MGI Software Corporation. Prosecuted by Blakely, Sokoloff, Taylor & Zafman. Includes 16 claims (4 indep.). Was application 08/933,798. Filed 9/19/1997 & Granted 1/30/2001.

6,121,960: “Touch screen systems and methods” by Carroll et. al. and assigned to ViA, Inc.. Prosecuted by Patterson, Thuente & Skaar, P.A.. Includes 30 claims (3 indep.). Was application 08/919,527. Filed 8/28/1997 & Granted 9/19/2000.

6,979,587: “Image sensor and method for fabricating the same” by Lee and assigned to Hynix Semiconductor Inc.. Prosecuted by Birch, Stewart, Kolasch & Birch, LLP. Includes 10 claims (4 indep.). Was application 10/330,287. Filed 12/30/2002 & Granted 12/27/2005.

6,221,686: “Method of making a semiconductor image sensor” by Drowley et. al. and assigned to Motorola, Inc.. Prosecuted by Huffman; A. Kate. Includes 34 claims (4 indep.). Was application 09/493,366. Filed 1/28/2000 & Granted 4/24/2001.

7,733,368: “Virtual reality camera” by Teo. Prosecuted by Perkins Coie LLP. Includes 22 claims (4 indep.). Was application 11/935,344. Filed 11/5/2007 & Granted 6/8/2010.

Yup. It looks like IV is simply trying to make sure that anyone who does anything must infringe on one of their patents, and has to pay up.

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DailyDirt: Can't Believe Everything You See...

Michael Ho — Mon, 3 Oct 2011 17:00:00 PDT

Digital cameras have really made the field of photography much more approachable. Even monkeys can take some pretty decent photos. So how hard can it really be to take some nice shots? Here are just a few projects that show a bit of the spectrum of artful photography.

If you want the subjects of your photos to look really small, take a picture of them next to a really big coin. Remember: it's not counterfeiting if you make coins the size of a coffee table... [url]
Tilt-shift photographic effects can be created in a few different ways -- to fabricate images of a crowd of people, looking like ants. Someday this is what The Sims will look like. [url]
If you think photography is easy, get ready to be mocked. If you like seeing photos with really bad composition and cheesy photoshop effects, youarenotaphotographer is the blog for you. [url]
Who knew that photos of pregnant women could become an internet meme like planking? Thankfully, there don't seem to be any photos of pregnant women planking. [url]
To discover more interesting photography-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

Techdirt

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Police Say They Can Detain Photographers If Their Photographs Have 'No Apparent Esthetic Value'

Mike Masnick — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 09:35:20 PDT

Apparently the police in Long Beach, California, have a policy that says if a police officer determines that a photographer is taking photos of something with "no apparent esthetic value," they can detain them. This revelation came after photographer Sander Roscoe Wolff was taking the following photo: The police officer somehow determined that there couldn't be esthetic value there, and thus, the photographer had to be detained and checked out. The police are defending this policy , saying that while officers don't have any specific training in what qualifies as "apparent esthetic value," they will stop anyone photographing things they don't consider to be something a "regular tourist" would photograph. I actually have to go down to Long Beach next month for a speaking engagement, and I'm now tempted to take a bunch of photographs that have "no apparent esthetic value."

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TSA Agents Continue To Lie And Say You Can't Photograph Or Videotape Checkpoints

Mike Masnick — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 08:39:51 PDT

The TSA recently reiterated that it is entirely legal to photograph or videotape airport checkpoints and security screenings:

Please be assured that TSA’ s goal is to protect passenger’s rights, including the right to record at passenger screening checkpoints, while ensuring that passenger screening operations can take place in an effective and efficient manner.

While the TSA may be telling the press that... it appears they forgot to tell the actual TSA agents on the ground who continue to threaten people for filming their activities.

The latest incident took place in Baltimore. The videotape was uploaded on July 10.

The action starts at 1:24 when a woman is videotaping the checkpoint process, waiting for her husband to walk through.

A TSA supervisor confronts her, telling her she is not allowed to videotape the checkpoint.

But she continues to videotape, asking him for a document that confirms it is not allowed.

He tells her he doesn’t have the time to show her, but will gladly call police and then have her removed from the airport.

