In Ridley’s book, The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation, he explains that Garrett Hardin’s famous Tragedy of the Commons example which reads:
“Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.” p. 232
is a mis-reading of history. In actuality:
“…an English medieval common was a complex spider’s web of jealously guarded property rights…these were rights to graze, cut wood, dig turf, turn out pigs to eat acorns, catch fish, or take gravel, sand or stone. And these rights were privately owned by individuals…commons came in effect to be owned jointly by those who possessed these rights in common, rights that were extinguished, converted or trampled in the process known as enclosure. But commons were never free-for-alls.” p. 232
As you see, the tragedy was availed in a democratic manner. People obeyed their limits on the common property because, well, they didn’t want it to be taken away. If a farmer abused his/her privileges, by grazing more sheep or taking more gravel than alloted, s/he would lose them altogether. In this way, the commons persisted and all ‘won’. If left to a free-for-all, the commons would befall the tragedy Garrett Hardin surmises and become unusable. Nobody, not even the abuser, would ‘win’.
The photography, artwork, literature and other works under the Creative Commons license today requires a similar balance. Artists put their work into the commons and other artists use and credit that work to the benefit of all parties. The original artist benefits by getting his/her work spread further (only realized through accreditation), the Creative Commons benefits because this positive flow encourages more artists to submit their work, and the mashup artist benefits because s/he has a good breadth of works to pull for inspiration and materials.
Now, if the accreditation is broken, it ceases to benefit the original artists, who have a bad experience with Creative Commons and won’t put future works into the commons for usage, so, ultimately the mashup artists suffer as well because they have less material to pull from for their own creative works.
Lane Hartwell has been suffering a tragedy of the commons for quite sometime now. Although her photographs aren’t under the Creative Commons license (they are marked All Rights Reserved, which means someone actually needs to contact her if they want to use one of her shots, which is simple to do on Flickr or on her blog) she has offered a great deal of amazing photography, documenting a very exciting time in history. In my opinion, her photographs are essential, just as Scott Beale‘s are (he has also been repeatedly frustrated by non-credited use of his work), and the great tragedy that has come of the unfortunate tipping point incident of the unauthorized/uncredited use of Lane’s work in a video by the group Richter Scales.
Now, of course, the Richter Scale’s use of the photo wasn’t extraneous, but since the video was viewed hundreds of thousands of times (prior to takedown), there was a missed opportunity there for the many photographers whose photos were used to make this group famous. In their post entitled, Credit and “Here Comes Another Bubble, the author explains:
We did make an effort to credit those people we actively worked with on the video, as well as Billy Joel, which we listed in the comments on YouTube and on our blog. But, given the large number of sources we used, the task of assigning credit for each source seemed impractical.
He goes on to mention Lane Hartwell…without linking to her photos or her website. As one commenter said, “Basically if I am reading your post correct, what I hear you saying is “Mea Culpa, but we’re lazy.”" In actuality, the time one can take to list the photo credits is a fraction of the time it would take to go out and duplicate the work of those artists to make the same presentation.
But that is where we will head if we continue having a cavalier attitude (I like how Lane put it) towards the use of the work of others. The more we abuse, the more we will lose.
I learnt this the hard way a couple of years back. Flickr was my wonderland, filled with gorgeous photos. I would search groups and tags until I found the cornucopia of fabulous shots to make my presentations pop and people go ooooh and aaaaah. Now, to be clear, I understood the importance of attribution even back then and gave full credit, but I did not respect the wishes of the photographers. I used photos not marked with CC licensing (many were marked as Lane’s are, with All Rights Reserved) and didn’t clear my usage with the photographers.
I, of course, was busted and learnt a very valuable lesson in respect for artist’s work. One photographer emailed me and told me about a site that I have grown to absolutely love and adore, iStockPhoto, which has made a world of difference in my presentations as I know I have explicit rights (paid for affordably – so I am supporting the artist directly) to use the photographs in my presentations. My presentations look hot, the photographers get paid and iStockPhoto grows so more people can benefit. I still use some Flickr photos (CC Non-Commercial/Commercial Attribution Share-Alike licenses only), but I always ALWAYS ALWAYS credit the photographers, providing a link to the original photo (also a requirement from Flickr, btw). If someone was to ask me to remove a photo, I would without question. It is not my work to argue.
