A. D. Coleman with dinosaur, self-portrait, 8-18-2011.
My decision to out one IP reiver and one enabler of IP reivers has evoked a mini-flashmob response. In addition to Kyle Newberry’s jejune, derogatory email to me on this subject, describing me as “dinosaur bones,” this blog has received equally nyahnyah-level comments from other GenTweet visitors who, significantly, lack the courage to identify themselves publicly. Not a portent of worse to come, I hope, though perhaps I risk precipitating that simply by annotating the phenomenon here.
As a matter of editorial policy I don’t allow anonymous or pseudonymous commenting at this site, as I indicate in “Comments: Editorial Policy.” Photocritic International‘s comment space is reserved for those adults with enough understanding of citizenly responsibility to put their real full names on their comments, thereby making themselves publicly and professionally accountable for their own words, just as I do. Refusal to abide by this rule usually gets such comments relegated to the WordPress trash bin. Beyond that, as indicated on that same protocol page, “If you think someone’s wrong (myself included), prove it with reasoned argument. . . . Make your comment, even if brief, a contribution to the discussion. Add some pertinent information, relate an illustrative personal anecdote, explore another aspect of the question under consideration.”
Here, in their entirety, are two examples of the incoming GenTweet blather:
- From “yourmom”: “omg seriously dude, WHO CARES”
omg seriously dude, this blog has received over one million pageviews since its June 2009 debut. Awesome! omg seriously dude, this suggests that the majority of those who visit here and read the content actually care about the issues raised, the substantive discussions thereof that I post, and the usually thoughtful commentary thereon supplied by my readers. omg seriously dude, visitors to this site come here by choice, and opt to put their real names on their comments, so feel free to take your traffic, and your need to hide behind a fake name, elsewhere. omg seriously dude, either man up or shut up. Totally! LMAO :>
- From “Kate”: “You are a pompous asshole. Posting his email on your blog to poke fun at him is very tacky.”
What’s very tacky, “Kate,” is Kyle Newberry, a total stranger to me, deciding, in response to a published argument I’ve made at my blog, that he’s entitled to send me a snotty private email consisting of a three-word put-down, with impunity. What’s very tacky is your conviction that someone who behaves like that doesn’t thereby void the right to privacy I’d otherwise accord to email correspondence. What’s very tacky is you hiding behind the anonymity of your first-name-only identity while seeking to make an insulting public comment on the public position taken by an identified, long-established professional in a field in which you have no credibility, reputation, or accomplishment.
So let me give you a public face as well. A bit of online sleuthing yields up the info that you’re one Kate Wright, an “English transplant living in NYC” — Park Slope, Brooklyn, to be precise — and that you “like deer, books, photography, tattoos, fashion, design, movies, music, TED, dogs and BBC Radio 4.” With a Twitter account under the username “shesbenevolent” and a Tumblr account titled “No Help For That” — which, even combined for maximum aggregate content, provide no reason whatsoever for anyone to take your opinion seriously on any subject.
They do, however, offer up what you clearly consider to be utterly fascinating insights into your whereabouts from hour to hour and your tastes in nail polish, hand cream, tattoos, and trendy outfits. And toilets. Sample tweet from you, dated August 1, 2011: “Bryant Park officially has my favorite toilets. It has automized toilet seat covers. They’re my favorite. And classical music. And flowers.” (Talk about a pompous asshole, literally. As “yourmom” might say, omg seriously dudette, WHO CARES about your thunderpot preferences? ROFL :>)
Another sample tweet from you, dated August 4, 2011: “When I’m buzzed/drunk, I think I have a large quantity of profound/enlightening thoughts. I should start recording them and checking later.” An epochal experiment, with a surely breathless world awaiting the definitely unpredictable outcome. You go, girl. But please, Your Benevolency, spare me, and my readers, the results, and any more of your largesse. TIA.
As should be obvious to even the most casual visitor, I don’t produce this blog for dumb-and-dumber types who call people “dude” and think suckxmyxkiss@yourserverhere.com is a clever email address, nor for self-absorbed Brit-twit fashionista wannabes convinced the world takes an interest in where they shit. How on earth did these clueless twerps find their way here? Are they Kyle Newberry’s kneecap specialists? Another mystery of the intertubes. Immanuel Velikovsky was right: See what disasters can ensue when universes of discourse, definitely not parallel, collide?
