Web Snapshots Are Nabbed for Commercial Uses

whoever57 writes "The Washington post has a story about Hollywood studios using photos grabbed off the web without permission. This particular story describes the case of a photo of a dog that was used by Fox. The photo had been uploaded to a personal blog and tagged 'all rights reserved.'"

So? What's the problem?

[Pig Hogger (10379)]

So, what's the problem? Hollywood, being Hollywood, has the RIGHT to use the material that we, mere mortals, put on the web. I mean, if mere peons had the same right as big corporations, what would the world come to????

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[tsa (15680)]

The problem is that Hollywood has so much money that they can do what they like. Even if you sue them you're unlikely to win before you, mere mortal, go bankrupt.

Re:So? What's the problem?

[xeoron (639412)]

Hollywood was created by thief's, so what do you expect? They want to have their cake and eat it too.From The Pirates Dilemma

"Some of America's greatest innovators were thought of as pirates. When Thomas Edison invented the phonographic record player, musicians branded him a pirate out to steal their work and destroy the live music business, until a system was established so everyone could be paid royalties, which we today call the record industry. Edison, in turn, went on to invent filmmaking, and demanded a licensing fee from those making movies with his technology. This caused a band of filmmaking pirates, including a man named William, to flee New York for the then still wild West, where they thrived, unlicensed, until Edison's patents expired. These pirates continue to operate there, albeit legally now, in the town they founded: Hollywood. William's last name? Fox."

Violating Copyrights

[tristian_was_here (865394)]

These people are hypocrites if they wanted to violate copyright laws properly at least use The Pirate Bay.

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[mwvdlee (775178)]

Is it just me or do the photo's not look alike?
I mean millions of people take photo's of those ugly types of dogs in that angle and they all look kind of the same, but that doesn't actually make it the same photo.

Look Again, Grasshopper

[shani (1674)]

Look at the blog, it seems to be the same photo:

http://www.sweetney.com/001944.html [sweetney.com]

Or go straight to the photo on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetney/2131448895/ [flickr.com]

Copyright is easy

[Ajehals (947354)]

How a large media organisation that happens to receive a large income based on the 'intellectual property' it owns, that shows warnings on its television broadcasts pertaining to copyright and presumably has a legal department and employs well educated staff can do something like this is unbelievable.

Clearly it is easy to make a mistake, even easier if there is some ambiguity in what you are doing, but in this case surely it would be relatively simple to ensure you know who owns what before using it. Whilst this violation is fairly innocuous and doesn't cause any harm (In a real sense as opposed to a legal one) it is the kind of thing that media companies would prosecute if it were carried out by a normal person (assuming they became aware of it) simply to ensure their 'property' isn't harmed in some way by unauthorised use.

It is interesting that recently (the last 2 years or so) the number of reported copyright violations carried out by businesses against individuals seems to have increased, especially given the amount of publicity given to 'piracy' of all types (well apart from the one that takes place on the high seas) has jumped significantly. I half expected there to be calls by businesses (apart from media organisations obviously) for reform of copyright law, primarily because looser copyright laws would potentially benefit normal businesses or in the least mitigate some of the potential legal damage caused by an accidental lapse.

Well I guess the moral of the story (assuming FOX are punished in some way, - I would be happy with an apology an that the image not be used if I were in the owners shoes) is simple, if you don't have express permission to use something, don't use it, seek consent, if you are planning to make use of material on the basis of fair use the make sure you check how to do that in an acceptable way. Personally I think society is losing out massively by having so much culturally valuable materiel locked away for so long for the benefit of the creators and their heirs, I think we are probably scaring people away from building on existing material and to a point scaring people from drawing influences from existing work, but then I haven't got the cash or influence to lobby government for a change in legislation.

Harm Done.

[gnutoo (1154137)]

These violations are only harmless if your work is worth nothing. Apparently, it's worth using so you should be paid.

Some of the uses pointed out in the article were much less than harmless. One kid was described as someone to "dump" and another was a posterboy for peeling lead paint. The parents of the child, of course, were mortified.

