

Newest Victim of DMCA: Here Comes Another Bubble Video - jamiequint
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/15/misunderstanding-copyright-law-and-ruining-everyones-fun/

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edu
I would say that more than victim of the DMCA, the video has been victim of a
stupid, greedy photographer without knowledge of how the copyright laws work.

I think the real problem is that given the expenses of a lawsuit, lawyers
behave like blackmailers.

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noonespecial
Photogs are a notoriously conservative bunch when it comes to this sort of
thing. Witness the wedding photographer basically holding hostage the wedding
pictures for extremely high "print fees" and denying the bride and groom any
rights to reuse the pictures of their own wedding. This has been the "industry
norm". We were unable to find ANY wedding photographers who were willing to
allow us to produce a CD containing the photos from our wedding for the
guests, at any price. A few high quality digital cameras and some volunteers
solved this problem, yielded outstanding results and saved a ton of money. One
more industry bites the dust thanks to greed and an unwillingness to change
with the times. Good riddance.

~~~
pchristensen
One alternative approach (prob too late for you) would be to put a "Wedding
Photographer Wanted" in your local Craigslist with the stipulation that you
must be able to buy the digital negatives. Let photographers know that current
practice is unsatisfying and there is an opportunity they're missing.

Unfortunately, people easily buy into the FUD about not "capturing the magic
moment" and will pay almost any price to "ensure" perfect pictures. If these
guys weren't so flush with bookings, they would have a reason to be more
flexible.

~~~
noonespecial
This was a "pre-craigslist" affair. There were still dinosaurs roaming the
earth!!! Instead we took a "the more cameras the better" tack. Not only did we
have several volunteers with expensive high quality digital cameras, we also
handed out bags of disposable cameras to all of the guests and encouraged them
to snap away at whatever they found interesting. At the end of the night, they
returned the cameras. 99% of all of the pictures were crap but among the
nearly 10,000 pictures there were astonishing gems that no professional could
have captured. It all came out to be less than half of the cost of the lowest
price "professional" that we found.

The CD was mailed to all of the guests a week later and everyone was
captivated by the participatory nature of it all.

Everyone has heard horror stories about the pro going out of business, or
losing the pictures. When you have 300 cameras, this is not a fear that you
have!

There's a startup in there somewhere I feel it! Anyone game to develop it?

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jamiequint
Here is the photographer's flickr page where she posts her story:
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/fetching/2090802706/>

~~~
tlrobinson
I'm all for photographers/artists/etc getting paid for their work, but "her
story" is basically her being whiny and greedy:

 _...has founded a new company called YieldEx, which is still early, but aims
to help Web site owners maximize their ad revenue. He's mum on the details,
but VentureBeat hears he has $3 million...

so these guys expect me to work for free? Are they serious?_

How much does she expect to get paid for a low resolution photo shown for a
fraction of a second in a _silly web video_?

~~~
BrandonM
This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but the photo was protected. It is
not protected by fair use because the video is not a parody _of that photo_ ,
but of something else entirely. The photographer took the picture for Wired
(where the video creator apparently downloaded it after a Google search), and
Wired licensed the picture for use. In the page which includes the picture,
there were several links to the original photographer's page.

The real lesson here is to ask for simple permission when including other
people's content in your own. With e-mail, this is easier than ever. Either
that or make sure that it's licensed under a "sharing" license. Failing both
of those, you'll just have to find another image.

This is really how it's designed to work. It's not right to be able to just
take someone else's work and slap it into your own with no permission or
credit.

~~~
omouse
Do you know how many _other_ photos were in that video? No one else complained
because they realize it's a fun little video that's not making _any_ money
anyway!

"The real lesson here is to ask for simple permission when including other
people's content in your own."

They didn't realize this would be so popular. If it wasn't so popular, do you
think this photographer would have complained? No she wouldn't have even
noticed.

She's turned herself into the Grinch all because of a 1-second showing of one
of her photos. I hope she gets coal in her Christmas stocking!

~~~
noonespecial
Perhaps someone should start a "nuisance registry" that tracks so called
"artists" that abuse the spirit of the legal system in this manner. That way
the rest of us can systematically ignore their "art" and they can quickly fade
into the obscurity that they so richly deserve.

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Goladus
I really don't know what to think. On the one hand, that video killed a bunch
of my brain cells and I don't care what happens to it; on the other hand I
hope the plaintiff loses for the sake of copyright.