Whether or not Lane invoking the DMCA is legal or not isn’t really what matters here and making it about ‘hurt feelings’ belittles what is really at stake here. What is at stake here is that the continuance of individual abuse of the privileges of the works put into the commons will lead to fewer of those works being put into the commons.
If we want the ‘free the content’ world to work – and that would be ideal for all – we have to learn to respect the work and the producers of that work. Putting our productions online shouldn’t mean that we give up all claims and possibility of profiting from it and we should discourage those who abuse this. Just like in the English medieval commons, we need to understand that:
Common property and open-access free-for-alls are very different things. (p.233)
Tara, I would disagree that what is legal isn’t what matters here — I think it matters a lot. The law is an expression (theoretically at least) of the principles that society agrees are important, and I think fair use is one of those principles.
It’s not about “abuse of the privileges of the works put into the commons,” as you put it. Showing someone’s photo for a split second in a humorous video is not an abuse of anyone’s rights, and to present it as such distorts what copyright is supposed to convey. It is not an absolute right to control your work in any way you see fit.
I get that law is, theoretically, the expression of the principles of society. But I also think in these ‘grey areas’ we have to think about a bigger picture…and this IS a grey area.
What you’ve missed is that this is not the first instance of abuse of Lane’s wishes (that she makes explicit by marking her photographs as All Rights Reserved) and the default should be 1. asking for permission (takes all of 5 minutes, whereas going out and re-shooting that photo would take hours or days, depending on the whereabouts of Richter Scale) and 2. giving credit…even in a long laundry list of links (how I often do it at the end of the presentations).
An easy way to do this is to ‘favorite’ each photo as you choose it to use so you have an easy list to go back to when it comes to attribution or permission gathering…and/or copy and paste the info into a running text file to put into the end of the document.
I’m no lawyer, either, but I do believe the whole point of copyright is to control the distribution of one’s work. Split second or not, all they needed to do was: ask permission + give credit. Easy.
I haven’t missed anything, Tara. I’m familiar with the context of Lane’s complaint, and how people continually take her photos without permission. And I realize that much of that is wrong — but not this particular case. As I said in my post, copyright was not designed to give content creators the right to pursue and charge (or even bully) anyone who uses their work, regardless of how or where they use it.
That’s why the concept of fair use originated in the first place, so that people wouldn’t have to seek permission for every tiny snippet or snapshot. Asking permission and giving credit may be nice, but it isn’t required for something like the Richter Scales video, and I would argue that it shouldn’t be. Fair use is a worthwhile principle in its own right, not something that content creators allow to exist at their whim.
Tara, since you are looking at the history of commons (btw much of today’s environmental problems are tragedies as Ridley describes them), then it is also quite educational to look at the history of copyright law and how it has been considerably strengthened towars the rightsholder (in restrictions an timespan) in the last 10 years or so.
In essence, Copyright was not originally designed to give total control of distribution, it was designed more to give a balance so creators could be rewarded for creating their own material, but at the same time use material that had gone earlier.
For a good precis, Lawrence Lessig talks a lot about this creeping copyright in his book The Future of Ideas, noting that now you have to clear billboards shot in the background of movies, even aircaft flying overhead, and notes this wasn’t there even 10 years ago.
Tara
Great comments. It’s good to see someone else supporting Hartwell’s position on this.
Is it that hard to provide a credit and a link?
Good points, and good writing.
Thanks for the info. I guess I should make it more clear in my post, but I’m not really that concerned about law here. I’m more concerned about ethics…
Thanks Shelley. I was really happy to see that you were taking this up, too. The whole ‘gender preference’ thing was asinine…I didn’t even know how to comment on that one. I think you handled it very well.
Exactly.
Interesting post, good points, and thanks for all of those links to explore. I agree that the issue is not as simple as what the law says. If that were so, this discussion would have died by now. I look forward to the statement Lane is going to make – hopefully tomorrow.
I totally shouldn’t be addressing the legal stuff…because it is rather not even applicable to my argument (which is more centered around ethics than anything), but, Fair Use:
Fair use is a copyright principle based on the belief that the public is entitled to freely use portions of copyrighted materials for purposes of commentary and criticism. For example, if you wish to criticize a novelist, you should have the freedom to quote a portion of the novelist’s work without asking permission. Absent this freedom, copyright owners could stifle any negative comments about their work.