At 3:16 in the video, a second TSA screener storms up and tells her to stop videotaping, but she continues to do so. When she continues to question their authority, the second TSA screener tells her she is allowed to videotape on the other side of the metal detectors but not once she is inside the checkpoint area.

That, of course, is not true.

These kinds of stories seem to keep popping up every week or so. Even more ridiculous, the guy in the video who claims he's the supervisor says that the checkpoint is "classified." Later, a second TSA official says she has to delete the video. None of that is true. In fact, it's outright ridiculous.

Later, the TSA agents appear to be entirely vindictive, asking for ID so they can write up a report. When asked why, the agent says he finds the questions asked "particularly... disturbing" because "there were children in the background" and the guy had asked whether or not the naked scanners could see his penis.

Once again, it seems like the TSA is making a mockery of the Constitution.

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DailyDirt: Digital Cameras From The Future

Michael Ho — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:00:00 PDT

The market for digital cameras has been undergoing some significant changes in recent years. Instead of more megapixels, consumers are now chasing higher and higher ISO numbers. But pretty soon, it looks like cameras will be able to handle some computationally-intense operations and offer some amazing image processing functions. Here are some quick links to some existing and upcoming cool cameras.

The Lytro camera is getting a lot of recent publicity over its after-shooting-focus function. But some of the examples of it seem a lot like Photoshop magic.... [url]
The Stanford Frankencamera combines common digital camera hardware with some software tricks to create a "camera 2.0" gadget. When will cameras (without a phone function) be sold with a monthly wireless plan? [url]
The first plenoptic camera has been on the market for a little while now, sold by Raytrix. Uh, $30,000 still sounds like a bit much for a 3 megapixel camera... [url]
To discover more interesting photography-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Apple Tries To Patent A 'Solution' To The 'Analog Hole': Transmitters That Block Your Camera From Working

Mike Masnick — Fri, 3 Jun 2011 12:20:10 PDT

A few folks have sent over the news of an ongoing attempt by Apple to patent a sensor system that would allow people to set up transmitters that would send a signal to mobile phones that would prevent the camera from working.

By pairing an infrared sensor with the camera already on board, portable devices could receive data from transmitters placed, well, wherever. Beyond simply blasting out text and opening links like a glorified QR code, transmitters could disable certain features, such as the camera, to prevent recording at movie theaters and music venues. If completely shutting off the cam seems a bit heavy-handed, watermarks can also be applied to photos identifying businesses or copyrighted content.

The patent was filed in 2009, which seems pretty late. I remember having conversations about how such things were technically feasible back in 2003 or 2004, just as cameraphones were starting to catch on, and there were a few early moral panics about them. It's difficult to see how this should be patentable, considering how widespread the idea was (along with discussions on how it could be implemented) way before this patent application was filed. Of course, the bigger issues are that (1) there are always going to be easy ways around that kind of thing, and (2) for theaters it seems like a pretty expensive proposition for pissing off your customers. Of course, it's not worth reading too much info into patents like this as an indicator of where Apple is going. The company files lots of patents, many of which are never really touched.

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A Look Back: Remember When Camera Phones Were A Dumb Idea?

Mike Masnick — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:48:00 PST

Earlier this year, I bought both a point-and-shoot camera and a new smartphone. The point-and-shoot is decent, though I had lots of trouble with the manufacturer, who originally sold me a busted camera, and then charged me to fix it (yay). However, I've noticed lately that I'm perfectly happy just taking photos with my smartphone instead. The camera quality isn't quite as good, yet it's pretty good. The shutter speed isn't quite as fast, but it's not bad. But, most importantly, the phone is always on me and it's always connected -- which is actually pretty useful, since the first thing I often want to do with photos I take is share them with others. On top of that, I'm finding all sorts of interesting apps that actually make use of the phone in interesting ways. Google Goggles, which takes a photo of something and then provides information about the product has come in handy a few times. I have another program that scans food barcodes and analyzes what you're eating. It's pretty neat.

