Snow Day – Explored

Snow Day!
Snow Day!

Amusingly, this iPhone snapshot I took yesterday  1 made it into Flickr Explore, currently ranking #163. [Update: later this same day, now ranked at #24!!] Still don’t quite understand the Explore algorithm, as I’ve taken this exact photo dozens of times, or more, but this particular one resonated. I’m just happy it snowed finally.

What is Explore?

Explore is a Flickr feature with the intent of showing you “some of the most awesome photos on Flickr.” Photos are automatically selected by computer according to a secret algorithm called Interestingness (see below for more about that).

Is Explore a showcase for the top Flickr photographers?

No. It’s for photo viewers, not the photographers. It exists so that, at any moment, anyone who wants to view interesting photos can go to Explore and have a reasonable chance of seeing something interesting. Does that imply that photographs not in Explore are uninteresting? Of course not. There are many, many wonderful photos uploaded to Flickr each day that aren’t selected for Explore. But to serve its purpose, Explore only has to include a small sampling of all of the photos on Flickr (currently at 500 per day or about 0.005% of the daily upload volume). And Explore tries to show photos from as many different people as possible to create a diverse selection.

Explore is for the viewers. It’s a way for Flickr to show the world a sampling of what is being shared there. It’s there for those who are new to Flickr, who are lost in the vastness of it all and don’t know where to begin. It is not a “best of” listing of photographers. It is not a popularity contest.

What is Interestingness?

Interestingness is what Flickr calls the criteria used for selecting which photos are shown in Explore. All photos are given an Interestingness “score” that can also be used to sort any image search on Flickr. The top 500 photos ranked by Interestingness are shown in Explore. Interestingness rankings are calculated automatically by a secret computer algorithm. The algorithm is often referred to by name as the Interestingness algorithm. Although the algorithm is secret, Flickr has stated that many factors go into calculating Interestingness including: a photo’s tags, how many groups the photo is in, views, favorites, where click-throughs are coming from, who comments on a photo and when, and more. The velocity of any of those components is a key factor. For example, getting 20 comments in an hour counts much higher than getting 20 comments in a week.

(click here to continue reading Frequently Asked Questions.)

Flickr even owns a patent on Interestingness, aka Interestingness ranking of media objects.

According to BigHugeLabs, I’ve had 104 photos that made Explore (though some dropped out later), but who is keeping track! ahem…

Thanks, Flickr!

Footnotes:
  1. with Hipstamatic and tweaked with Snapseed []

Reading Around on November 3rd through November 4th

A few interesting links collected November 3rd through November 4th:

  • Fluidr / photos and videos sorted randomly – A random assortment of my photos (via Chicago Sage)
  • The Paranoid Style in American Politics – Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86.It had been around a long time before the Radical Right discovered it—and its targets have ranged from “the international bankers” to Masons, Jesuits, and munitions makers.
  • Authoritarians, pt 2: the Problem Broadly Outlined | Cogitations – How is it that Bush and Cheney could take us to war in Iraq with constantly shifting rationales, unleash the NSA to spy on the country at large, and with the aid of foot soldiers like John Yoo cobble together shoddy legal findings as flimsy justification for torture and other abuses of executive power?

Reading Around on August 22nd through August 24th

A few interesting links collected August 22nd through August 24th:

Paul_Cézanne_047.jpg

  • xkcd – A Webcomic – Tech Support Cheat Sheet – boy, is this the truth in flow-chart form or what.
  • 10 Photography Pet Peeves We’d Throw Down a Black Hole | Raw File | Wired.com – “Here are our top photography pet peeves that we would like to throw into the abyss.” Agree with most, though pretty rare that I’m annoyed by a photographer’s watermark. If it covered the entire photo maybe, otherwise, not much of an issue.
  • No More Mister Nice Blog No, Wait, I Know This One–the Answer to “Who Does Joe Klein Think is the Crazy Left?” Glenn Greenwald, for fifty points. – This is a real life story, so it doesn’t exactly have a point, or a moral, or even a conclusion except to say that the most striking thing of all about Klein’s attitude towards me and presumably to his other readers was his assumption that although he’s famous, and important, and people read his work that we read it as though it were a continually scrolling chyron at the bottom of a busy news screen and that we have no memory of what he has said, or done, or stood for. …He thought he could tell me that his argument with Glenn was something other than it was and that I couldn’t go back, for myself, and review the evidence. Klein’s Klein-line is that the parts of his past where he shilled for the Iraq war, where he covered for the excesses and abuses of the Bush Administration, where he played Hugh Hewitt’s favorite “I ustabee a liberal but these dudes are crazee” guest can be forgotten because today he wrote something supportive about Obama’s health care plan.
  • Joe_Lieberman_Escapes.jpg