The biggest losers in this round of big media hypocrisy and arrogance is big media. It shows better than anything else that copyright is a sham designed to enrich big media. Big media is acting like a perfect bully, while crying for appreciation and special protection. Lessig got it wrong. The victims are not crying out for copyright protection, they are furiously pointing out that copyright is bullshit and it's main proponents are assholes. What little sympathy the industry had left is going down the toilet. Soon they will no more withstand public outrage and technical obsolescence than the Chicago sock yard and Detroit auto makers did.

Re:

[Ajehals (947354)]

I utterly agree. On the value part of the equation I think one of the problems is a kind of 'Intellectual Property' inflation, it is fairly simple for a professional photographer to put a value on an image before it is purchased and to a certain degree use that to determine the price of an *accidentally* misused image. For a non professional there seems to be a feeling that a photo is worth far more than it is, not because that's what its worth to them, or because they have suffered damage to that value, b

Re:Copyright is easy

[jollyreaper (513215)]

How a large media organisation that happens to receive a large income based on the 'intellectual property' it owns, that shows warnings on its television broadcasts pertaining to copyright and presumably has a legal department and employs well educated staff can do something like this is unbelievable.

Simple answer: they only care about this essential principle of freedom and commerce and the American way because it suits them in this instance. When the shoe is on the other foot, who the hell cares?

Whenever a powerful organization with a vested interest is trying to convince me of something, I just think of Col. Sanders sitting down with his chickens to have a chat about how deep-frying is good for the skin.

Not that hard

[adona1 (1078711)]

With photos it's easy....if it's online, then you most likely don't have the right to use it. If you want a photo, take one yourself or pay someone for theirs.

However, no one expects the powerful to actually heed the rules...

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[daeg (828071)]

A certain unnamed media organization (large outfit, huge company, top 10 market) I used to work for had little-to-no idea. When I started working there, they often found pictures for web stories as well as on-air graphics from simple GIS searches. Many of them didn't know what they were doing wrong, and when informed, the general reaction was, "Really? I thought Internet stuff wasn't copyrighted."

The sad thing is, the art department had a better, high resolution, accessible, indexed repository the company w

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[deniable (76198)]

GIS = Geographic Information System, right, or do you mean something else? Your post reads a little bit strange.

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[daeg (828071)]

GIS, in this case, = Google Image Search. Sorry.

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[deniable (76198)]

Yep, that makes a lot of sense. Sounds like these people needed a training course on copyright violation, but that never happens until someone gets sued.

Great article...

[KillerCow (213458)]

... until near the end on the very last page.

It all gets very meta.

P.S. not off-topic since this is my commentary on the author's commentary, which is "very meta."
P.P.S quote used under fair use. HAHA!

extreme mooning

[54mc (897170)]

When his initial e-mails to the Microsoft blog asking it to remove links to his photo didn't immediately work, Kennedy replaced the image with one of a man engaging in an activity best described as "extreme mooning." Visitors to the Microsoft blog who clicked on the innocent-looking link were guided to the new photo. Says Kennedy, "They pulled down the link within 15 minutes."

I can't imagine what image they could possibly be referring to!

Re:extreme mooning

[calidoscope (312571)]

That's one way to get Microsoft's goat.

Re:extreme mooning

[merreborn (853723)]

That's one way to get Microsoft's goat.

I se what you did there.

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[Insightfill (554828)]

When his initial e-mails to the Microsoft blog asking it to remove links to his photo didn't immediately work, Kennedy replaced the image with one of a man engaging in an activity best described as "extreme mooning." Visitors to the Microsoft blog who clicked on the innocent-looking link were guided to the new photo. Says Kennedy, "They pulled down the link within 15 minutes."

Six years ago the TechReport [techreport.com] web site had a review stolen [techreport.com] by a different site (a site that primarily sold hardware). Not only did

Use the DMCA

[MikeRT (947531)]

Send them a notice saying that they have two choices: they can comply with the DMCA and take down all content that uses your photos, or they can pay you a nominal fee of $2,500-$5,000/photo to get a full business license to use it in any of their marketing materials online. If they refuse to pay, the DMCA is clear. Even big Hollywood has to take down the illegal content or face legal reprisal.

