Techdirt. Stories filed under "photographers"

Copyright Holders Will Define Details Of UK's Orphan Works Bill, But Not The Public

Glyn Moody — Wed, 15 May 2013 00:02:26 PDT

The UK's new orphan works legislation allows works to be classed as orphans only after a "diligent search" has been conducted to find the owner. The fear expressed by some is that this "diligent" search won't be very diligent, allowing publishers to use materials that aren't orphans. That's actually wrong for a number of reasons, as Techdirt explained recently, but the continuing furor from photographers in particular has been such that the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) felt compelled to issue a document entitled "The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 –Your photos and you" (pdf) explaining how the system would work, and why the fears were unjustified.

However, that document still does not answer the central question of what "diligent" will mean. A post on Out-Law.com provides some information about how this will be addressed:

"The 'diligent search' requirement will be defined through a working group so that it can reflect current best practice across all sectors," a spokesperson for the IPO told Out-Law.com. "This will make sure that any requirements are practical and manageable. The working group will include representation from creators, including the photography sectors, and users such as museums and archives."

Reading that made me wonder who exactly was on this working group, so I contacted the IPO's press office asking for details. Here's the list of organizations they kindly sent me: Society of London Theatre and Theatrical Management Association
BBC Publishers Content Forum
JISC
National Museum Directors' Council (NMDC)
Copyright Licensing Agency
Musicians' Union
Creators Rights Alliance
British Association of Picture Libraries & Archives
British Equity Collecting Society
Focal
Authors Licensing & Collecting Society
The National Archives
Stop 43
Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance
The Association of Photographers
British Screen Advisory Council
Publishers Licensing Society
The Association of Illustrators
Society of Authors
Directors UK
Producers Alliance for Cinema & Television
UK Music
Association of Authors Agents
There are two things that struck me about that list. One is the appearance of Stop 43, probably the most vociferous of the photographer groups that have been complaining about the new orphan works law. Let's hope that its presence here, and thus its ability to contribute to the definition of "diligent", means that it drops the rhetoric about how the UK government has "reversed the normal workings of copyright," when that's simply not the case.

The other thing is that in contrast to the two groups representing photographers, there is not a single advocate for the somewhat more populous general public. Of course, that's absolutely par for the course: the public is routinely overlooked whenever it comes to asking "stakeholders" what they think about proposed changes to copyright. The UK's welcome move to liberate hostage works at last would have been the perfect opportunity to break yet more new ground by engaging directly with groups representing the 60 million people whose views are never properly considered. Sadly, that seems not to be happening.

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DailyDirt: More Trendy Photos

Michael Ho — Mon, 8 Apr 2013 17:00:00 PDT

The news of several portrait studios shutting down marks an end of an era. Families used to get all dressed up to go to a special corner of Sears where a professional photographer would stage a nice portrait, and fuzzy warm photos would be sold in a respectably-sized frame. Sure, there are still plenty of other places to get your own image held hostage by copyright, but it's just not the same. Digital photography has brought photo-taking to the masses, and almost anyone can take a nice looking (staged) picture. Here are just a few examples of what kids these days are doing with their cameras.

Fake Dragonball attacks seem to be a growing trend in staged photography these days. Even if you haven't seen the Dragonball anime that inspired these photos, the concept of being able to blow up stuff via telekinesis is a pretty widespread meme nowadays. [url]
Vadering is another fad where you make it look like you're a Sith lord choking various people. I find your lack of faith disturbing.... [url]
Owling was a spin-off of the more popular meme of planking. Unfortunately, it didn't catch on and elucidate how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie roll Tootsie pop.[url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

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The Pointless Copyright Freakout Over Pinterest

Mike Masnick — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:07:57 PST

I've been debating whether or not it's worth doing this post for a few weeks now, but with so much sudden interest in Pinterest and how it fits in the copyright scheme of things, people keep asking "when," not "if," we were going to write about it, so we might as well tackle it. If you don't know, Pinterest is an insanely popular social network of sorts, built around the concept of "pinning" images you like, creating collections of such images and sharing them with your friends. It's been the buzz of Silicon Valley for quite some time, and hit the mainstream in a big way a few weeks ago. Lots of commentators like to point out that it's widely used by women -- because that's apparently noteworthy in contrast to the typical internet buzzy services that get the usual "early adopters" who tend to be more of the male persuasion. Either way, it's crazy popular. I first heard about it in the context of teenagers sharing "looks" -- creating effective collages of images of clothing/style/accessories and sharing them with friends in a "wouldn't this look nice" kind of way.