•
Speaking of Twitter, and IP rights, the British Journal of Photography reports that “Alice Taylor, an amateur photographer, has accused Mail Online of using her images without authorisation, and published on her blog a series of emails she exchanged with one of the paper’s picture editors.” Mail Online is the web version of the Daily Mail, a British daily print tabloid. Taylor had posted her images of mannikins, made in a Gap store, at her Twitter blog, where “a picture desk staffer [at Mail Online] named Ariel Ramerez” found them.
Ramerez solicited permission to use the images in Mail Online. Taylor granted permission, contingent on a donation of 250 GBP (about USD $414) to her favorite charity. Ramerez demurred, and Taylor refused permission. Upon which Mail Online proceeded to use the images anyway. That’s crowdsourcing with a vengeance. Here’s the evidence:
Mail Online IP piracy, 8-15-11
Taylor complained, and they’ve since removed the entire page, leaving only an error message for anyone who seeks it out. Clearly an admission of guilt. Presumably, caught red-handed in blatant infringement of copyright, they’ll now have to pay Taylor a good bit more than she asked originally. Taylor has documented all this at her blog, Wonderland, complete with her email exchanges with Ramerez. These make it abundantly clear that Ramerez understood Taylor had turned him down, but didn’t let that deter him in the least. that didn’t deter Mail Online in the least.*
This shameless if small-scale looting pales, of course, when compared to the massive invasions of privacy systematically and gleefully engaged in by Rupert Murdoch’s goon squads at a competing publication. Just more evidence that the sliminess of the UK’s tabloid press doesn’t end at the edges of Murdoch’s empire, but manifests itself on every level of operation, including the acquisition of picture rights by any means necessary.
My correspondent “yourmom” will doubtless send Taylor an “omg seriously dude, WHO CARES” email, mandated by his conceptual rigor, while Kate Wright will most assuredly condemn Taylor as “very tacky” for having the temerity to post Ramerez’s emails on her blog — Wright’s keen sense of intellectual integrity requires nothing less. As for me, I offer Taylor my wholehearted congratulations. Soak ’em for all they’re worth, and embarrass them as well.
Not the first time for the Daily Mail to get caught stealing images, by the way. See Olivier Laurent’s November 26, 2010 story in the BJP, “Daily Mail apologises for image’s misuse.” Laurent’s story discusses a then-recent instance, but contains synopses of two other cases of Daily Mail appropriation of photographers’ work in 2010. Looks like a pattern to me. The Daily Mail’s online picture editor Elliot Wagland claims that such occurrences are accidents. Is he lying, or simply incompetent? You decide.
* Note, January 1, 2014: A source who wishes to remain anonymous informs me that the decision to use Taylor’s images without her permission came not from Ramerez but from a higher authority. I can’t verify this; picture editor Stefan Jeremiah told Taylor only that unattributed “human error” caused this breach. (They finally settled with her for for £2000, paid to charities of her choosing.) However, given the possibility that Ramerez had no role in this beyond the initial query to Taylor, I’m revising that line in this post, with an apology to Ramerez if otherwise credible reports in the press led me to misrepresent his accountability in this situation.
•
Interesting always to learn that, in addition to the occasional stray babe in the woods, I have sophisticated readers in unexpected fields. A recent WordPress pingback shows me that Gordon P. Firemark, Esq., who publishes the Entertainment Law Update and does its accompanying podcasts, linked to my post on the Macaque monkey self-portraits in his most recent post, “Episode 023 – Monkeying around with copyright law.”
Firemark’s a specialist, of course, but these issues affect photographers and makers of IP at all levels, from amateurs like Taylor on up. Only those subsidized by trust funds or rich spouses or academic sinecures or well-paid fulltime staff positions with benefits can afford the luxury of the “who cares?” attitude toward intellectual property rights and violations thereof. And that doesn’t entitle them to a “let them eat cake” response to the objections of those us who produce IP, for whom copyright, and the control and licensing of our IP rights it enables, are crucial to financial survival — now more than ever.