The more that I've used it, the more that I've been remembering the stories we covered seven or eight years ago, where various tech "pundits" mocked the idea that anyone would ever want a camera phone. They were derided as some of the dumbest ideas ever, so I'd been meaning to put together a post looking back at some of those early predictions (and, um, modestly note that we correctly called what was going to happen). Just as I was searching for those old posts, someone passed along MG Siegler's perfectly timed (seriously, thanks man) post about how the point-and-shoot market is stagnating and beginning to die, as more people just use their smartphones instead. Siegler is rightly complaining that the camera companies haven't bothered to recognize the value of connectivity in their cameras, but like other products (standalone GPS? standalone mp3 player?) it seems increasingly likely that these will all be subsumed within the phone.

So, let's take a trip back and see. I pretty quickly found three such articles in our archives, talking about claims by two tech pundits, about how camera phones were a dumb idea and had no future. Two such articles were by David Coursey at ZDNet and the other by Andy Ihnatko at the Chicago Sun Times. Not surprisingly, all three original articles are gone from their original URLs, but the internet never forgets. Thanks to the Internet Archive, we have Coursey's first article where he states:

I'm not exactly calling camera phones a fad, but I'm not exactly not calling them a fad, either. My bet is there will be a relatively small number of people who shoot lots of camphone pics--in the U.S., we have a special term for these people: "12- to 24-year-olds." A much larger group will have a camphone but never click the shutter; we call those people "adults."

Then we've got the second article where he complains about how bad the quality of these things are, and states:

I just think that, if God wanted telephones to be cameras, he wouldn't have given us separate eyes and ears.... I've found that the fun of the camera phone wears off quickly. The first few times one of these gizmos arrived at my house for review, I dutifully ran out and shot a bunch of pictures and sent them to friends. But the process was cumbersome, and the results not much better than the fuzzy pics my friend sent me. It wasn't too long before I stopped thinking of these phones as cameras.... the fact is that I just find them boring.

And then we've got Andy Ihnatko's, where he predicts that the phones will never be cool. Well, technically, he notes:

Barring one of those reality-warping incidents in which Superman gets exposed to the wrong kind of Kryptonite and then there's this huge flash of light and all of a sudden, there's a big statue of Don Ho where the Lincoln Memorial should be, camera phones never will be cool.

That was seven years ago. And yet, in the last couple of years, camera phones have become quite cool... and without a reality-warping incident. Andy works up a nice head of steam, before concluding with the following:

So: They take bad pictures, they're expensive to operate, they drain your batteries and in a worst-case scenario they'll cause your name to land on some sort of watch list. And yet more and more of them are manufactured every day. I'm baffled.

Look, somewhere here in the office I have a normal-looking digital wristwatch that also dispenses PEZ candy. After you've checked the time and determined that the Tokyo durable-goods market closes in just 20 minutes and thus it's time to start dumping some options from your company's pension fund, you push a little lever and a chalky cherry lozenge springs into your hand. It's stylish and fun.

I've never devoted a column to that one, either, because the PEZ watch had exactly the right sort of impact on the Industry. It's cool in a chocolate-and-peanut-butter sort of way, but it's certainly not the sort of thing that causes columnists and analysts to spend an hour leaning back in their chairs and speculating about where this technology will wind up in three years.

Which is a bloody shame, because on the whole, the PEZ watch is a much sounder investment than a camera phone. It's about as useful, for starters, plus it's a one-time $7.95 investment.

However, as we noted in our response to Ihnatko at the time, the real innovation wasn't just putting a bad camera in a phone, but that people always had their phones with them, and that those phones were connected to the network -- and we noted that both things opened up all sorts of new possibilities, which we're now seeing in common usage every day. We also pointed out that complaints about quality were likely to go away, as quality would increase pretty quickly.

Technology advances. It's easy to condemn technology early on, but you need to be watching the trends and what makes new combinations valuable, rather than just comparing them to what else is on the market today. As we're seeing with the camera phone market today, compared to the point-and-shoot market, over time, the technology gets better and the new things that new technology allows start to become more and more important.

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Kuwait Bans Cameras With Big Lenses -- Because People Might Get Worried [Updated]

Mike Masnick — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:26:40 PST

Update: And, um, this story just got odder as the original article has been updated to state that the reporter got it flat out wrong, and no such ban has been instituted by the Kuwaiti government. I'm not exactly sure how one goes about getting such basic information totally wrong, but consider the rest of this post here for posterity, rather than accuracy.