Reading Around on August 9th

Some additional reading August 9th from 11:29 to 13:20:

Dictation at the Chicago Daily News

  • What’s a Big City Without a Newspaper? – NYTimes.com – “But parts of the system are actually not broken at all. Journalists still know how to gather news. And the Internet is a step forward in disseminating it. What’s broken is the pipeline that sends money back to where the content is created. Most of it is available to readers online, free, including on newspapers’ own Web sites, where it is not sufficiently supported by advertising.”
  • 1434002769_1a680ac1c3_o.jpg
  • Flickr “Not Currently Working” on Account Restore Feature After Users Suffer Losses of Thousands of Photos | Thomas Hawk Digital Connection – “s it stands now when a user’s photostream is deleted at Flickr it is gone. Erased. Permanently and irrevocably. Many Flickr users are appreciably nervous about this fact, especially after reading stories about hackers infiltrating flickr accounts or when overzealous underlings in the Flickr Censorship Division seem to overreact to minor Flickr Community Guidelines violations by nuking users’ photostreams.

    When Flickr nukes a user’s photostream, it’s not just the users’ photos that are gone. It’s all of the rich, important and vibrant social metadata around the photos that are gone with it. I’ve had many very long engaging conversations around my and others photos on the site. When Flickr nukes your stream those all get erased from existence.”

  • Make A Messenger Bag From Plastic Bags (Video) | TakePart Social Action Network™ – “Wouldn’t it be great if you could make a reusable messenger bag out of all of the plastic bags that have accumulated in your house? Well, Make magazine shows us that for a fun Sunday project you totally can, all it takes is a little ironing and sewing.

    Ideally we want to stop using plastic bags all together, so they don’t contribute more waste to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and continue to create a demand for oil used to produce them”

You Should Sign Up for the B12 Daily Email

Taking a cue from Kottke1, I am reminding you that you should sign up for my daily email. Signing up should only take a minute or less if you are a fast typer, I absolutely promise to never send you unsolicited email2. Feedburner/Google has enabled the email to include items that don’t necessarily make it to my weblog, but that I still think are interesting, or are otherwise topics of note. Like news stories that I Digg, YouTube video I “favorite, Flickr photos I upload, etc.

Plus you should subscribe to my daily email3 so that you have something fun to read as you drink your morning beverage. A dose of B12’s Solipsism can only enhance your day!

Hotel Visitor

Oh, and you should follow me on Twitter too, if you are so inclined. I have other social media accounts, but I don’t care if you friend me on Facebook, or subscribe to my Tumblr blog, for instance.

Footnotes:
  1. I hope Jason Kottke doesn’t mind being referred to by simply his last name, I’ve been reading his weblog for so long now, to me he is the blogosphere equivalent of single-named celebrities like Bono or Nenê []
  2. unless you want me to, of course. Ahem []
  3. usually gets released around 1 AM CST []

Eugène Atget on Flickr

The George Eastman House has released 97 historic photos taken by French photographer Eugène Atget to The Flickr Commons1. Awesome stuff.

Purporting to make photographs not as art, but as documentary aids to artists, Eugène Atget left this world with an oeuvre that captured the transformation of Paris at the turn of the last century. Although Atget is now heralded as a canonical figures in the history of photography, his humble beginnings and methodologies during his photographic career attest to his simple desire to record his city as he knew it.

