I can feel in this post the years of dealing with people nicely, only to have them treat you as if you are the bad guy.
I've had people send nasty emails after I moved or got rid of an image that they were hotlinking. People have called me all sorts of ugly names because a free app that I wrote didn't have a feature they need. People have posted nasty stuff because I didn't provide them phone support at 3am for a GPL open source utility that I released. All this because I can't always manage to reply to people needing support for my free-time projects. I'm sure a lot of you here have known the same type of treatment.
> "People have posted nasty stuff because I didn't provide them phone support at 3am for a GPL open source utility that I released."
I've found a way to mitigate this is to never release pre-built binaries. Just distribute a makefile and source. The kind of people who are not deterred by that will be less likely to expect that level of support from the developers.
This certainly limits your audience, but if the program is just something you made as a hobby and are releasing because "why not?", then I'd rather have a small low maintenance audience.
While his article talks about "commercial infringement", his FAQ doesn't say that he's restricting his suits to people who are using his work commercially, which is really interesting. In principle he could be suing a lot of people, which is great for him and a great way to subsidize an unusual and interesting creative endeavor.
I assume that Wild has registered copyright on all his works so that his firm can sue for statutory damages (easy) rather than actual damages (harder to prove).
Suppose Wild is reading Quora answers about insects and notices that someone has left a comment where they pasted in a photo from his Web site. Super easy to do. Also super easy for him to send an e-mail to his copyright contractor, and a free $750 (minimum) in statutory damages.
I have registered copyright on works before, very straightforward, opens some unusual opportunities. There's actually a great startup idea here:
(1) Create a large quantity of high-quality unwatermarked stock images.
(2) Register copyright on each work.
(3) Sell them on a web site and use search-engine marketing tactics to make it a really high ranking Web site.
(4) Wait 2.9 years, then sue every Web site and user who picked up the images.
Last year I was accused of copyright infringement. I knew was completely in the clear - I hadn't ever heard of this person or seen their creation before. After dismissing some typo-riddled communication I though was bluffing I found myself named in a lawsuit. Turns out that knowing I was right was a whole world away from proving it in court. I was told it would cost me tens of thousands to defend myself. And the best possible outcome was for me to win my fees back. In the end I paid the other person to go away. The entire process was expensive, time consuming and incredibly stressful. I lost days of sleep worrying about what could happen.
My case could have been resolved so much more easily without lawyers. I was actually interesting in monetizing and this person needed eyeballs on their product. I would have gladly sent them traffic if they agreed to an affiliate set up. The problem was that once lawyers start getting involved then the bills start adding up quickly. From then on it was classic sunk cost fallacy. Backing off means paying thousands of dollars for the privilege of being sued. No one wins but the lawyers.
Sure, this company is going to be stopping some people from stealing images. But their business model is built on profiting from uncertainty and fear from the people they accuse of theft. This guy is an artist, yet he's so flippant about supporting an industry that profits by making the world a slightly worse place. He'd rather line the pockets of some lawyers than have to go through sending "dozens" of emails a month.
It seems pretty clear that Wild's lawyers are not originating the lawsuits on their own, without input from him. For example:
If the infringement appears on a personal blog, forum, or web page, I usually ignore it. If I have time, which I generally don’t, I may issue a takedown notice to remove infringing copies from personal sites most likely to feed downstream infringements. If the infringement occurs on a corporate or organizational webpage, product, broadcast, or similar, even if it is just a small internal image, I generally submit it to ImageRights.
There's also this:
Considerably more effort and attention went into researching and vetting your case than went into Getty’s ham-handed, largely automated process.
And this:
Q. You are wrong, I did license that image, and I resent being accused of something I did not do.
Goodness! My heartfelt apologies for my mistake. If you forward the license agreement or receipt to my lawyers, we will drop the case and I will fully refund your original license payment, while you may continue to use the image(s). I have made an erroneous accusation before, and I felt terrible about it.