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/
If Richter Scale was criticizing Lane’s work, Fair Use would apply. But they were using Lane’s (and others) works to criticize something else. Therefore, this is not really Fair Use.
From Wikipedia:
When Tom Forsythe appropriated Barbie dolls for his photography project “Food Chain Barbie,” Mattel lost its claims of copyright and trademark infringement against him because his work effectively parodies Barbie and the values she represents (cf. the 2003 9th Circuit case Mattel Inc. v. Walking Mountain Productions). But when Jeff Koons tried to justify his appropriation of Art Rogers’ photograph “Puppies” in his sculpture “String of Puppies” with the same parody defense, he lost because his work was not presented as a parody of Rogers’ photograph in particular, but of society at large, which was deemed insufficiently justificatory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_v._Koons
The difference in the cases prove my point. If actually parodying Lane Hartwell’s work, Fair Use applies. If parodying Web 2.0 and using Lane’s work to do so, it does not apply (to her work).
Oh…and notice how I used links to establish my references? Took me all of 2 minutes. That’s all I’m sayin’
Hi Tara,
I like the way you seek to separate the legal and ethical portions of this problem. Personally I don’t think it would have been too much trouble to note all the sources and give attribution. On the other hand I actually think it is vitally important to free culture that we aren’t legally required to give that attribution (if you accept for a moment that this might be fair use). The reason for this is that while giving attribution to an image found on flickr might be easy, what if one can’t easily find the copyright owner? If one had to give attribution in that case it would prohibit usage, and with everything copyrighted these days when created, and most works not so nicely annotated as on flickr. Well I’m sure you get the idea.
Tara – excellent writeup.
Thank you Tara for taking yet another angle than I’ve seen posted yet on this interesting case. At least it’s serving to bring up these issues again in a fresh way. I really liked that you included example of yourself “violating” the wishes of “All Rights Reserved” licensees, but then finding a viable solution for everyone.
“Is it that hard to provide a credit and a link?” – James Lewin
Bingo, it’s either lazy, or – and I have seen this happen, not necessarily in this Richter Scales case – the remix artist is hoping to pass off the work as their own complete inspirationa nd creation beginning to end, especially to audiences not as savvy as those of us that have been around the block with social media.
I am tired of this argument coming back to legal interpretation alone as the sole guide here. As far as I’m concerned, I agree with Tara that we need to look at all the issues this case brings out in the open for deeper review. Like ethics. Ethics leans a bit more in the spirit of art itself than law, and here I speak as an artist.
I don’t ask for permission either when I remix, which in real-time media, just isn’t feasible, but hello it’s a no-brainer and exceedingly simple on the World Wide Web (a web of links mind you creating a network) to provide a URL.
Even on video, you can include artist/site on the ending credits. Then hyperlink on companion to the video sites/social networking sites thus the content creator provides yet additional context and multiple layers to what would otherwise just be TV on a computer screen. And adding the link then adds to potential interaction, contributing to the conversations by including ALL of the original artists in the conversation (otherwise they’d be anonymous). (Hyperlinks definitely alert artist they’re being “included” in the conversation when they ego-surf).
Foregoing attribution does a disservice to the entire community forming around the art piece in question by excluding the contributing artists. Anyhow, that’s another point I address in this post about this case and art as social object sparking conversations.
Thanks Tara! I’m glad you chimed on this case too.
That gender thing wasn’t just asinine, that gender thing is at the core of some part of rather large and hideous influence in our little sphere here. It’s not excusable, nor is the disrespect given to Mathew when he civilly asked for it to be dropped.
Maybe we might know ‘yeah he’s a jerk of course he’d bring up gender’ or ‘I don’t read his site’, yet sadly, more than enough do and there IS influence there. Advertisers advertise, investors are influenced, who knows the extent.
And everyone seems so silent about that particular part. I find that problematic and far from being over (for me anyway).
Initial buzz was quiet and fearful and apathetic. Say what? Do we not stand up loudly for what we believe in?
(My original reply may have been lost in submission, so here is a second)
My concern is also the ethics, though I am thinking of the general case rather than this specific one….hence the allusion to copyright law going too far.
How can anyone believe it is ethical that a small segment (c 1 second) of commodity media (there are many photos of this person in the public domain) can be used to issue a takedown notice of a far larger piece of original creative media?
