Comments on: Are Flickr Photos Fair Game

By: Thomas Hawk

Thomas Hawk — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:16:18 +0000

Good write up on the matter.

By: Seth Anderson

Seth Anderson — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:20:08 +0000

yeah, that’s an excellent question, and one that has probably never been answered. I think there is a lot of Fair Use doctrine that has never been litigated, and thus is unclear. I don’t really understand how taking an image in its entirety is Fair Use either.

What are they called, Letters of Provenance (or something similar)? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provenance

By: Marie

Marie — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:09:30 +0000

I’m not quite ready to buy this. There’s got to be more.

Okay, so someone downloads a high resolution copyrighted photo from your Flickr stream. He has it printed on the finest material (paper or canvas?) with the finest dyes, frames it, hangs it on his wall. Suddenly, the person owns this piece of art in its entirety.

But, then the person dies. The person’s executor comes in with an art appraiser. The appraiser says, I don’t know who took this picture, but it is greater than all the pictures ever published in National Geographic combined. I have a buyer who will pay $1 million. And so it gets sold.

And you know nothing about any of this, because you’re living in your uncle’s basement in Flint while going insane because you can’t pay your bills.

This is fair use?

I don’t know, maybe artists go through this everyday.