This one is just confusing. According to the LA Times, Kuwait has announced that cameras with big lenses (i.e., DSLRs) are banned for use in public in the country -- with an exception for "journalism purposes." If it seems unclear as to why DSLRs were singled out, while smaller point-and-shoots and camera phones are allowed, it appears that folks in Kuwait don't understand it either. The best they can come up with is that many people haven't been "exposed to art," and won't know what a big camera is for.

What most Kuwaiti photographers have come to wonder is how such a decision could be reached by authorities, especially considering that digital cameras and cell phone cameras have the same abilities. What most people think of photography as a hobby has become a bit misguided due to the fact that the country has so little exposure to art. While using a DSLR, passersby may wonder if the camera is being used for the wrong reasons.... What often happens is that a big black camera tends to worry people. Taking a picture of a stranger would seem like much less of an issue if you were using a more discreet camera or even a cell phone.

If you thought some laws in the US didn't make much sense, at least you can be happy knowing that other countries are even more bizarre.

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Beware The Seductive Power Of Surveillance

Mike Masnick — Mon, 5 Apr 2010 22:01:00 PDT

Jessie Hirsh has a great blog post about the seductive power of surveillance, covering how surveillance systems put in place with limitations and for the best of intentions almost always get abused, as it just becomes too tempting to use them to a much greater level. The example he discusses, of course, is the recent webcam scandal involving a school that used webcam images of a student at home in a disciplinary action. In that case, the "surveillance" was intended for recovering lost or stolen laptops only, but the mandate was allegedly "expanded" when an image taken (supposedly because a "loaner" laptop had been taken off campus) also showed the student eating candy that the school administrators thought were drugs.

Hirsh also points out that, beyond the temptation to just expand what's monitored, being able to watch over someone just has it's own (potentially dangerous) addictive quality as well -- by noting "the intoxication people feel from being the watcher." That also, I believe, is a part of the reason why law enforcement is always so keen on increasing surveillance efforts. It's just incredibly powerful to be able to watch over others.

It's definitely something that needs to be thought about carefully, as we become an increasingly watched society. But how do you deal with it? Hirsh brings up the idea -- proposed many times before -- of being able to watch the watchers or even to open up the surveillance process to the public to have them help out. This horrifies some people, but it's at least something that people need to think about. Greater amounts of surveillance in society aren't likely to go away any time soon -- so recognizing the risks associated with it and coming up with unique and innovative solutions to deal with (or minimize) those risks makes sense.

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Canadian Judge Says No To Cameras In The Courtroom... But Okays Twitter

Mike Masnick — Wed, 6 May 2009 20:02:45 PDT

It seems like a popular topic in 2009 is how modern technology is opening up public access to courtrooms... if only judges would allow it. We've had numerous stories about things like Twitter and webcasting from a courtroom. To date, most stories are about judges banning as much as possible, but Michael Geist points out that in a case up in Canada a judge has barred television cameras, but allowed Twitter. Of course, since the specifics of the ruling do allow mobile devices to gather and disseminate news... what about someone using the camera on their mobile phone to stream the proceedings? That's not the same as a full sized TV camera that the judge rejected...

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How To Make CCTV Cameras Even More Awesome: Put 'Em On Wheels

Carlo Longino — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:12:47 PDT

The UK has taken great strides towards being one of the most surveilled societies on Earth, and cops in Manchester are doing their part by attaching CCTV cameras to Smart cars (via Boing Boing). They deploy the vehicles at intersections to catch distracted drivers, they claim, filming cars as they pass by, then reviewing the footage later to determine if drivers are talking on mobile phones, putting on makeup, or performing other distracting activities. Offending drivers then get a letter in the mail, usually with a fine. Police say the measures "are reasonable, proportionate and fair in light of the fact that we are trying to save lives." Is it that likely the cameras will actually save lives? The safety argument when applied to traffic cameras generally seems suspect, and so if that goal's out of reach, how reasonable is the surveillance?