The impression I'm getting is that he's being very careful not to make erroneous accusations. I'm sorry for what happened to you, but this doesn't seem like the same kind of thing.
This is a very tricky situation it seems. I've never been party to infringement (on either side), but he explained pretty clearly why he outsourced this role. He has people legitimately using his work without license, so what's the problem with outsourcing enforcement? That said, I hear a story like yours and it freaks me out; I could be you some day. Maybe a "non-lawyer" system could exist, but without the threat of lawsuits, I suspect legitimate infringement situations would go ignored.
In his Ars Technica article he claims to have been sending 5 takedowns per day (that's more like hundreds a month). The dozens per month are just the minority he's deemed commercial. He's continuing to go with takedowns for all of the rest.
> But their business model is built on profiting from uncertainty and fear from the people they accuse of theft.
It seems clear that he's the one making accusations; he just hands it off to them. Its not some automated system or evil lawyer going after obvious innocents, unless you're accusing the artist himself of initiating malicious lawsuits.
Very reasonable all in all, and it's pretty clear that he's damn tired of people's antics with regards to using his work without license and then going on the defensive about it when caught.
Some people's sense of entitlement to creative, but easily replicated, works never ceases to amaze me. Whether you like Tidal and those involved or not, this week we saw its launch being met with backlash online that included comments that amounted to "Why would I pay $20 a month for this when I can torrent it free?". People acted indignant over being asked to maybe pay for some of the works they consume. As though they had a right to have a copy of the works simply because they were technologically capable of getting their hands on one without paying for it.
And then creators and artists are vilified for going after those who steal/distribute copies of their works.
I can't imagine how stressful it is for those who have to deal with these constants acts against them.
I think a lot of the backlash against Tidal was the way it was presented.
Having all of these rich and famous musicians complaining about how they're not making enough money isn't going to go very well with the general population.
What does Tidal do to help unknown and struggling musicians? The whole thing seems to only really be about protecting the revenue streams of the musical elite.
As though they had a right to have a copy of the works simply because they were technologically capable of getting their hands on one without paying for it.
Because that's how it works by default. I'm not saying it's right or that you should agree, but you should at least understand the perspective.
By default, we have the right to do anything that we have the ability to do. The exceptions are just that: exceptions, and which have to be justified.
Now, you could say, "that's the law, therefore it's obvious that it is an exception", but we don't really take the law as an ethical system. Or do you feel that it's perfectly OK to get works for free in places where that is not illegal, like Switzerland?
You have an intuition that copying works without paying is wrong. That's fine, but you shouldn't be amazed that people who don't have that intuition feel free to do so. Even if you still condemn them for it (which is fine).
Because copyright infringement has been linked to theft, which means people view it like they would view a theft, and it thus appears completely harmless because people place the entire negative of the theft on losing the item. Imagine I had a magic power to duplicate any items, went to a friends house, and duplicated his TV. No harm to him. If anything he benefits a bit because when he is at my house he now sees the bigger TV.
Most people don't realize there is a victim in my example. The person who I would've bought the TV from. Except they are far less a victim that someone who has their TV stolen. Because I may have instead just stuck with mine and never gotten a bigger one had I had to pay. The problem is that when aggregated accross the whole population, lots of people who would've bought one now don't, and that is where the damages come from. Of course, the big players in copytright claiming the extremely high numbers for their damaging only work to further get people to dismiss this line of thinking.
Another point of view: the more amazing they are, the more important it is that they are in the public domain, as it would be a valuable asset for the commons.
If you want more Public Domain images of insects out there I'd suggest donating to the "Insects Unlocked" project. It is raising money on Utexas' kickstarter clone "HornRaiser".
It is worth noting that the author, Alex Wild, is also the mentor of the project you mention. He discussed [1] a day before the impact of the project on professional photographers.
This article presents a side to intellectual property rights that it's all too easy to overlook when you are constantly hearing about patent trolls, the MPAA/RIAA, and so on. Copyright is intended to benefit people just like you and me for whom content creation such as this is how they feed their children and keep a roof over their heads.