But, as Pinterest hit some sort of inflection point right around the Super Bowl (with the help of Facebook integration), a bunch of people started noticing that there were some significant copyright questions involved. After all, the basic way it works is you make use of images you find online and "pin" them into a collection. But if you don't have the rights to use those images, is it infringement? Some are pretty sure that it violates the law in that it wasn't clear it would really qualify for fair use -- and there were also some questions about how thoroughly it complied with DMCA takedown requests. Either way, the issue began to explode with a ton of articles all discussing the copyright questions.

As this suddenly got so much more attention, Pinterest just rolled out a "nopin" meta tag, which allows website owners to basically block images from a site from being easily "pinned" to a Pinterest collection. Depending on who you listen to, this either answered all the copyright questions or merely represented a "small step" towards dealing with them. For angry photographers, I'd bet they're going to claim the latter is more accurate, if they'll even grant that much.

There's also a separate, but related, issue concerning Pinterest's terms of service that includes some boilerplate language that pretty much every online service includes and when someone reads them for the first time, they freak out about how Pinterest is claiming too many rights over the uploaded works. This is an exaggeration -- and we've seen the same thing happen with TwitPic and others, where the terms are there to make sure you're granting the site an effective license to display the works, and not as some nefarious plan to claim ownership of the works.

Either way, the community that's been most vocal about Pinterest and how it's something evil are photographers. While there are plenty of photographers who are quite reasonable on copyright issues, for some reason, it seems like photographers often can be the most extreme on copyright issues, and it's no different here.

However, it seems like (as the music industry did with Napster, and now the movie industry has done with cyberlockers), they're getting the wrong message out of what's happening online: these services are opportunities, not threats. If you want to understand why, I recommend reading (thoroughly) a recent blog post by photographer Trey Ratcliff, who goes into great detail not just about how Pinterest has been really useful for him (including in driving revenue), but that photographers need to stop treating everything as a threat, and start looking at these things as opportunities. Again, you should read the whole thing, but here are a few useful snippets. Ratcliff points out that treating everything as a threat means that you spend all your time trying to angrily shut stuff down, rather than getting your work out there. But there are real advantages to getting your work out there (and he explains why it should be high res, and without watermarks, contrary to the standard way that many photographers do thumbnails with annoying watermarks):

Most people in the world are good people. If they find digital art they want to buy for a print or use in a commercial campaign, they will figure out a way to get you money. 99% of your traffic is truly “window-shoppers.” They will look at your goods, take note, enjoy them and move on. But 1% will want to make a personal or business transaction with you....

[....]

StuckInCustoms.com has healthy traffic that grows every year thanks to good old-fashioned word-of-mouth. We don’t advertise or buy links or any of that stuff. So I depend on the Internet and nice people like you to link back to the site and tell your friends that you find something unique and cool.

Last month, we had 714,143 Pageviews and 234,107 unique visitors. 15% of this traffic came from Pinterest. Amazing! If Pinterest didn’t exist (a reality some photographers would prefer), then our traffic would be 15% less. Choosing to switch-off innovation is a fool’s errand, especially in today’s world. It reminds me of the scene in Anthem where the council of candle-makers becomes rather upset at the invention of the light bulb.

[....]

Someone on Pinterest can make a board called “Feeling a bit blue,” and they can fill it with cool-colored melancholy photos. Isn’t this just another way of making a poem? If I built up this pinboard and sent it to a friend, it’s nothing but a visual poem in a new medium. It’s just as powerful, and, in many ways, more accessible.

Pinterest is simply another way (a newer, evolving way, mind you) for humans to communicate with one another. It is increasingly the job of digital artists to inspire, share and bring more beauty and communication into the world.

There really is a lot more there, and it's worth reading the whole thing. Also, Ratcliff appears to be an absolutely awesome photographer, so I recommend checking out his work too.

Either way, his point is a strong one, and it's really no different than what many people have made to reactionary folks in other parts of the content industry. You can spend all your time trying to kill innovation or stop people from doing what they want to do... or you can bask in the wonderment that people want to do stuff, encourage them to do so, and make it easier for them to help spread your works... all the while making it easy for them to support you. Ratcliff seems to be a perfect example of our discussion on the benefits of being open, human and awesome.

And, in the end, that's the key point. Whether or not Pinterest is a copyright landmine is kind of besides the point. It's a really fascinating innovation that is having massive (unprecedented) success in terms of users. Clearly, it's tapped into a market by providing something that a very large number of people absolutely love. When that happens, there are always opportunities, and smart photographers should be focused on finding and embracing those opportunities.