Let’s forget for the moment, that there are those amongst us-who for whatever reason don’t like or use the English language. Let’s get to the point. I love that self portrait that you did and I want to trade you for it, now as you know-I have photographed countless artist, photographers, burlesque stars-so what would you like. I really like that photo, it’s you being you. Let me know.
Happy to trade, J. P. It’s a digital file; I made the image with Photo Booth. I don’t even have a digital printer to print it out on. What do you suggest?
You rock! Keep on.
David Jamieson Gordon
Theres a new generation that has been brought up with the mentality of having to give something (always more) for free, in exchange for a promise of future success. For these people it’s probably normal to consider those who defend their right to have control over their work as dinosaur bones. It’s a sad cultural shift and it’s going to bite back at them.
Not sure I agree that the people who want everything free feel that way because they’re giving so much away free themselves. Most tweeters and/or bloggers produce junk, of interest at most to their small circle of friends — witness Kate Wright, above, whose Twitter account has 103 “followers.” They’re oh so generously “sharing” material that no one outside their own social circle wants, and that certainly no one, not even their friends, would pay for.
Somehow they’ve convinced themselves that, because they’ve made their amateurish creative output (I use the term “creative” loosely) freely available to me online, or to Chuck Close or whomever, all of our professional creative output — including material we ourselves haven’t elected to put online — should be available to them in turn, as quid pro quo. This doesn’t even qualify as irrational. It’s deranged.
People who don’t understand or respect copyright and intellectual property don’t make livings in photography. They’re maybe interested / fascinated by pictures, but they’re not photographers. Photographers who don’t defend their copyrights end up not professional photographers at all because they can’t support themselves.
Photographers LICENSE rights. Then they can eat.
A.D., Can you burn the image on a CD, I’ll take it from there. What would you like?
Can do. Let’s pursue this off-line.
Copyright infringement is such a serious issue, but photographers et al. need to remember the importance of actually registering their copyright (in the U.S., with the Library of Congress Copyright Office) if they hope to pursue any legal action. I know you know this well, Allan, but this forum is so important that I thought it worth mentioning here.
Copyright itself — which comes automatically with the creation of anything in transmissible form — empowers the creator to stop an infringement, using the courts if necessary. Registration of copyright with the LOC lets you sue an infringer for damages (including statutory damages) and court costs. Registration’s not a complicated process, nor an expensive one; you can register as large a batch of material as you care to bundle for $35. It’s the cheapest protection of your IP rights available.
I’m confused as to how posting comments I’ve made publicly, will shame me? If I were embarrassed for people to read them, I would make them private surely?
It’s also baffling and flattering that you spent so much time looking at me!
Just giving my readers some context within which they can assess your gravitas when pondering your comment.
Any flattery was unintended, but they do say there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Allan:
I wanted to note that given the link to Listal you provided, I did see the photographs of Richard Avedon. But providing the link to verify the violation of CR also offers us the chance to see the ‘exhibit’. I wonder how the blogger got such good jpgs to post?
What of the value in bloggers of this sort expanding the interest in photography, art, architecture, or graphic design by building their gallery sites?
This sort of blog/gallery is abundant among young graphic designers declaring their choices of current and historical designs that students then use in lieu of reading books on the subject.
Awareness of CR infringement is a tough issue to be successful in combating as the internet expands exponentially.
best,
Stephen
It’s not hard to build an online “show” of images by any of thousands of photographers. Museums, commercial galleries, and other venues, along with book publishers, have put countless images online with permission from the copyright holders. Others have put images online with questionable permissions, or none. Google “richard avedon,” click on Images at the top left of your Google screen, and you’ll see what’s available on the menu.
What you cite as “the value in bloggers of this sort expanding the interest in photography, art, architecture, or graphic design by building their gallery sites” may be real, but it’s intangible and can’t be quantified. Does this Listal “gallery” of 33 Avedon images — no captions (except for the subjects’ names, no dates of making, no commentary, no link to any source of additional information, such as the Richard Avedon Foundation website — truly “expand interest in photography” in any meaningful way? And should the Avedon estate consider 33 verifiable, unquestionable violations of its copyrights a price it’s appropriate to force them to pay for this hypothetical “expanded interest”?