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[radarjd (931774)]

Send them a notice saying that they have two choices: they can comply with the DMCA and take down all content that uses your photos, or they can pay you a nominal fee of $2,500-$5,000/photo to get a full business license to use it in any of their marketing materials online.

You're getting two legally different concepts confused, I think. First, by "comply with the DMCA", I'm guessing you're referring to the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA which require a service provider to take down a copyrighted work if someone claims ownership of that work. Service provider is defined fairly broadly, but would likely not apply to Fox. It would apply if, for example, someone served a take down notice to Fox's ISP.

From the summary (naturally, I didn't read the article, I'm merely res

What's really stupid about this...

[Bones3D_mac (324952)]

... is that there are massive collections of high-quality royalty free images like these that most of these companies probably already own for their own media productions. Apparently what it's come down to is that it's now far easier to find an image based on any random keyword using google images than it is for these companies to search their own content on their own servers.

So, how do we fix this without requiring several thousands of man-hours to assign dozens or even hundreds of single word descriptions to each and every image?

Perhaps one way to go is to create a wikipedia-type system entirely for image collections, then have the content owners submit their content to the system for review by thosands of users at random, each assigning a unique description to each image they encounter. Once a collection has been completely reviewed, the system would then generate a searchable RSS feed specific to that collection that the collection owner could use to let users seach their content locally.

The actual task of handling the workload wouldn't even have to be considered "work" if you presented it right to the end user. For example, you could set up a multi-player "game" where dozens of people compete within a set time limit to come up with the most unique descriptions, (relative to a dictionary of allowed terms) and then penalize them for repeated descriptions by more than one user. You could even give out weekly prizes to the top players.

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[corsec67 (627446)]

Most of the microstock companies that sell Royalty-free images already do that, in the form of tagging and descriptions provided by the photographer.

For example, my picture of a burning tire [dreamstime.com] has a bunch of tags and a full description so that anyone searching for tires, fire, burning, smoke, etc. can find that picture.

Now, when the media people buy the images, they just need to keep track of those descriptions and tags, but that is a much smaller problem.

Google already made that "photo tagging" game, Google [google.com]

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[Bones3D_mac (324952)]

"Most of the microstock companies that sell Royalty-free images already do that, in the form of tagging and descriptions provided by the photographer.

For example, my picture of a burning tire has a bunch of tags and a full description so that anyone searching for tires, fire, burning, smoke, etc. can find that picture.

Now, when the media people buy the images, they just need to keep track of those descriptions and tags, but that is a much smaller problem."

The problem with that, is that it's only taking desc

Extreme mooning?

[dFaust (546790)]

When his initial e-mails to the Microsoft blog asking it to remove links to his photo didn't immediately work, Kennedy replaced the image with one of a man engaging in an activity best described as "extreme mooning." Visitors to the Microsoft blog who clicked on the innocent-looking link were guided to the new photo.

Hehehe, I can only assume that's a goatse.cx reference. Linked to from an MS blog. Reading that made me chuckle.

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[xtracto (837672)]

What I find amazing is that not only did they took the picture but they hotlinked it instead of downloading a copy and hosting it.

Now, for the legal implications, it could be argued that hotlinking is not distribution or any kind of copyright violation. It is similar to what it is sometimes discussed here in slashdot, if it is in the internet it is available. When you "hotlink" you are not copying or distributing the data, you are just adding a link to such image (see the html source, a href=... source.jpg

A case of man copyrights dog

[SlappyBastard (961143)]

No one even begins to discuss the dog's right to be paid for the use of his image!

The irony

[4D6963 (933028)]

Why would big name corporations even want our point-and-click photographs? [...] "Authenticity is the new consumer sensibility"

How ironic! While us mere mortals have been struggling for a while in order to emulate professionalism into our amateur work to make it look better, professionals strive to emulate our amateurism to make their work look more "real". Now maybe they'll start teaching photographers and such how to make things look "genuine" (i.e. amateurish) in school. The first lesson's punchline wo

Re:No reasonable person

[ceoyoyo (59147)]

Apparently it does have value because Fox used it. You're well within your rights to use pictures you find on the internet for you desktop background or whatever, but if you want to use them for commercial purposes, or re-publish them, then you need to pay, or at least ask for, that privilege.