This does also highlight the need for due diligence if you're using images that you've found on the Internet though. This is often easier than you might expect -- you just have to upload your image to Google image search, and it will do a pretty good job of helping you track the original creator.
It's interesting to see how much the FOSS developer community (or rather, the people in this thread who are complaining about this article as if it's part-and-parcel with supporting FOSS) has confused the idea that software should be libre with the idea that it should also be gratis. That's unfortunately not their last mistake, as it seems then also want to extend this to an idea that other copyrightable works should be gratis, too.
The Software Freedoms [0] don't mean you get to scarper off with other people's hard work. They mean that, once you have paid and received permission to use the work, you shouldn't be restricted in your use of the work.
Software is a thing that we use to get work done, a thing that doesn't necessarily work correctly or sufficiently or whatever other reason you might want to change it. We have a need to protect the rights of users because, without said rights, the user could potentially end up in a situation where their livelihood is significantly impacted by the failing software.
A work of art, on the other hand, is meant for consumption. You can't make a photo so integral to your workflow that replacing it with another photo could be detrimental to your self. Most programs are not reasonable substitutes for each other. Most photos of bumblebees are--more or less--perfectly acceptable substitutes, not because all photographers are equivalent and interchangeable, but because your need to have that photo is not more important than the photographer's need to eat.
The Software Freedoms are not about copyright. Copyright is just the mechanism through which the GPL operates, in an ideology that believes that software should not be copyrightable. It's the belief that these two things are so fundamentally different, that copyright is not the appropriate means to protect software developers, that led to the creation of the GPL. The GPL is nothing more than a hack on top of the copyright system to make copyright--for software--useless. It is not an overall indictment of copyright.
I have to admit that I once thought essentially the same thing that you have written. However, I'm not so sure now. I think Software Freedom is distinct from copyright and while copyright in its current form is a problem for Software Freedom (insofar as it is too restrictive), doing away with copyright does not seem to be on the agenda of those who are concerned with Software Freedom (notably the FSF). If it were, we could all move to CC0 from GPL and be happy.
I am not one of those who would espouse that all FOSS software should use unrestrictive licenses. CC0, or attribution based Free software licenses definitely have their place, but I think that the world would be poorer without a license like the GPL. The GPL ensures an even playing field so that someone can't take a large Free project, add a small piece and compete with the original project using different rules. If someone wants to compete against a GPLed project, they either have to play by the same rules or build their own project from the ground up.
Instead of "copyright or not copyright", I think the Free software movement has shown that there is a range of restrictions that can be beneficial. Picking the appropriate restrictions for your project is an incredibly important task. When looking at CC (Creative Commons) licenses, I think it becomes a bit more obvious what things are valuable. They definitely benefitted from being able to look at the history of Free Software development when these licenses were developed.
I know there is a growing movement of people who are extremely enthusiastic about very unrestrictive licenses. However, I can't help thinking that they miss something -- only thinking about a binary world of very restrictive (all rights reserved) and non restrictive (at best attribution only). To be honest, I love the thought of living in a world where everything was CC0 and everyone would willingly encourage people to take the source code and make derivative works. Of course it isn't. Even in a world without copyright, this would not happen because lacking legal means, companies would pursue technical means of making it difficult to make derived works. Because of this I tend to license my work as GPL because I know a thriving, fair community can be served this way. The restrictions (made possible by copyright) are valuable.
>They mean that, once you have paid and received permission to use the work, you shouldn't be restricted in your use of the work.
Including reselling the work. This is one part I don't understand. One person pays full price and sells it to everybody else at a lower price, until the product is free as in, yes, free beer.
I actually like the no-nonsense nature of this page. It would be even better if Alex profited more in the long run (he's got amazing images) and if less was going to support the legal system that created the copyright mess in the first place.
If you look up the case that Alex linked to it turns out that the company he's suing were used hand illustrated paintings [1] that seemingly traced Alex's original photo.