Born in 1857, in Libourne near Bordeaux and raised by his uncle, Atget’s youth was molded by his time as a sailor. Upon his return from the sea, Atget turned to the stage and pursued an acting career in provincial cities and later in Paris suburbs. After minor success as an actor, Atget abandoned the stage and at the age of forty took up painting, then quickly turned to his true life’s work as a photographer. For the next thirty years, until just a few short months before his death in 1927, Atget undertook a systematic documentation of the city of Paris, creating approximately five thousand negatives and nearly ten thousand prints.

Because he refused to work with the latest advances in photographic technology, Atget’s images evoke a sense of timelessness, due in part to the slower exposure times and the pre-visualization of the final image that was required. Atget produced glass plate negatives, using an 18 x 24 cm. view camera that was fitted with a brass rectilinear lens and had no shutter. Rather, Atget would simply remove the cap from the lens and capture the scene before him, allowing any motion to appear as a blur. Atget carried this large camera around Paris as he worked to document its essential elements: streets, shop windows, building facades, architectural details, and the landscape of the public gardens and parks in and around the city.

Atget’s unique documentation of the French capital captured the eye of surrealist photographer Man Ray who worked to promote Atget as one of the pre-eminent photographic modernists. Later, the efforts of Berenice Abbott, who acquired Atget’s negatives and prints after his death, finally situated Atget’s work in the history of photography where it continues to gain in stature and influence.

[Click to view photographs by Eugène Atget – a set on Flickr]

The best way to view these photos is to click on the slideshow option, and be transported.

His photographs really blazed the trail that I (in my humble fashion) and so many of my Flickr compatriots follow: taking photographs of the city we live in, warts and all. Photos of strangers on the street, of shop windows, of public art, signs – all of these are subjects I revist over and over.

Footnotes:
  1. no known copyright restrictions []

10 Big Myths about copyright explained

It has been a long time since I read these ten myths of copyright by Brad Templeton. Here’s what he says about Fair Use (seems relevant to the Sonia Zjawinski kerfluffle, and follow-up)

My posting was just fair use!”
See EFF notes on fair use and links from it for a detailed answer, but bear the following in mind:
The “fair use” exemption to (U.S.) copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That’s vital so that copyright law doesn’t block your freedom to express your own works — only the ability to appropriate other people’s. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. Are you reproducing an article from the New York Times because you needed to in order to criticise the quality of the New York Times, or because you couldn’t find time to write your own story, or didn’t want your readers to have to register at the New York Times web site? The first is probably fair use, the others probably aren’t.

These rules apply to content you pull from the internet as well. If you wanted to criticise the poker strategy advice on pokerlistings.com, you could reproduce sections of that advice in your criticism as fair use. Just copying it to make your own poker site would probably be plain old copyright infringement.

Fair use is generally a short excerpt and almost always attributed. (One should not use much more of the work than is needed to make the commentary.) It should not harm the commercial value of the work — in the sense of people no longer needing to buy it (which is another reason why reproduction of the entire work is a problem.) Famously, copying just 300 words from Gerald Ford’s 200,000 word memoir for a magazine article was ruled as not fair use, in spite of it being very newsworthy, because it was the most important 300 words — why he pardoned Nixon.

Note that most inclusion of text in followups and replies is for commentary, and it doesn’t damage the commercial value of the original posting (if it has any) and as such it is almost surely fair use. Fair use isn’t an exact doctrine, though. The court decides if the right to comment overrides the copyright on an individual basis in each case. There have been cases that go beyond the bounds of what I say above, but in general they don’t apply to the typical net misclaim of fair use.

The “fair use” concept varies from country to country, and has different names (such as “fair dealing” in Canada) and other limitations outside the USA.

Facts and ideas can’t be copyrighted, but their expression and structure can. You can always write the facts in your own words though

See the DMCA alert for recent changes in the law.

[From 10 Big Myths about copyright explained]

I still think Fair Use doctrine is woefully fuzzy in re: photography. Marie Carnes posits a very interesting scenario in a comment, namely what happens when an artist is separated from income from their work by someone using Fair Use to separate the artist from the work? The original artist would still seem to have copyright over their original image, but might never know about it. She says it much clearer, check it out.

