The IP thieves and copyright infringers are out in force, multiplying like rabbits. And, like all good zombies, they want to eat you — with a special hankering for your brains. I’d advise that educators should exercise wariness in using their sites as teaching resources; the enabling of serial infringers isn’t much different from doing the infringing yourself, and most schools have stringent prohibitions against the use of pirated materials in the classroom. […]
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The only people keeping the truth about these negatives from the public are Rick Norsigian and Arnold Peter. By their staunch long-term resistance to engaging any recognized researcher in the field of photography history and conservation — dozens if not hundreds of whom accept such commissions regularly on behalf of private, corporate, and institutional collections — to submit these negatives to scrutiny and testing, they conspire to keep this “controversy” going and ensure that no hard forensic data gets produced. […] This “buyer beware” warning should instantly raise a red flag for any prospective purchaser, particularly since it appears at a site where otherwise the words “authentication,” “authenticated,” “expert opinion,” and “by Ansel Adams” get sprinkled around like minced parsley on the specials at a yuppie brunch spot. Not to mention an international media environment in which Team Norsigian’s leaders continue to insist on the authenticity claimed. Team Norsigian begins to resemble the medieval “ship of fools”: a transportable dumping ground for those considered one brick shy of a load by their communities. With this disclaimer, they invite others to hop on board. […] Things haven’t gone well for Team Norsigian in their month-long effort to persuade the world that Rick Norsigian bought 65 gen-u-wine Ansel Adams negatives for $45 at a yard sale in Y2K. Their cluster of presumed experts have mostly had the plausibility and/or relevance of their credentials impeached. David W. Streets, the Beverly Hills gallerist handling the marketing of prints and posters of these images, has been outed as a convicted felon. The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust has filed suit against them in San Francisco Federal District Court for trademark violation. An increasingly plausible alternative, “Uncle” Earl Brooks, has been proposed. […] |
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Copyright for All Primates?
These images became public-domain material the moment the macaque generated them. Caters licensed the rights to exclusive use of them from Slater, but then faced a conundrum: How could they exercise those rights? Only by maintaining strict control over their availability. (For example, if they’d licensed reproduction rights to a T-shirt manufacturer.) As soon as the agency released digital files of the images for distribution via an online publication, the Daily Mail, their public-domain status became activated, so to speak. […]