The implications of this, if unchallenged, are profound.
Sweet write-up. I totally support Lane on this and all photographers and artist who create. The entire point of that video was that people are out there earning lots of money. On the other side, you have Lane Hartell, who is not making nearly as much money as these web speculators and she actually creates something. How can these video makers make such a major gaffe in judgement. They are hurting the very people who they appreciate. First they remove art from public school programs and now art can be used without recognizing the artist? In a few short years all we will have are speculators. Sad…..
I wish I could edit my post above because I made a couple of important gaffes myself:
1) I meant the 2nd sentence to read:
“The entire point of that video was that people are out there earning lots of money and not actually creating anything tangible.”
and,
2) the photographer’s name is not Hartell, but Hartwell.
Tara, your links only tell part of the story. The principle of commentary and criticism doesn’t just apply to commentary and criticism of the work in question — if it did, then fair use would be a whole lot easier to figure out than it is right now. Obviously you didn’t really read my post.
As for the ethical issue, I agree that providing credit is the nice thing to do — but I’m still not sure it’s fair to ask someone to provide credit for photos that only exist on screen for less than second, and are in no way remarkable or distinctive. That’s just not a workable scenario, I don’t think.
“Obviously you didn’t read my post”
Dude, your post was the first I read. I don’t know why you would make that assumption. Personally, I’m thinking that we are just at a value split more than anything. I’m talking about something COMPLETELY different than you are on the same topic and because we speak different languages (you of the head, me of the heart), you feel unheard.
Ethics aren’t just nice. They are core to our community. It is the SIMPLEST thing to do after finding a photograph (the search itself is harder). Here are the instructions I would love to put out on every photo site:
1. move your little black pointy thing (called the cursor) up into the address bar (the long white box in the top of the browser)
2. place that cursor on the rightmost or the leftmost end of the URL (http://whatevertheaddress.com/photo.jpg) and hold down the right hand button of the mouse as you move the cursor to the other end of the URL
3. hold down the CTRL and C buttons together (on a Mac it is Squiggle C) – you have now copied the URL
4. paste the URL into a text file by holding down CTRL and P (or squiggle P)
Then move onto your next photo search. This way, you will have a full list of photos you have downloaded onto your desktop for your use to credit later.
Please remember that if a photo has: All Rights Reserved as the licensing or Royalties indicated in any way, you will need to contact the photographer to ask their permission as they have indicated that they don’t want people to just randomly use that photo by using that license.
The Richter Scales dudes used common property for their piece. They should have (and not just to be nice…it is community “law”) ran a list of urls for each of the photos enclosed and they DEFINITELY should not have used ALL RIGHTS RESERVED photos.
When someone uses the ALL RIGHTS RESERVED license, they are CLEARLY indicating that they do not want their photos used randomly.
Now, Lane would have been happy to let everything ride, but when contacted, the author didn’t think she deserved credit. Then, he wrote a blog post and STILL didn’t link to her. I don’t know, ethically, I think he’s either lazy or self-centered. When a similar thing happened to me, I fell over myself to rectify the situation. Without those photographs taken and posted online there would BE NOTHING to put in our funny little viral videos. I, personally, am thankful for the presence of these and will do EVERYTHING I can to make sure their presence persists.
Lane is making a statement and I think she should stick with it. People have to recognize there are real people with real lives and real talent behind the stuff they cavalierly pull to use for their funny videos.
This ecosystem will not work if the only ones recognized are the viral video makers.
First, Tara apologies this is not on-topic and if you want to delete, I do understand. But I did want to respond to Eric, though he wrote the comment to you:
To be honest, I was dumbfounded when I saw that comment. I think Mathew tried to get the comments back online and on topic, and I think that’s one reason this issue wasn’t brought up (well, I did mention in my weblog).
Another reason is a bit murkier. In this comment thread, I know of three who have brought up the issue of, well, sexism is about the only way to call it, among the so-called ‘elites’: Tara, Jeneane, and myself. None of us have gone unscathed for this, and I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I’ve become a lot more wary of discussing gender issues in my space.
