Rips off Jay Maisel and gets caught but doesn't think he did anything wrong....

[PViapiano]

This horse is just about beat, as is usual around here...copyright laws are what they are. If you use 'em and make money, good for you. If you want to share your work for no money no matter what the use and cause, more power to ya. You can do whatever you want, have fun, think creatively, be groovy, it's a free country.

No one forces you to copyright your photographs, books, music, etc...if you don't believe in that principle, then there's the Creative Commons made especially for you. You don't like vanilla, there's always chocolate...

[bdkphoto]

Jim,

I did better than arbitrarily demonstrating something acknowledged as a possibility. When I formulated my developers, I published the formulas for the benefit of the photography community. I've also set my permissions default at Flickr to "Attribution-Share Alike".

By the way, there are over 250, 000 images tagged "Architecture" with CC licenses at Flickr alone. Lots of people are doing architectural photography and making their work available for free. That was my point, not that Kirk's work specifically was somehow unworthy of remuneration. If we understand Kirk's work as "architectural photography" in a broad sense, and don't imagine some personal affront to Kirk that never existed, it's hard to argue people aren't doing it for free.

Incidentally, it was Kirk who made an example of his work, not me. I was speaking of professional photographers in general. Kirk implied that he couldn't earn money from his photography without copyright protection, which is not true. My point was that there is nothing inherent in architectural photography that warranted a special incentive to get it done, because lots of people already do it for free. This doesn't mean professional photographers shouldn't be paid any more than it means Barbers, or Doctors shouldn't be paid, it just means there's no reason to provide a special incentive beyond payment for services rendered, to do it. It's not really such a difficult concept, and I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble grasping it. Either you really struggle with the concepts, in which case I'm sorry for frustrating you, or you've simply decided you're opposed to any argument that challenges your theory of the way the world should work, in which case I'm happy to frustrate you.

You don't seem to understand that CC is a merely a copyright license designed for the share community. It works under existing copyright law and any disputes with the agreements are handled exactly as disputes with commercial licenses. The are recent examples where CC licenses were violated by commercial entities ie, a major clothing company using a CC non-commercial licensed flicker image on a T-shirt. CC forbids this use. Redress for this is the exact same kind of infringement case in Federal Court that occurs in a commercial dispute. The CC does not replace existing copyright laws, it is just a simple license. By using a CC license you are actually acknowledging and participating in the current copyright system. Lessig and the CC community are not advocating for the abolishment of copyright, they just created an easy licensing system for those who wanted their work to be shared, instead of the "all rights reserved" default.

[Jay DeFehr]

You don't seem to understand that CC is a merely a copyright license designed for the share community.

I understand very well. There are various licenses, some of which allow commercial use and others that don't. The one I chose as my default allows commercial use. I never advocated for the abolishment of the copyright system, either, and stated so several times.

[Jay DeFehr]

As both a paid plasma donor and an unpaid blood donor while health permitted, I don't consider the money as a significant factor.

Thank you for donating blood.

[Mike Anderson]

Mike Anderson,

I'd like to follow up on something we touched on, but didn't follow up on as I'd have liked. I think you make some very good points, and in re-reading my replies I'm afraid it might appear I didn't consider them carefully. Sometimes I get pressed for time and answer too briefly, and can appear more adversarial than I mean to.

You commented on the effect of incentives on creative work, and it's an interesting topic. In a previous post I briefly mentioned studies that report some interesting and counter-intuitive findings on the subject. You can find one such report here.

One example of Motivational Crowding Theory concerns blood donors:

The author of The Gift Relationship argued that paying for blood undermines intrinsic motivations for donating, and would reduce or even totally eliminate the willingness to give blood. Economists were baffled. How could a positive incentive have a negative effect? Surely something is better than nothing. This attitude represents a good example of theory induced blindness. The economists theory about the way the world works prevented them from understanding how the world really works. Subsequent studies show that people donate blood largely for the intrinsic rewards, so it's not a case of something or nothing, but a case of substituting one kind of reward for another. The extrinsic reward (remuneration) changed the nature of the transaction, and the extrinsic reward was less of an incentive than the intrinsic ones, creating a crowding out effect.