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[tinkerghost (944862)]

You're well within your rights to use pictures you find on the internet for you desktop background or whatever,

Um, no. You can view them and your system can cache them so you can save time viewing them later, but copying an image as a desktop isn't part of fair use. Not that anyone is going to sue you over it in the normal course of business, but it's still not fair use. Technically, you can't actively save them or print them without violating copyright law.

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[ceoyoyo (59147)]

I don't think that's been tested. The web is a publishing medium. So if you publish a photo on the web, I request that photo from your web server and your server sends it to me, how is that different than if I received any other published work from you? If you send me a free magazine there's no problem if I cut out a picture and tack it to my wall.

There IS a problem if I photocopy that picture and redistribute it. If I were to download your picture, turn it into a desktop background and then repost it o

It's pretty clear...

[tinkerghost (944862)]

The web is a publishing medium only in the sense that television and radio are publishing mediums. While format & time shifting radio and tv are considered fair use, photo copying a pinup & putting the copy on the wall isn't. You can put your pinup or clippings on the wall or in a scrapbook because you haven't duplicated the work - you've simply manipulated an existing copy - hence no copyright violation. Format & time shifting are exceptions to copyright. New desktop backgrounds don't currently

Re:No reasonable person

[TheGratefulNet (143330)]

If you make pictures of your pet available, I should be free to use them as I see fit.

uhhh, no. that's not how it works. if you attach a (c) or even if you DON'T its assumed you have rights to your image.

come on - this IS the studios DOING the stealing now even though they are first to yell when someone 'steals' from them.

if they want us to respect their (c) they must respect ours!

(yes, I shoot photos. often I will give them away but you must ask first!)

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[KillerCow (213458)]

No reasonable person thinks that a happy snap of their pet has any value other than sentimental.

Read TFA, they have value to marketers because they are genuine.

Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. - Publilius Syrus (~100 BC)

Re:No reasonable person

[bigstrat2003 (1058574)]

It has nothing to do with the value of the picture. There was no real harm done, however, if the media companies are going to be dicks about copyright, and enforce it to within the last nanometer of the law, individuals can and should do the same back to them when the big guys violate copyright. Turnabout is fair play, after all.

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[QuantumG (50515)]

Oh I completely agree. The problem is that people want to hold me to the same rules that they wish to apply to Fox or some other money grubbing bastard.

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[Seumas (6865)]

Content you create is instantly copyrighted by you. Period. A person must actively release something into a free-use license. Therefore, regardless of what any person thinks of the content they have generated, YOU have no right to use it for any reason unless specifically stated by the creator of that content. Period. This is not a complex science or vague art.

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[QuantumG (50515)]

I said reasonable. Since when is copyright reasonable?

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[ultranova (717540)]

thinks that a happy snap of their pet has any value other than sentimental. If you make pictures of your pet available, I should be free to use them as I see fit.

You should, but you aren't under current copyright laws. Help get them removed and the problem disappears. Furthermore, if someone finds an use to the pictures of my dog, then clearly said pictures have some kind of value to that person. Why else would they bother having anything to do with those pictures ?

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[QuantumG (50515)]

The point is that if you or I are using some random image we find on the net, even if it is for commercial use, the excuses start piling out. Copyright is unreasonable. The person who took the picture is just being greedy, etc. But when Fox does it, oh no, they're evil bastards who should pay for every picture they want or they are stealing.

Copyright is stupid and it is dangerous for precisely this reason - when people start seeing the dollar signs they become extremists. Then, of course, in an attempt

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[bigstrat2003 (1058574)]

Yeah, I kinda have to laugh at the ingenuity of making someone pay for violating your copyright by making them appear to link to goatse. That guy is all right in my book.