Take Your Stand

Most of the Fair Use examples I have seen deal with text, a few with music, but I haven’t seen a clear, cogent argument about photography reproduction, despite reading many interesting comments, such as the one one this Flickr post. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough – are there any examples of Fair Use of a photograph you are familiar with?

Are Flickr Photos Fair Game

The New York Times intellectual property dust-up continues (my response here). Ms.Zjawinski’s original article received about 9 pages of comments before they were closed, I’d estimate about 9-1 criticizing her for a lack of respect of copyright, and lack of respect for photographers.

Her response to her critics boils down to claiming Fair Use.

In order to get the legal perspective on this I talked to Anthony Falzone, a law professor at Stanford and the executive director of the Fair Use Project there. He said that an “All rights reserved” label on a photo did not necessarily give the photographer total control.

“When you say ‘All rights reserved,’ that simply means you’re reserving all the rights the law gives you,” Mr. Falzone said. “But that begs the question: What are the limits on the rights the law gives you?”

That is where the doctrine of fair use comes into play. Mr. Falzone pointed to the 1984 Supreme Court decision in Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, which said that it was legal to use a VCR to record copyrighted content from broadcast television for personal viewing.

“There are a lot of parallels with what’s going on with Flickr,” Mr. Falzone said. “People are posting photographs and know very well that they are going to be viewed by people on a computer, and if someone wants to print a photo out that they see on Flickr to enjoy some other time and in some other place, that seems fairly analogous to what people did with the VCR.”

From that legal angle, if someone decides to download an “All rights reserved” image from Flickr and put it on their PC desktop or print it at home, they should be covered under fair use. But the law has not fully caught up with the digital era, leaving lots of gray areas.

“The real core question is, is this a fair use or not?” said Corynne McSherry, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. “Frankly the answer is, we don’t know.” Ms. McSherry suggests playing it safe and always asking.

[Click to continue reading  Are Flickr Photos Fair Game for Home Printing? – Gadgetwise Blog – NYTimes.com]

Fair Use is different for an image than, say for example, text. For text, you can copy three paragraphs from an article, or pull ten sentences to Fisk them. Film, capture a scene or two to make a point (Ebert, for instance), music, a few bars, a chorus1.

An image is not divisible – either you take it in its entirety, or you don’t. Much harder to refer to an image in the abstract, or as I understand Fair Use doctrine, it depends upon the amount of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.

Wikipedia defines Fair Use:

Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author’s work under a four-factor balancing test.

The doctrine only existed in the U.S. as common law until it was incorporated into the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107, reprinted here:

“ Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

the nature of the copyrighted work;

the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;

and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

[Click to continue reading Fair use – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Thomas Hawk, never one to avoid controversial topics, sarcastically2 celebrates The New York Times for advocating theft of intellectual property, thereby acknowledging there is a new model of copyright for a new digital century.

W00T! THE NEW YORK TIMES FINALLY ADVOCATES STEALING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Posted on June 26, 2009, 12:26 pm, by Thomas Hawk, under Copyright, Flickr.
Sonia Zjawinski has an interesting article out over at the NY Times’ Gadgetwise blog entitled “Flickr as an Interior Decorating Tool,” where she basically advocates stealing other people’s photographs off of Flickr

[Click to continue reading w00t! The New York Times Finally Advocates Stealing Intellectual Property | Thomas Hawk Digital Connection]

Thomas Hawk claims that because most photographers probably have stolen music on their computers, they shouldn’t complain when others steal from them. I’m not sure how Thomas Hawk knows that photographers have stolen MP3s, or use a TiVo, but maybe he has access to some TIA database that we don’t.

The Metafilter community reacted by laughing at photographers who upload images to the web and expect courtesy and copyright law to be adhered to.

Getting smart about personal technology. NYTimes publishes Sonia Zjawinski’s assertion that other peoples’ images on Flickr are probably OK to download, blow up and use to decorate her house: And if you’re wondering about copyright issues (after all, these aren’t my photos), the photos are being used by me for my own, private, noncommercial use. I’m not selling these things and not charging admission to my apartment, so I think I’m in the clear.