My point is that any time the rewards for doing something are largely, or even partially intrinsic, it's far from certain that the addition of an extrinsic reward will increase the incentive, and it's very possible it could have the opposite effect.

I hope you find this as interesting as I do, and I hope you understand I've enjoyed this discussion with you.

Jay,

Yes I'm enjoying this discussion too. It's got me thinking about questions I hadn't considered before (which is sometimes a good thing, isn't it?). I just skimmed the linked article you provided - a little heavy for a Saturday night but I'll delve into it a little deeper later.

...to be continued

...Mike

[bdkphoto]

Jim,

I did better than arbitrarily demonstrating something acknowledged as a possibility. When I formulated my developers, I published the formulas for the benefit of the photography community. I've also set my permissions default at Flickr to "Attribution-Share Alike".

By the way, there are over 250, 000 images tagged "Architecture" with CC licenses at Flickr alone. Lots of people are doing architectural photography and making their work available for free. That was my point, not that Kirk's work specifically was somehow unworthy of remuneration. If we understand Kirk's work as "architectural photography" in a broad sense, and don't imagine some personal affront to Kirk that never existed, it's hard to argue people aren't doing it for free.

Incidentally, it was Kirk who made an example of his work, not me. I was speaking of professional photographers in general. Kirk implied that he couldn't earn money from his photography without copyright protection, which is not true. My point was that there is nothing inherent in architectural photography that warranted a special incentive to get it done, because lots of people already do it for free. This doesn't mean professional photographers shouldn't be paid any more than it means Barbers, or Doctors shouldn't be paid, it just means there's no reason to provide a special incentive beyond payment for services rendered, to do it. It's not really such a difficult concept, and I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble grasping it. Either you really struggle with the concepts, in which case I'm sorry for frustrating you, or you've simply decided you're opposed to any argument that challenges your theory of the way the world should work, in which case I'm happy to frustrate you.

You are advocating that professional photographers be paid as a service only (as you state above), when in fact what we produce is IP covered by copyright law. You assign a copyright license to your own work through CC, yet if you believe that what we provide is just a service then you should not be claiming copyright protection through CC. If copyright works for your photography under a CC license then your argument for treating photography as just a service is BS.

[Jay DeFehr]

..if you believe that what we provide is just a service then you should not be claiming copyright protection through CC.

Yes, you're right. I think I saw a way to remove all restrictions, but what concerns me is that it makes it possible for someone else to copyright my work, which defeats the purpose. Share-alike prevents that, and so it is the closest thing to my ideal, which would be for no one to be able to copyright my work. As I said in an earlier post, the license I would prefer would allow anyone to use my work in any way they like, but would prevent anyone from preventing anyone else from using my work. I think the share-alike license does that. The fact that the share-alike license falls under existing copyright law doesn't change the intent or spirit of the license, and so I don't feel any compunction in using it. To be fair, I didn't assign a copyright license to my work; one was automatically assigned when I posted my images at Flickr. When I learned about my options for removing restrictions, I chose the one closest to my ideal. So, no BS, I mean what I say.

[Greg Miller]

So, what was the point then of having both sets of lawyers go to the trouble of "reviewing" the article prior to publishing if not to clear - i.e. "approve" - it for subsequent publishing? The article did get published and the author did not get sued, ergo the review seems to have resulted in the approval. De facto if not de iure.

I suppose there is also a huge difference between the hair that was split and the one that wasn't. Or even between the hair that was finely split and the one that was just... well, split.

"Reviewed" just means that Andy sent the text to Jay and said he intended to publish it on his blog. Perhaps Jay responded. Perhaps he did not. You are assuming he did. Perhaps he did not approve of what was written, but didn't care enough to respond, or was magnanimous enough to let it go.

"Approved" means that Jay responded back and said OK. There is a difference, and is more than a nuance. Or is nuance now called splitting hairs?

You know, the ones you and bdkphoto are wrapping around the word when you refer to my opinion. A method for either assigning it the opposite meaning or to negate any meaning, commonly used in sarcasm, irony and personal attacks. If I remember correctly, it's called "metalinguistic negation" or something along those lines.