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[Lars T. (470328)]

Yeah, I kinda have to laugh at the ingenuity of making someone pay for violating your copyright by making them appear to link to goatse. That guy is all right in my book.

Gee, you'ld think if Microsoft is going to steal (oh wait, it isn't stealing, is it?) an image, they wouldn't actually just deep link to it and also steal (now that may atually be stealing) his bandwidth. OTOH, would he have noticed they used his picture if they had just copied it?

Re:Sign of the times: money, "rights", greed

[Seumas (6865)]

Quite possibly the stupidest comment I have read in the entire discussion. Your content is your content. That's all there is to it. You have the right to dictate how someone can use your content, if at all, as well as being compensated for commercial use by a commercial application of your content. Just because I upload a photo for my profile on my website to represent myself doesn't mean that you deserve some self-assigned right to use it in an advertisement or sell it or redistribute it for your own purposes. It doesn't belong to you. The greedy people are the ones trying to take YOUR content and profit off it rather than creating their own content.

If you want content, create it yourself or specifically hunt out free content. Don't steal someone else's.

By your comments, I'm going to assume that you're probably a middle school student who has absolutely no concept of property or copyright or use licenses and thinks that you should get everything for free. Hell, by your reasoning someone should be able to just steal the linux source code and do whatever they want with it for profit, without adhering to any of the attached licenses (attribution, redistribution of source code, etc). After all, anyone who restricts you from doing whatever you want with THEIR content is just a greedy twat.

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[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

Hell, by your reasoning someone should be able to just steal the linux source code and do whatever they want with it for profit, without adhering to any of the attached licenses (attribution, redistribution of source code, etc). After all, anyone who restricts you from doing whatever you want with THEIR content is just a greedy twat.

Why is it that you head-in-the-sand pro-copyright people always try to justify your position by pointing at GPL licenses? When you do that, all you do is reveal your poor understanding of the GPL. You certainly don't support your point.

In a world without copyright there would be little market for linux products that don't include the source. Just as today there is no market for cars with their hoods welded shut. That is actually RMS's end goal - to get society to the point where the GPL is no longer ne

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[QuantumG (50515)]

Have a look at every comment on this story now.. anyone would think Slashdot is the home of the pro-copyright extremists. There's no talk of fair use. There's no talk of the creativity requirements of copyright. There's none of the usual bemoaning of the extremity of copyright law, as there is when "one of us" is being sued for copyright infringement. No, it's "hang 'em from the tallest tree!!" I honestly wouldn't be surprised if I noted down the nicks of everyone who has had some pro-copyright thing t

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[neomunk (913773)]

It's the class warfare man.

People feel like they've been shit on 'from above' for so long that when one of those 'above' slips in their own pile of turd we really really hope that they land in it face first.

You are correct though, it is hypocritical. *shrugs* Personally, I hope they (infringers who are known to sue other infringers) choke on the IP laws that they have shoved down our throats. I don't REALLY believe in copyright laws as they exist (maybe if they were far far shorter in duration, 3-7 years

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[skelly33 (891182)]

Taking the photo and reproducing it is copyright infringement. The other things you described are called derivative works [chillingeffects.org]. Corporations that make a big deal about intellectual property rights should be held to their own standards. It's not so much that the blog owner has been violated, it's the principle of the double standard that justifies the exposure.

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[ultranova (717540)]

Why does the slashdot community have a problem with this, but not with sampling and remixing in the musical context?

Dunno about "Slashdot community", but I only have a problem with hypocrisy of the Hollywood studios suing people for infringing on their copyrights while infringing on them themselves. Even if I cared nothing about copyrights (I do; I oppose them on both practical and philosophical reasons) I would still oppose this kind of practice, simply because laws which are enforced selectively cause

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[Umuri (897961)]

I'm not sure I follow your assumption.

They linked to an image, therefore, they used the image, to show something.
Just because they didn't host a copy of the image themselves doesn't mean they didn't use the image.
If they linked to the blog or page shell, then it would be attribution, since that page is up there to be viewed.

A paper and pencil example would be the difference between me opening a book and showing someone a picture in it, and cutting out the picture and pasting it into a report. The first is