Other people think it’s more complicated, and some are just pissed.

[Click to read for yourself Confidential to NY Times: Free as in speech | MetaFilter]

I’d say the majority of the comments at Metafilter are strongly in favor of Ms. Zjawinski’s technique, most using a variation of the same argument: hey, the photo is there, why wouldn’t I take it? These same folk probably steal a lot of other digital media, bittorrents, MP3s, etc. and consider nothing of it.

Personally, I usually release my Flickr photos under a Creative Commons Attributuion/share-alike license, downsample them to 90 pixels and somewhere around 15″x10″ before uploading to Flickr, and have started to use a small watermark of my name3. I haven’t tried, but I assume they would look ok printed at 3″x5″, or even 4″x7″, but any larger size would look increasingly pixelated. I would hope that if some anonymous person wished to print out my photo, they would have the courtesy to ask me first. For instance, recently, an artist based in LA asked me if she could have a copy of a photo I took of her mural. Instead, I gave her the much higher resolution Photoshop file, uploaded it to Drop.io, and gave her the link. She sent me a check for $5, but I never cashed it. All in all, I have gotten close to $2,000 selling prints of my work, not quite enough to purchase an island next to Johnny Depp’s island in the Caribbean Ocean, but more than nothing. In other words, I am simply a hobbyist photographer, so bear that in mind.

Footnotes:
  1. sampling is a little bit of a grey area too, actually []
  2. at least that’s how I read it []
  3. written in my own handwriting []

Sonia Zjawinski of the New York Times advocates theft from Flickr

The comments left on Sonia Zjawinski’s NYT blog post run about 54-2 eviscerating Ms. Zjawinski for advising New York Times readers to steal photos from random Flickr users. Since yesterday when I read this article (and tweeted about it),1 there were about 23 comments, at this moment, the count is 58. Ms. Zjawinski has added a couple of paragraphs claiming that stealing photos from strangers is akin to watching Lost on your TiVo. Umm, not quite, not quite. What editor let such an inane article be published?

I sift through Flickr on a regular basis for images to use as visuals for my blog posts. As with most things related to the Web, it’s easy to get sidetracked with not-so-work-related search terms like, “kittens” and “vintage bicycles.” Through these bouts of procrastination, I’ve often found stunning photographs, so much so I’ve gotten in the habit of printing faves out and framing them. If a user offers the original resolution for download, don’t let that go to waste. Download, print, frame!

And if you’re wondering about copyright issues (after all, these aren’t my photos), the photos are being used by me for my own, private, noncommercial use. I’m not selling these things and not charging admission to my apartment, so I think I’m in the clear.

Of all the artwork I have in my studio apartment (there isn’t a bare wall in the house), my Flickr finds get the most attention. Best of all, they were practically free! I use a Kodak ESP7 AIO printer to ink my finds on various sizes of photo paper and frame them in inexpensive frames found at Urban Outfitters or Ikea. The only thing I pay for is ink, paper and frames — peanuts, in my opinion.

[Click to read Flickr as an Interior Decorating Tool – Gadgetwise Blog – NYTimes.com and comments]

yesterday evening, the following statement was appended:

UPDATE 7:40 p.m.: Added sentences acknowledging the controversy surrounding the use and reuse of other people’s content on the Internet; also indicated forthcoming post that will address these issues more directly.

I still don’t think Ms. Zjawinski understands copyright, or is able to read Flickr’s Terms of Service. Ironic, in that The New York Times vigorously defends itself from being copied, and is publicly irritated with Google over Google’s linking procedures. I guess different rules apply to the corporate citizen than the private citizen.

Each Flickr user can set their default privacy settings, not that these settings really deter the determined thief like Ms. Zjawinski:

When people are looking at the main display page for one of your photos or a video (e.g.), they will see a button labeled “all sizes” underneath the title. From there, they can download any of the different sizes available, including the original file, unless you choose to prevent it.