That's what made it a "game". Very "smart" but also pretty funny, because as opposed to the two words I just negated through the use of quotes, 'opinion' has no opposite. "Nice" try, though. And "deep" too. Oops, I just did it again…

Are we getting the point yet?

Sorry - you are wrong. I wrote it and I wasn't playing a game. And I was not assigning it the opposite meaning.

But even if it was, then it isn't like you haven't engaged in your own game playing (just this one post as an example). So again you complain about something you yourself engage in. [Game play]Careful or someone might think you are acting like a compete hypocrite.[/Game play]

[Greg Miller]

Nobody in this forum has vilified Maisel, on the contrary, you and others have called Baio a thief by making absurd comparisons (BBQ?) even asking for jail time.
Even more so, pretty much everyone here has agreed on the opinion that Baio was wrong, myself included.

You might want to re-read posts 13 and 19. These are what (regretably) prompted my participation in this thread. An extortionist is pretty comparable to a thief, no? Hit squads kill people, right?


[/QUOTE]b) A mean-spirited approach by Jay himself.[/QUOTE]

[/QUOTE]But no, he "felt violated that his image was pixelated" (sic!) so he decided to send a hit squad and extort somebody's annual salary from the guy.[/QUOTE]

[/QUOTE]I also think that Maisel acted like a complete dushbag who went all-in not so much because of the copyright - there are things called cease-and-desist letters - but because he felt like sticking it to the digital crowd.[/QUOTE]

Actually, in my opinion, everyone who has tossed around terms like these have done so as sarcasm and hyperbole. And in some, if not many, cases done so with the intention to incite strong reaction. I think we, including myself, can lighten up a bit and not take these things so seriously. I'm going to take my own advice and move on to greener pastures.

[sanchi heuser]

...
Hi Sanchi,

I think you're missing a critical element in the disagreement, as illustrated by your example:



What if your neighbor saw your barbecue and said, "Hey! Great idea! I'm going to build one of those for my family, so we can enjoy the same benefits you do."

And you replied, "If you do, I'll sue you and take your house."

Is this better for a peaceful society?

..,

Hi Jay,

I was talking about using different things that are exposed in the public
and the way people respect or ignore other people's properties .
That was the reason why I have chosen
a barbecue grill - it's often exposed in the public and an example for something that can be used by a group of people together.
Or take instead a bicycle, boat, car or lawn-mover if you want.
A picture or another product of our creativity can also often used by many persons
and it's often exposed in the public.

The difference now is, and that is what this thread is all about,
the way we are handling other people's personal properties inclusive intellectual properties.
There are people who are knowing what is right and ask friendly if they can use your bicycle, cars or whatever.
And there are others that simply disrespect and just use it without asking,
especially when
the owners of bthe properties fits perfectly into ones concept of the enemy (millionaire, sucessful,
banker, lawyer, rich parents. arrogant and so on).

If the owner doesn't want you to use his things then let's respect it.
Yes, I can make my own grill. Maybe the neighbar just wants to work in his darkroom
instead of making a barbecue party

I'm talking about common sense not about laws.
Maybe in the future we don't need no more any laws and provisions
- when everybody respects the other -
maybe in 500 years. Or never and that's just an illusion, who knows that...
Until than we need laws, police, weapons, tribunals, jails etc.
and copyright law, $32500 penalties, endless discussions etc.

I don't want to say I'm an angel and doing everything right...
but just growing older

Andi


What I have written before:
I think a photograph is the property of the person who produced it.
No matter if amateur or top professional, if poor devil or millionaire.
The individual should have the freedom to decide who uses the photo and
for what purpose. If the author decides to take money for it or give it away
for free should be his own decision and that decision should be respected by everybody else. Same with texts, music, artwork etc.

I see no difference between a person creating a picture and a person who
constructs e.g. a barbecue grill.
What would you say when people come to your garden and see your barbecue grill
and use it without asking you? I assume you would be very angry.
The other possibility is to ask the owner friendly '"Hey what a nice barbecue
grill, let's make a party together, we bring beer and ribs, what do you think?"
Maybe you have a nice
evening together and become friends.

It needs no university exam to understand what is better for a peaceful society.