As for the rudeness, Mathew would have to respond to that or not. I would have liked to see people call the individual out on the obnoxious behavior, because I’m seeing a massive increase, and an associated arrogance that it doesn’t matter: certain individuals ‘own’ this space, and can get away with anything. I see a lot of these people not only linking to each other, but excusing each other’s behavior as they indulge in the worst form of rhetoric, and downright nastiness.
Frankly, it’s getting to the point where the only way I can stay weblogging is to not even go near any of the people who appear frequently in Techmeme. They’ve formed a self-perpetuating machine that rolls over anyone in the way.
This does go back to the topic. The response against Lane Hartwell was unusually aggressive. She spoiled people’s fun and is being treated as if she were a new China, censoring dissidents. It’s hostile out of proportion to the event.
Funnily enough, I never would have thought gender would be part of the issue until that comment was made. Now, I have to wonder. Was some of this aggressiveness because Lane is a woman, acting assertively? Look at the comment Tara made about the one post: this wasn’t a person acting from ‘hurt feelings’. Would the individual who wrote that say the same thing about a guy? Would he even have been as hostile.
This has been a very disquieting experience, not the least of which is the lack of accountability for some things said.
Sorry Tara. Again, excellent writing on your part.
Thanks for that comment, Shelley. I think it’s important. I, too, am wary of writing about gender. I just wrote a quick post to update and point to Lane’s statement and alluded to it, but couldn’t bring myself to actually write about it.
I want to think about this a little more. Maybe pull out some particular quotes from comment sections to illustrate a point. I don’t know, what do yo think? I mean, this stuff, as Eric says, is going unchecked all of the time and only getting worse.
Tara, thank you, as always, for being a voice of reason in a chaotic sea. I was starting to think the world had gone mad. I mean, why villify an artist for daring to assert her rights of where and how her work is published? And then to belittle her person, her body of work, and photography as a valid artform in general, and therefore not worthy of *deserving* an attribution? Simply madness!
To be honest, I really don’t know. I read the post that linked to your new post, from License to Roam. She had some sharp insight into the situation.
I am actually surprised that more people haven’t responded more publicly to what Michael said in comments. We’re all a little cautious about ‘comment diving’, but at the same time, Michael Arrington has been one of those more virulent about not saying things in comments that can hurt people.
His follow up comment may say it all: we pick our gang, we defend our gang, and to hell with every one else. That has real potential to not only filter, but wall off entire groups of people from ‘the discussion’, including women.
In some ways, I’m disappointed that Mathew didn’t follow up more strongly on this.
And I still wonder if Lane is having some of the problems she’s having because she is an assertive woman who made a move against a bunch of guys. I didn’t bring up gender as an issue, but now that’s it been brought up, OK, let’s talk about it as an issue.
Will I write on this more? I’ve done so in the past, most times without a lot of support from other women. That’s just something I don’t know if I can deal with anymore. It’s not the guys lack of support that bother me, it has been the women who all to frequently side with the guys.
Guess that makes me a coward. *bwock* *bwock*
Yeah, in the past two days of working on and talking about this on Seesmic and Twitter and such (and soon I’ll be blogging it point blank), I am quite amazed at the amount of ‘oh well yanno, that’s kinda how it is’ vibe that’s kicked off.
The DIFFERENCE (which is what I have to keep pounding in and getting even more off topic) is that this isn’t about some ‘Them’ we can’t reach, this is a very real them that are us.
I refuse to live in fear and I refuse to live in fear of Arrington, but then again, I am not a software startup and I’m not a woman and I have a lot less to lose in fighting this fight. (or maybe not, but I’m pretty sure, I’m not a woman, heh)
“Is it that hard to provide a credit and a link?”
Of course not, but should it be required? If you see this as a transformative work, a new piece of artwork than this does become fair use. If you want to argue based on ethics ask yourself this, is it ethical to suppress new art by putting undue burdens (with respect to copyright restrictions) on its creators? Certainly you will argue that providing a credit and a link does not construe an undue burden because its easy, however, suppose the work is a collage of photos is it really tenable to put this burden on the artist of the transformative work? The impassioned arguments are from people (like me) who are imagining what the world would be like if mashup artists had to pursue copyright permissions for everything. That is truly madness.
Well I wrote on this. I don’t expect it to go anywhere.
Great post, Shelley.
I totally agree with the observation that Lane is being characterized certain ways because she is a woman. I found it rather humorous that the Richter Scale group said they are: men who sing.
