Flickr Censors A Photographer's Plea

Bananatree3 writes "Popular Icelandic photographer and art-student Rebekka Guoleifsdottir has been targeted by Flickr for posting a plea for help in a theft case involving an online retailer selling copycat art. She requested that people send the retailer letters concerning the issue, and in response her original post was promptly deleted. It is still ironically available on Yahoo cache. In the end it appears that the retailer had been duped by a rogue art dealer under the title "Wild Aspects and Panoramics LTD". However, Flickr seems to have overstepped its bounds in deleting this post." This whole case brings back up the messy issues surrounding content ownership in this strange new world of a services based internet.

Re:Overstepped??!!

[WED Fan]

However, Flickr seems to have overstepped its bounds in deleting this post."

Isn't it Flickr's site? They can do whatever they want. This isn't involving your rights online or anybody else's "right".

It is Flickr's site. And yes, they can do what they want. However, market forces can also force them to do what is right.

So, do you sympathize with the photographer? If we go by the anti-copyright crowd, she doesn't have a case. It is "copycat" art. Or, are we going to protect her intellectual property?

Value and Scarcity.

[Anonymous Coward]

All value is based on scarcity. When you digitize something, it becomes instantly, perfectly reproducable across teh internets at practically zero cost.

Hence it no longer has any value.

Stop whining about how your intellectual property has been stolen, realise that it isn't actually worth anything.

Re:The Conflict

[lostboy2]

Why doesn't Rebekka just sue OnlyDreemin?

That's a good question and the thing that makes this story interesting to me.

On Rebekka's original page (Yahoo cache), she mentions having an Icelanding lawyer send letters to OnlyDreemin. The response, it seems, was less than satisfying:

The letters did nothing other than make them take the images down from their site. Further letters got no response from them.

She then says:

My icelandic lawyer could do nothing else

Presumably this is because an Icelandic lawyer is only certified to practice law in Iceland and OnlyDreemin is based in the UK. So, Rebekka's only other option is to hire a UK attorney. But, as she mentions in her comments, she doesn't feel that she can risk all of her money (literally) to hire a lawyer for a case that might drag on for a long time and which she might not even win (or might not win enough to make it worth it).

So I'm curious if anyone on /. has had similar experiences (where an individual pursues legal action against a company in another country).