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Patent Lawsuit So Bogus That The Judge Ordered Sanctions And Attorney's Fees Paid

Mike Masnick — Mon, 8 Dec 2008 15:51:15 PST

There are an awful lot of bogus patent lawsuits out there, but even when the lawsuits are tossed out it's very, very rare for a judge to order the plaintiffs to pay the legal fees of the defendants. However, in Illinois it just happened. Joe Mullin has the story of a patent that was quite clearly limited to an infrared camera linked to a GPS system. The patent examiner required the inventor to include the word "infrared" before declaring the patent acceptable and non-obvious. Yet, that didn't stop the patent holder from suing LG, Pantech and Disney for the Disney mobile phone service that let parents track where their kids were. The product was a huge commercial failure, but those are three big companies worth suing for infringement.

However, the judge noted, sternly, that the patent holder and the law firm that was handling the case (which had also worked on the patent) clearly decided to ignore what the patent actually said about it being for infrared cameras. This practice is more common than it should be. Even when claims are written to be narrowly focused, there's always some wiggle room, and many patent holders bring lawsuits on technologies that are pretty far from what's in the claims -- usually hoping that the accused will settle rather than take the issue to court. In this case, though, the judge pointed out that it was clearly a frivolous lawsuit, and ordered the defendants get reasonable costs and attorneys' fees. If this happened more often, maybe we'd see fewer ridiculous patent lawsuits.

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Toronto Removes Surveillance Cameras Due To Human Respect... Plans To Disrespect Humans Somewhere Else

Mike Masnick — Thu, 6 Nov 2008 23:20:25 PST

These days, it's become quite common to see surveillance cameras pretty much all over in any major downtown metropolitan area. There have been plenty of protests against such cameras, but it hasn't done much to stop them from spreading. However, Rob Hyndman points us to the news that Toronto has agreed to remove some controversial surveillance cameras that were placed at an intersection with a high crime rate. People protested over the potential for their privacy to be violated, and worried that all it would do is shift crime to neighboring streets. Six months of such protests have convinced the police to remove the cameras, noting that the decision was partly due to "human respect." Of course, that doesn't explain the next statement: "The supervisor also indicated that the cameras will be used elsewhere in the city." So, apparently, they feel perfectly fine disrespecting humans elsewhere.

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Traffic Camera Companies Looking To Give Gov't More Ways To Spy On You As You Drive

Mike Masnick — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:44:00 PDT

There's been plenty of backlash against red light cameras (which often increase the number of accidents) and speed cameras (which seem to have problems with accuracy). However, that's not stopping the manufacturers of those cameras from trying to get governments to buy even more of them for other purposes. A few folks have sent in a story from TheNewspaper (a site that actively fights against the spread of traffic-related cameras), noting that the two big firms in the space are pitching the cameras to governments for surveillance purposes, to keep records and data on motorists. They talk about using it to recognize license plates on stolen cars, but you can imagine it's only a matter of time until it also puts together a nice database on where you traveled when. It's yet another step towards proving the saying that you no longer have any privacy anywhere. At least not from the government. Maybe next up, they'll look to just put cameras directly in your cars, like some taxis have these days. That way they can track what you're saying as well.

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Does The Public Have A Right To Know Where Surveillance Cameras Are Located?

Mike Masnick — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:16:00 PDT

These days, people are beginning to recognize that surveillance cameras can be found all over -- especially in major cities. There have even been semi-mocking "tours" held by civil liberties supporters who will walk around a city and point out all the surveillance cameras there are. But there is an open question: are cities that install such cameras required to tell people where they are? The NY Civil Liberties Union is now suing the NY Police Department for not revealing where it's installing surveillance cameras, claiming that the public has a right to know this kind of information. Of course, the whole thing is a bit odd, as one of the major points of these surveillance cameras is deterring crime -- and what better way to deter crime than to let people know they're being watched. As the article notes, it sounds like the NYPD may be holding back this info just because it doesn't like the NYCLU. Alternatively, there's some thought that the info on the cameras will show that they're not particularly effective.

And, of course, even if people know where the official surveillance cameras are located, it might not matter, since New York City's Mayor Bloomberg has actively encouraged NYC citizens to be their own security cameras -- videotaping and photographing anything suspicious and sending it to officials. One would assume that the NYPD wouldn't be able to publish where every person with a camera is located as well.