Preventing people from downloading something also means that a transparent image will be positioned over the image on the main photo page, which is intended to discourage* people from right-clicking to save, or dragging the image on to their desktop.

If people are unable to access a photo or video of yours — for example if you’ve marked it as private — they won’t be allowed to download the original either.

People with free accounts aren’t able to offer their original files for download.

[From Flickr: Allowing Downloads]

What clueless mongoloid idiots like Sonia Zjawinski don’t realize is that most photographers on Flickr would willingly share their images, if only asked. She should annotate all the images she stole from Flickr users with the name of the artist, title, and perhaps the URL. For me, nearly every time someone has asked to use my photo, I have agreed. Commercial usages: I ask for a fee of some sort, but non-commercial usages? Usually no problem. However, in my mind, printing out an image is akin to commercial usage. Here’s what my Flickr profile says:

You are welcome to use my photos/images on your website or blog post, but please give proper attribution. I’d prefer if you also left me a comment telling me where you are using my image.

If you want to use a photo of mine in your magazine, book, or other printed use, contact me: I have a high resolution Photoshop image on my computer. Rates negotiable.

I wrote a letter to Assistant Managing Editor Michelle McNally who oversees photography for The New York Times

Dear Ms. McNally,

As a long time subscriber to the New York Times, and a long time Flickr user, I am extremely disappointed in the apparent advocacy of photography theft suggested by Sonia Zjawinski. Is this really the policy The New York Times is suggesting to its readers? Ms. Zjawinski needs to be forced to attend an Intellectual Property workshop, perhaps one conducted by NYT in-house counsel. Or else fired.

A Flickr friend left this comment:

I’m also an attorney licensed to practice in three states, and can assure you that what you are advocating is not permissible under U.S. Copyright law. The photographer typically owns the copyright on any photograph she takes (provided it was taken after January 1, 1978), with certain limited exceptions. One thing to remember is a copyright is not a singular right, but rather a collection of rights regarding distribution, licensing and use.

The U.S. Copyright Office reminds you – “Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.”

Ask before you take. It’s not just polite, it’s the law.

[From Flickr as an Interior Decorating Tool – Gadgetwise Blog – NYTimes.com]

and there is also this response

That’s right, in a recent column, NY Times ‘writer’ Sonia Zjawinski advocates her readers steal your photos from flickr to fill up empty space on their walls

I highly encourage you all to comment on the article letting Sonia know what you think about her advice.

You could also ask the Time’s Assisting Managing Editor if this is the official policy of the paper or a practice she endorses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/business/media/22askthetimes.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

get on it people!

and please…by all means, copy this image and as much of the text as you want for your own personal use.

update: the photo editor of the NYT responds –

Flickr Images and Copyright

Q. Do you endorse the view of Sonia Zjawinski that it is perfectly acceptable to steal copyrighted images from the Internet? Do you think it’s a good idea for The New York Times to seemingly endorse such views by publishing them? Or do you think it is as disgusting and outrageous as I do?

— Rod Irvine

A. I have received a number of queries about Ms. Zjawinski’s recent post on Gadgetwise, a New York Times blog about personal technology, in which she discussed downloading and printing Flickr images for use as home décor. Here is where The Times stands on the issues that have been raised about the post:

We are strong proponents of copyright protection. The New York Times does not endorse, nor is it our policy to engage in, the infringement of copyrighted work. We apologize for any suggestion to the contrary.

Footnotes:
  1. Commenters are really (and rightfully) reaming Sonia Zjawinski of the NYT for advocating photo theft http://bit.ly/10pf6t []

Reading Around on May 1st through May 5th

A few interesting links collected May 1st through May 5th:

User Generated Theft

Piney Woods TRI-X 400
Piney Woods TRI-X 400, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

outside of Leesville, LA

Republished with really lousy credit:

www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/carbonfundorg-reforestat…

Discovery Communications, the parent of TreeHugger, market capitalization exceeding $2,000,000,000 apparently doesn’t mind bending the rules when it comes to User Generated Content. Flickr hosts my photographs, and has printed clear guidelines outlining what is acceptable usage:

Do link back to Flickr when you post your Flickr content elsewhere.