I was also thinking about the fact that the Richter Scales made that video as a MUSIC VIDEO to promote their latest work. Imagine if Justin Timberlake went through Flickr and started to scoop photos. Yes, many who don’t make a living at photography would be excited to have their photos show up in a JT video, but I’d assume that professional photographers who are paid for that sort of thing would be rather upset about it and Justin would be held liable.
Eric…I live in fear of Arrington.
I know it’s dumb.
It’s hardly a burden. I do it all of the time. I create presentations that are 170+ pages long and include close to 100 photos. I always attribute properly (and only use photos where the photographer has explicitly stated through CC licensing that it’s cool for me to use it).
I compare the 5 second pain of pasting in a URL to a page with the 5 hour/day/week/month pain it would be for me to set up and take all of those shots. Hell, I couldn’t! I’d need a private jet! Access to people I don’t have!
Mashup artists have to respect fellow artists if they wish to gain the same.
Good write-ups Tara, on a really tricky topic. Every part of this issue makes me a little queasy — if only it *were* just a simple problem of attribution. Shelley made a point elsewhere about scenarios where there can be trouble asserting ‘ownership’ of work, and that seems to be a growing issue with digital… or at least easily-copied creations. Nobody has a problem with the notion of ownership of a physical object I create in the real world; nobody is going to do a ‘mash-up’ creation with a wooden table or clay pot I make. But there certainly is an increasing cultural pressure–especially in tech-specific areas–that anything that CAN be copied and distributed should be.
When my first programming book was published, people immediately began saying that it wasn’t in the ‘spirit of open source’ to expect people to pay for such a thing, especially when a PDF of it ‘cost nothing’ to distribute. I’ve probably made 100 posts on tech forums explaining that I make my sole living through the sales of my books, that it took me nine months working full-time to do my last one, and that if people don’t pay for the book, I don’t pay my rent. I’ve also tried to explain that if I’m forced to find another means of making a living, than I will be unable to write the very books they are finding value in (but don’t think they should have to pay for).
On the other hand, there are probably a zillion things in my books which have been at the least inspired by things (examples, metaphors, ideas, etc.) which were often in the copyrighted work of others (standing on the shoulders of giants and all that). The more difficult it is to build on the work of others, the less progress we make. Giving credit seems like an easy thing to do until/unless you’re in a situation where it becomes “credits all the way down.” So things like what Lane is doing could contribute–as others have suggested– to the ‘chilling effect.’
On the third hand, I also see a huge inconsistency and in some cases hypocrisy or double-standard over what constitutes fair use. We incent/reward/encourage the use of someone’s work as long as it’s used to mock/criticize the creator (especially someone we don’t agree with), but we discourage/punish the use of someone’s work to create something new. It’s almost as though the legal and ethical encouragement of fair use becomes, “if you can’t say something mean, don’t say anything at all (with that person’s work).” This was not as much of a problem when people doing satire/parody were entertainers or those doing social commentary, but on the internet today… you ALSO get the trolls, griefers, attention-seekers, etc. thrown in to the mix and it’s ridiculously easy for them to use anything found online. (Not to mention that one person’s griefer is another’s inciteful satirist)
As for the gender thing and the mob arguments — well, as always there is self-righteousness and mob behavior on BOTH sides. There always is. And this is another one of those I’ve seen from both sides, been guilty of on both sides, and in this case I still don’t know how I feel about it. I do think that at the least, Lane picked an odd battle… as others have suggested, if she’d taken this action against a video that used her photo in some horrific/offensive context, she’d have had a lot more support. Legally, and perhaps ethically, perhaps it shouldn’t have made a difference–her work is her work– but we all know it would have.
Exactly. The deeper issue is how we value artists, really. I don’t think the presence of art will ever go away (certain people are born to create), but if we don’t allow them to make a living, there will be less of it.
Great point about the fair use parody thing. I hadn’t thought about it that way. In all fairness, though, Weird Al is necessary.
So is political commentary…I do believe that general commentary and educational also fit under the protection of Fair Use. But I do think we need a primer!
Lane picked an odd battle, but she has been experiencing this behavior for quite sometime, so it was a long time coming. I’ve watched her for months being frustrated by this. Most of the time, though, people print an apology or rectify the situation. Richter Scales did not.