That's still fairly sketchy, but hardly the case of blatant republishing of photos that he's alluding to. I can actually see them arguing fair use.
Naive question: how does the legal system determine appropriate damages for this kind of infringement? Can ImageRights just name a number, or is there some kind of precedent?
Using a $500 photo intuitively seems worse than using a $5 photo. But if the offender had no intent - ie. a grandmother that didn't know you can't just copy anything from Google Images - would be bizarre to have punitive damages be a multiplier of the original license cost.
Depends on the country.
I recently had a case in France where a very well known magazine used one of my photos without permission; my lawyer advised that photo worth is judged by the reputation of the photographer.
If you're an amateur happy snapper, you'll get hardly anything.
If you're a world famous photographer, you'll get significant amounts.
In one regard, that seems fair - and in another - grossly unfair.
Though there's wiggle room in the statute, the USG has two bars to clear in order to criminally prosecute the misuse of a copyrighted photo as a promotional device for a business:
* The infringement must be not only intentional but willful, which implies not only that the infringer deliberately used the photograph, but did so with full awareness of their duties under copyright law; that's a higher bar than simple intent.
* To be a felony, the infringement must not only have a goal of commercial advantage or private gain, but that advantage itself must be with respect to the reproduction and/or distribution rights of the original author.
If you deliberately harvested this guy's bug pictures and resold them, you'd be easy to charge criminally. But slapping one of his pictures on your website is probably too fuzzy to charge criminally.
On a bright note, you take gorgeous photography and I agree with you.. at least get your written permission to use, and if you don't want someone to use them, than its yours only.
Many people here believe a necessary and legitimate role of law is to provide specific methods for creators of intellectual goods to earn income, and are willing to encroach on people's freedoms in order to archive this goal. Other's don't view this as a necessary or legitimate role of law (and many aren't even convinced that intellectual property law actually provides a net benefit from a utilitarian standpoint).
I believe it is specifically the creator's responsibility (and in general, the market's role) to figure out how the creator can make money.
Does anyone else get the startup idea I got? Photo copyright infringement enforcement as a service? Feels too dirty to interest me, but maybe there's a business there for someone.
The guy spent $50k on equipment to make these photos.
Sorry iPhone/Android users. Pro photo equipment IS expensive.
No matter how many terapixels your piece of shit, made in China pocket device is claimed to have, the true pro equipment takes a mortgage to have. And muscles to carry. High quality glass is heavy. And expensive (did I already said that?) to manufacture.
It's all still made in Japan. Every little thing on it is.
The licensing would be every bit as justified if the gear were cheap. This is how he makes his living, he's under no obligation to give it to anyone for free.
Are you implying that the photographer's digital assets aren't being used, but that the alleged infringers somehow recreated the bits and the fact that they are identical is coincidental?
Let's assume that this is a valid characterization of things. Now, we could try flipping one or more of those bits. Surely the soundness of this argument guarantees that the resulting bit sequences are not protected so long as nobody else ever arranged those bits that way, and we're free to use them, right? In fact, we would be the only ones allowed to use the resulting bit sequence then.
Problem is, if we actually did this, the protection status of those bits in real life would not comport with the results we outlined above. Specifically, we would find that many of the resulting bit sequences would be just as off limits to us. That's because copyright is not about bits, and the original characterization that it is is not a sound one.
[+] [-] jakejake|11 years ago|reply
I've had people send nasty emails after I moved or got rid of an image that they were hotlinking. People have called me all sorts of ugly names because a free app that I wrote didn't have a feature they need. People have posted nasty stuff because I didn't provide them phone support at 3am for a GPL open source utility that I released. All this because I can't always manage to reply to people needing support for my free-time projects. I'm sure a lot of you here have known the same type of treatment.
[+] [-] Crito|11 years ago|reply
I've found a way to mitigate this is to never release pre-built binaries. Just distribute a makefile and source. The kind of people who are not deterred by that will be less likely to expect that level of support from the developers.