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In Trying To Capture The Moment, Do We Risk Missing It Altogether?

Mike Masnick — Tue, 2 Sep 2008 12:47:00 PDT

Earlier this year, in writing about a musician complaining about fans with mobile phones in the audience, we noted that he seemed to be overreacting, but did raise some interesting points about whether people get so focused on documenting an event that they miss experiencing it. Now a columnist at the Toronto Globe & Mail, Ivor Tossell, makes a similar point in worrying about the effort he goes through to capture "events" like beautiful sunsets, when he's not even sure what to do with the photos afterwards. While much of the column focuses on the question of whether or not these digital momentos will last at all, an equally reasonable question is how many special moments are "lost" in the effort of trying to capture them with recording equipment.

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Singer At New Media Conference Turns Off Audience Member Cameras

Mike Masnick — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:21:28 PDT

You would think that someone who had "embraced" new media would understand the value of viral content, but that's not always the case. Derek Coward writes in to let us know of a bizarre incident involving a cover song singer who goes by the name Richard Cheese, who apparently sings "cheesy" loungey versions of hard rock songs. There's a podcast called Coverville that (not surprisingly) focuses on cover versions of songs. For his 500th episode, the host, Brian Ibbott, put together a concert at a new media trade show. He found some musicians who specifically allow their music to be used in podcasts without royalties (i.e., those who recognize the value of free promotion) and had them play a concert -- and Cheese was one of the headliners.

At a new media trade show full of podcasters and bloggers, one thing you should expect is that they'll have cameras, and they'll be taking photos and video. That's what they do. But, apparently this upset Cheese greatly, and he started walking around, grabbing people's cameras and turning them off. He later spit on someone who continued to film his concert, and yelled at the guy to turn his camera off. Considering that this guy's entire act is based on building on the works of others, and he understands the promotional benefits of having his music in podcasts, it does seem rather odd that he would be so upset about some folks videotaping him that he would then take their cameras, turn them off and even spit on people. Compare this to the other musician (who actually does write his own music) we mentioned recently who was taking fan made videos of his performances and stitching them together into a virtual concert.

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Comcast Tests DVR That Watches You... Literally

Mike Masnick — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:01:00 PDT

Broadband Reports points us to the news that Comcast has been experimenting (internally only) with putting cameras into DVRs in order to determine who and how many people are watching. Comcast lays out the reasons why this might be useful -- such as recognizing if a child is watching, so that child content filters are automatically turned on, or merely recognizing certain preferences based on who's watching. However, the creepiness factor of such an offering is quite high, and I doubt many people would be comfortable with such a camera -- especially coming from a company like Comcast that's been getting blasted for its traffic shaping efforts. Besides, it will be too tempting for marketers to avoid misusing such a technology. Nielsen, for example, has been trying to come up with all sorts of ways to figure out if people are really watching commercials or TV shows, or if they just leave the TV on and are doing something else. Think how tempting it would be to "spy" on people to get a sense of what they're really doing. If such a system was going to work, the homeowner would need to have full control over the camera. If it acted just like a computer webcam, with the individual having full control over how it was used and how it could be accessed, then people might be more comfortable with it (plus, conceivably it could open up the ability for people to do video chat via their TVs). But if it's sending any info back to Comast, it's going to make people exceptionally uncomfortable.

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San Francisco's Surveillance Cameras Have Horrific Frame Rates

Mike Masnick — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:50:54 PST

There's plenty of reasonable concern over the increasing use of surveillance cameras -- but if you're going to install them, you'd think that you'd want cameras that were actually useful. Not so in San Francisco. As Engadget points out, the cameras in San Francisco have ridiculously bad frame rates, making them more like still cameras than video cameras. In some cases, there are 10 seconds between frames, meaning that the "footage" is often not particularly useful in solving crimes. San Francisco still insists that the cameras are useful for deterrent purposes. Somehow we doubt that it's a "feature" of these cameras to protect privacy by being horrifically bad. It does make you wonder, though, who makes security cameras that only take a photo every 10 seconds -- and, even more importantly, why would anyone buy such a security camera?

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