I agree about Weird Al! I’m not suggesting those things *not* be allowed (criticism, parody, commentary — I’m having John Stewart withdrawals), I’m saying it’s a flawed motivation to encourage a potentially negative use and not ALSO support a positive use of someone’s work. It’s not that I don’t support Lane’s right to assert ownership and use of her work, but I think we need a pretty liberal definition of ‘fair use’ (I’m a life-long educator), and that yes THESE guys could have easily rectified the situation, but there are so many scenarios where that could be very difficult. I think there are a lot of folks who agree with her about deserving attribution (especially after requesting it) *in this particular case* but disagree with what she did in general because they are worried about the issue on a meta level. I have a foot on both sides of the fence, but if I had to choose a side, I’d be *slightly* more inclined to disagree with what she did–for the sake of the big picture. But it’s 49/51 for me.
“The deeper issue is how we value artists”
What do we consider an “artist”? I write copyrighted books, and I’m definitely not an artist. I wrote a lot of posts with graphics and charts and thought-bubbles I created, but nobody would confuse them with art. For that matter, I wrote an awful lot of code in various languages, but none of my code was art.
I know the word ‘content’ is a crappy word, but for lack of a more appropriate one at the moment — a lot of us produce digital/easily-copied ‘content’ that we make our living with, but that has nothing to do with art or being an artist.
I guess my question is, is this about *art/artists* or about *creators of content* where ‘content’ could be considered an artistic creation (artistic photos, digital paintings, music, cartoons, videos) or… something else that may be equally valued (learning material, for example), but definitely not ART.
My brain hurts trying to think about this ; )
Heh. I guess I see all content producers/creators as artists at some level. Whether it is code, writing, photography, design, video, etc. Of course, that is a broad category, so I would probably narrow ‘artist’ to someone to makes a living at their ‘art’.
So, unfortunately, Kath, I would call you an artist.
Hey…did you see her statement?
http://fetching.net/2007/12/my-statement-regarding-the-richter-scales-here-comes-another-bubble-video-dispute/
If I’m interpreting that statement correctly, this was never *about* credit/attribution and that if they’d originally had a credit for her photo it would not have changed the situation (and given that the photos were ‘all rights reserved’, that makes sense). She did not want the photo used, period. So this particular battle was purely about ‘Fair Use’… although you made some excellent points about the CC Attribution license that so many of us use for most of our, um, ‘art’ ; )
“I’m saying it’s a flawed motivation to encourage a potentially negative use and not ALSO support a positive use of someone’s work.”
I’m not sure where this came from. Parody doesn’t have to be ‘negative’.
The issue with Lane’s photo is that wasn’t a necessary or integral part of the whole. The work would not be harmed, or less,if the artist’s wishes were met and the photo removed or replaced. The important cultural statement (?) could have been made without it.
To be honest, I think this was an excellent test case, because it polarizes the issue, generating debate.
One can only hope that this spat brings Lane’s work to a wider audience. Its a fraught issue. I tend to err on the side of independent copyright holders – and make sure they get get credit if I can. That’s as it should be. Then again, if sampling couldn’t happen the musical world would be infinitely poorer. David Weinberger recently pointed to an interesting Firefox plugin called Zotero, which automatically stores citations, including those from flickr. One thing which would help the situation would be if Flickr urls had trackbacks. obviously if someone really wanted to rip of the creator of work they could, but i am sure its usually oversight. its kind of like privacy and notification laws- its the notification, or threat of it, that drives the business need for privacy. On all other hoohah- arrington or whatever, i am not close enough to echo chamber these days to know much about that. friction-based attention though is evidently part of his personal business model.
I think you mean control/command-V for paste. Unless you’re using a very different text editor than I am.
To me this whole controversy is an opportunity for us to demand (or demonstrate the market for) better tools for rights-management built into our applications. With CC, the machine-readable data is there, and should be easy to integrate and carry across to create automatic credits lists or even automate permissions requests for going to a deeper level than is explicitly licensed (for example, creating a commercial work that wishes to use noncommercial-licensed material).
I’m not talking about DRM enforcement, I’m talking about user-centric tools for managing lists of assets and their sources.
What are you talking about? You acknowledge that the work wasn’t put under or used under a Creative Commons license, but then you go off on some wild tangent of an argument that assumes that it was.