This certainly limits your audience, but if the program is just something you made as a hobby and are releasing because "why not?", then I'd rather have a small low maintenance audience.
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|11 years ago|reply
WHAT!?
[+] [-] markdown|11 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9312836
[+] [-] gumby|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wlesieutre|11 years ago|reply
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/one-mans-endless-...
[+] [-] 2close4comfort|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mherdeg|11 years ago|reply
I assume that Wild has registered copyright on all his works so that his firm can sue for statutory damages (easy) rather than actual damages (harder to prove).
Suppose Wild is reading Quora answers about insects and notices that someone has left a comment where they pasted in a photo from his Web site. Super easy to do. Also super easy for him to send an e-mail to his copyright contractor, and a free $750 (minimum) in statutory damages.
I have registered copyright on works before, very straightforward, opens some unusual opportunities. There's actually a great startup idea here:
(1) Create a large quantity of high-quality unwatermarked stock images. (2) Register copyright on each work. (3) Sell them on a web site and use search-engine marketing tactics to make it a really high ranking Web site. (4) Wait 2.9 years, then sue every Web site and user who picked up the images.
[+] [-] underwater|11 years ago|reply
Last year I was accused of copyright infringement. I knew was completely in the clear - I hadn't ever heard of this person or seen their creation before. After dismissing some typo-riddled communication I though was bluffing I found myself named in a lawsuit. Turns out that knowing I was right was a whole world away from proving it in court. I was told it would cost me tens of thousands to defend myself. And the best possible outcome was for me to win my fees back. In the end I paid the other person to go away. The entire process was expensive, time consuming and incredibly stressful. I lost days of sleep worrying about what could happen.
My case could have been resolved so much more easily without lawyers. I was actually interesting in monetizing and this person needed eyeballs on their product. I would have gladly sent them traffic if they agreed to an affiliate set up. The problem was that once lawyers start getting involved then the bills start adding up quickly. From then on it was classic sunk cost fallacy. Backing off means paying thousands of dollars for the privilege of being sued. No one wins but the lawyers.
Sure, this company is going to be stopping some people from stealing images. But their business model is built on profiting from uncertainty and fear from the people they accuse of theft. This guy is an artist, yet he's so flippant about supporting an industry that profits by making the world a slightly worse place. He'd rather line the pockets of some lawyers than have to go through sending "dozens" of emails a month.
[+] [-] ScottBurson|11 years ago|reply
If the infringement appears on a personal blog, forum, or web page, I usually ignore it. If I have time, which I generally don’t, I may issue a takedown notice to remove infringing copies from personal sites most likely to feed downstream infringements. If the infringement occurs on a corporate or organizational webpage, product, broadcast, or similar, even if it is just a small internal image, I generally submit it to ImageRights.
There's also this:
Considerably more effort and attention went into researching and vetting your case than went into Getty’s ham-handed, largely automated process.
And this:
Q. You are wrong, I did license that image, and I resent being accused of something I did not do.
Goodness! My heartfelt apologies for my mistake. If you forward the license agreement or receipt to my lawyers, we will drop the case and I will fully refund your original license payment, while you may continue to use the image(s). I have made an erroneous accusation before, and I felt terrible about it.
The impression I'm getting is that he's being very careful not to make erroneous accusations. I'm sorry for what happened to you, but this doesn't seem like the same kind of thing.
[+] [-] iamhamm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thedufer|11 years ago|reply
In his Ars Technica article he claims to have been sending 5 takedowns per day (that's more like hundreds a month). The dozens per month are just the minority he's deemed commercial. He's continuing to go with takedowns for all of the rest.
> But their business model is built on profiting from uncertainty and fear from the people they accuse of theft.
It seems clear that he's the one making accusations; he just hands it off to them. Its not some automated system or evil lawyer going after obvious innocents, unless you're accusing the artist himself of initiating malicious lawsuits.