The Flickr service makes it possible to post content hosted on Flickr to outside web sites. However, pages on other web sites that display content hosted on flickr.com must provide a link from each photo or video back to its page on Flickr.

[From Flickr Community Guidelines]

TreeHugger downloaded my photograph from Flickr, stripped out the copyright information that was embedded in the photo, changed the photograph’s name, uploaded it to its own server, and added it to a blog post without linking back to the original photo1. Now this image has become public domain, available for anyone to download from TreeHugger’s high profile site, to use, sell, or whatever, without ever realizing where the image came from2.

I actually don’t usually mind my photos being used on other websites, as I say on my Flickr profile page, or else I wouldn’t bother to upload images anywhere on the internet in the first place. But multi-billion dollar corporations should try a little harder to respect the rights of the little guys.

Suppose I copied some content from the Discovery Channel, a documentary about American Loggers, for instance, and rebroadcasted it on my own television station, while putting a small on-screen title at the end of the broadcast saying, “all content originally created by the Discovery Channel“, I’d soon receive a sternly worded letter from their corporate attorneys. What rights do I have? What cause of action do I have? None, other than this whiney-ass blog post, and a big spit on the ground in TreeHugger’s direction.

Update, left this comment at TreeHugger

So I’m curious, why did you strip out all of the copyright metadata on my photo when you republished it, and why didn’t you follow the terms of use (which are simple: attribution, and link to the original photo). Is this TreeHugger policy? Discovery Communications policy? In effect, you have released my photo to the world as uncopyrighted, is that your intent? Would it bother TreeHugger/Discovery if I did the same with your work?

Curious as to your response, either here, or at my blog where I ask the same questions.

Update: 9:10 CST, TreeHugger didn’t publish my comment, just removed the photo. Now, they are stealing Brion V.’s photo, without a link to his photo page. Still scummy, but not my problem any more. Just wish I had bothered to take a screenshot of their theft before blogging about it. Remind me to steal as much TreeHugger and Discovery Channel material as possible before I die. Or get served with papers.

As twitter and Flickr pal Friendly_Joe suggested, I should still invoice TreeHugger for the time3 that my photo was on their site.

Footnotes:
  1. they did write below the image, Photo via: Swanksalot, but without a link to the photo they borrowed, or bothering to use my actual name. []
  2. my trip to East Texas on a day when both of my grandfathers died []
  3. somewhere in the neighborhood of 36 hours []

Reading Around on January 24th through January 25th

A few interesting links collected January 24th through January 25th:

  • Want to Know What Flickr Thinks Should be Censored, Public Art, Museum Paintings and Screenshots of the Flickr Blog When They’re Critical of Flickr | Thomas Hawk Digital Connection – Censorship and communication re: censorship is the consistently bad part of Flickr, ever since their beginnings, actually. Early on, Flickr marked my entire stream as “restricted”, but I never did find out why. “If you’d like to see if Flickr is censoring any of your images as well, go to the Flickr Organizer and click on “more options” under the search function and then tell the organizer to show you only “Restricted” content. You might just be surprised that Flickr has censored some of your images as well.”
  • Johnny Red Kerr – Peter Vecsey – “On that disheartening note, longtime Bulls broadcaster John “Red” Kerr is ailing with prostate cancer. After working the microphone for the first seven or eight games this season, the 33-year veteran and expansion team’s original coach (of the year, 1966-67, gaining entry to the playoffs) was forced to stay close to home.

    A ceremony honoring Kerr’s service to the franchise has been moved up from April to the second week of February. A statue in his likeness, sculpted by the same artist who carved Michael Jordan’s image, will be placed outside the United Center in the same vicinity as His Airness.

    Conspicuously absent from the Hall of Fame as a contributor, Kerr was a better-than-average center (13.8 points, 11. 2 rebounds) for 12 seasons with Syracuse, Philadelphia and Baltimore. His biggest achievement in my eyes, though, was recognizing the greatness of Julius Erving and George Gervin as GM of the ABA Virginia Squires long before anyone else.”