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TSA Warns Against Evil Photographers Taking Pictures Of Planes

Mike Masnick — Thu, 9 Sep 2010 15:38:54 PDT

william points us to a Gizmodo post highlighting a TSA poster that appears to be suggesting that people photographing airplanes at airports somehow have nefarious intentions: This really does seem bizarre. Is it really so evil to take photos of airplanes? Now, some might point out that they're just asking people to be "vigilant" (which is misleading anyway), but how does it help to suggest vigilance should be targeted at people doing an activity which is legal? It's the equivalent of crying wolf, and that doesn't help anyone.

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Newspaper Gets Around Photography Ban At Football Event With Cartoon Illustrations

Mike Masnick — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 03:26:40 PDT

We've covered a few different recent stories of various sports leagues or professional sports teams trying to limit how journalists and photographers can report on their games, and have even covered cheeky attempts to get around such restrictions by having reporters cover events from home while watching on TV. Now, a whole bunch of you have been sending in variations on a story in the UK, where the Southampton football team apparently has decided to ban photojournalists from taking images of matches, instead telling newspapers they need to buy photos from the team's "official" photographer.

Thankfully, some of the newspapers covering the latest match felt that was ridiculous, and chose to respond in some rather creative ways. The Plymouth Herald, who was covering the visiting team, decided to employ someone to draw cartoons of key moments in the match, rather than using the official photographs:

Perhaps even more amusing? Some reports point out that The Sun covered the game by carefully making sure to never mention Southampton or any of its players. Well played.

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Photographers The Latest To Sue Over Google Book Search Deal

Mike Masnick — Wed, 7 Apr 2010 18:33:00 PDT

This is hardly a surprise, but with the Google Book search lawsuit/settlement with authors and publishers still under discussion, it seems that photographers have decided to file their own lawsuit. This was, in large part, driven by the judge in the existing case, who excluded photographers from the current lawsuit/settlement, because the photographers have a very different perspective and demands concerning the scanning.

Via The Trademark Blog, we get a look at the actual filing: While Google decided to cave rather than fight the good fair use fight on regular book scanning, it would be interesting to see if they decide to fight the photographers on this one. I would think they have a very strong fair use case -- and there is at least some case law to support this position. I know of two recent cases that had at least somewhat similar fact patterns, involving commercial entities using copyrighted images as part of an aggregated product -- and both were found as fair use.

Just last year, we wrote about a book that used old magazine covers drawn by artist Basil Gogos that looked at Gogos' artwork. The magazine that originally published the artwork claimed copyright violations, but the district court found a strong fair use claim in noting that it was "fundamentally transformative in nature." The other case, involves old Grateful Dead posters, where someone published a book of the posters, but was sued by the Bill Graham Archives, claiming copyright infringement over those posters. Once again, the court said this was fair use, despite it being a commercial endeavor. Again, part of the reasoning was that this was an aggregation of the content, and the overall quality of the images did not match up to the original posters. Given the low-fi quality of Google book scans, it seems likely that the same claim makes sense for photographic/visual media works that Google scans in books as well. It's worth noting, also, that the Grateful Dead poster decision took place in the same district court (Southern District of NY) where this new lawsuit is being filed.

Even so, this whole thing seems confusing, and feels like a pure moneygrab by photographers. The images from a Google book scan are not high quality in any way. They're certainly not going to replace or act as a substitute for the original works. In fact, it's difficult to see how they would do anything but increase the interest in the original, higher quality, works.

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Making Your Work Hard To Find Isn't A Feature

Timothy Lee — Thu, 6 Mar 2008 16:08:00 PST

Wired has a write-up of PhotoShelter, a site that helps "protect" photographers from the scourge of their work being too easy to find. They cite Lane Hartwell, the photographer who got bent out of shape when one of her photographs appeared briefly in a popular viral video, as an example of the kind of photographer who would benefit from the site. I can understand why she'd be unhappy that she didn't get credit for the use of her photo, but I don't see how switching to PhotoShelter would have improved the situation. Most of the money in photography is going to be from commercial clients. Companies tend to be pretty good about paying for photographs (and other content) because they've got deeper pockets and less plausible fair use claims. On the other hand, non-commercial uses of photos aren't going to be very lucrative; most individuals and smaller non-profits will use a lower-quality free image rather than pay to license a professional photograph. Certainly the creator of a viral video isn't going to pay royalties on a product he's planning to give away for free. So the smart way to handle things is to treat non-commercial uses of your photographs as promotional opportunities, seeking credit rather than compensation. That should build your reputation as a photographer and hopefully get more commercial clients interested in your work. PhotoShelter appears to be a solid site for professional photographers looking to catalog and market their photographs. But the fact that the site makes it more difficult for people to find and use a photographer's work isn't something photographers should be cheering about.

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