[+] [-] s73v3r|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] borgia|11 years ago|reply
Some people's sense of entitlement to creative, but easily replicated, works never ceases to amaze me. Whether you like Tidal and those involved or not, this week we saw its launch being met with backlash online that included comments that amounted to "Why would I pay $20 a month for this when I can torrent it free?". People acted indignant over being asked to maybe pay for some of the works they consume. As though they had a right to have a copy of the works simply because they were technologically capable of getting their hands on one without paying for it.
And then creators and artists are vilified for going after those who steal/distribute copies of their works.
I can't imagine how stressful it is for those who have to deal with these constants acts against them.
[+] [-] williamcotton|11 years ago|reply
Having all of these rich and famous musicians complaining about how they're not making enough money isn't going to go very well with the general population.
What does Tidal do to help unknown and struggling musicians? The whole thing seems to only really be about protecting the revenue streams of the musical elite.
[+] [-] icebraining|11 years ago|reply
Because that's how it works by default. I'm not saying it's right or that you should agree, but you should at least understand the perspective.
By default, we have the right to do anything that we have the ability to do. The exceptions are just that: exceptions, and which have to be justified.
Now, you could say, "that's the law, therefore it's obvious that it is an exception", but we don't really take the law as an ethical system. Or do you feel that it's perfectly OK to get works for free in places where that is not illegal, like Switzerland?
You have an intuition that copying works without paying is wrong. That's fine, but you shouldn't be amazed that people who don't have that intuition feel free to do so. Even if you still condemn them for it (which is fine).
[+] [-] PebblesHD|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lawtonfogle|11 years ago|reply
Most people don't realize there is a victim in my example. The person who I would've bought the TV from. Except they are far less a victim that someone who has their TV stolen. Because I may have instead just stuck with mine and never gotten a bigger one had I had to pay. The problem is that when aggregated accross the whole population, lots of people who would've bought one now don't, and that is where the damages come from. Of course, the big players in copytright claiming the extremely high numbers for their damaging only work to further get people to dismiss this line of thinking.
[+] [-] bobhankson|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nfoz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slyall|11 years ago|reply
https://hornraiser.utexas.edu/project/54e79bbc14bdf7205ddd5a...
[+] [-] ezequiel-garzon|11 years ago|reply
[1] "Will The Insects Unlocked Project Damage The Commercial Insect Photo Market?" - http://www.myrmecos.net/2015/03/27/will-the-insects-unlocked...
[+] [-] jammycakes|11 years ago|reply
This does also highlight the need for due diligence if you're using images that you've found on the Internet though. This is often easier than you might expect -- you just have to upload your image to Google image search, and it will do a pretty good job of helping you track the original creator.
[+] [-] moron4hire|11 years ago|reply
The Software Freedoms [0] don't mean you get to scarper off with other people's hard work. They mean that, once you have paid and received permission to use the work, you shouldn't be restricted in your use of the work.
Software is a thing that we use to get work done, a thing that doesn't necessarily work correctly or sufficiently or whatever other reason you might want to change it. We have a need to protect the rights of users because, without said rights, the user could potentially end up in a situation where their livelihood is significantly impacted by the failing software.
A work of art, on the other hand, is meant for consumption. You can't make a photo so integral to your workflow that replacing it with another photo could be detrimental to your self. Most programs are not reasonable substitutes for each other. Most photos of bumblebees are--more or less--perfectly acceptable substitutes, not because all photographers are equivalent and interchangeable, but because your need to have that photo is not more important than the photographer's need to eat.
The Software Freedoms are not about copyright. Copyright is just the mechanism through which the GPL operates, in an ideology that believes that software should not be copyrightable. It's the belief that these two things are so fundamentally different, that copyright is not the appropriate means to protect software developers, that led to the creation of the GPL. The GPL is nothing more than a hack on top of the copyright system to make copyright--for software--useless. It is not an overall indictment of copyright.
[0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
[+] [-] mikekchar|11 years ago|reply
I am not one of those who would espouse that all FOSS software should use unrestrictive licenses. CC0, or attribution based Free software licenses definitely have their place, but I think that the world would be poorer without a license like the GPL. The GPL ensures an even playing field so that someone can't take a large Free project, add a small piece and compete with the original project using different rules. If someone wants to compete against a GPLed project, they either have to play by the same rules or build their own project from the ground up.
Instead of "copyright or not copyright", I think the Free software movement has shown that there is a range of restrictions that can be beneficial. Picking the appropriate restrictions for your project is an incredibly important task. When looking at CC (Creative Commons) licenses, I think it becomes a bit more obvious what things are valuable. They definitely benefitted from being able to look at the history of Free Software development when these licenses were developed.
I know there is a growing movement of people who are extremely enthusiastic about very unrestrictive licenses. However, I can't help thinking that they miss something -- only thinking about a binary world of very restrictive (all rights reserved) and non restrictive (at best attribution only). To be honest, I love the thought of living in a world where everything was CC0 and everyone would willingly encourage people to take the source code and make derivative works. Of course it isn't. Even in a world without copyright, this would not happen because lacking legal means, companies would pursue technical means of making it difficult to make derived works. Because of this I tend to license my work as GPL because I know a thriving, fair community can be served this way. The restrictions (made possible by copyright) are valuable.
[+] [-] hellodevnull|11 years ago|reply
Including reselling the work. This is one part I don't understand. One person pays full price and sells it to everybody else at a lower price, until the product is free as in, yes, free beer.
[+] [-] smoyer|11 years ago|reply
One step at a time I guess!
[+] [-] underwater|11 years ago|reply
That's still fairly sketchy, but hardly the case of blatant republishing of photos that he's alluding to. I can actually see them arguing fair use.
[1] http://cdn.orkin.com/images/ants/red-imported-fire-ant-illus...
[+] [-] bthomas|11 years ago|reply
Using a $500 photo intuitively seems worse than using a $5 photo. But if the offender had no intent - ie. a grandmother that didn't know you can't just copy anything from Google Images - would be bizarre to have punitive damages be a multiplier of the original license cost.
[+] [-] kweks|11 years ago|reply
If you're an amateur happy snapper, you'll get hardly anything. If you're a world famous photographer, you'll get significant amounts.
In one regard, that seems fair - and in another - grossly unfair.
[+] [-] mckoss|11 years ago|reply
I wish it did! Most infringement of a commercial work seems to incur criminal penalties (though you can recover civil damages as well).
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html
[+] [-] tptacek|11 years ago|reply
* The infringement must be not only intentional but willful, which implies not only that the infringer deliberately used the photograph, but did so with full awareness of their duties under copyright law; that's a higher bar than simple intent.
* To be a felony, the infringement must not only have a goal of commercial advantage or private gain, but that advantage itself must be with respect to the reproduction and/or distribution rights of the original author.
If you deliberately harvested this guy's bug pictures and resold them, you'd be easy to charge criminally. But slapping one of his pictures on your website is probably too fuzzy to charge criminally.
[+] [-] DanBlake|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scott_karana|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattbgates|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] em3rgent0rdr|11 years ago|reply
I believe it is specifically the creator's responsibility (and in general, the market's role) to figure out how the creator can make money.
I am reminded of a rather blunt slogan found in cat-v (http://harmful.cat-v.org/economics/intellectual_property/) and in the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom's page (http://c4sif.org/): "Your failed business model is not my problem."
[+] [-] clamprecht|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelApproved|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Throwaway1224|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] timus83|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] antidaily|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gesman|11 years ago|reply
It's all still made in Japan. Every little thing on it is.
And that's a price to pay for top quality.
And so - his response is reasonable.
[+] [-] daturkel|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nsnick|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdcravens|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] have_humility|11 years ago|reply
Problem is, if we actually did this, the protection status of those bits in real life would not comport with the results we outlined above. Specifically, we would find that many of the resulting bit sequences would be just as off limits to us. That's because copyright is not about bits, and the original characterization that it is is not a sound one.
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
[+] [-] s73v3r|11 years ago|reply