
Why BuzzFeed Should Pay My Invoice For Copyright Infringement - mopoke
http://revdancatt.com/2013/09/10/10-good-reason-buzzfeed-is-going-to-pay-my-fucking-invoice-for-copyright-theft/
======
dmourati
This happened to a bunch of flickr photographers and me for a Toyota
advertising campaign. [http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-42743425/toyota-
and-s...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-42743425/toyota-and-saatchi-
used-images-from-flickr-without-permission/)

When Toyota's ad agency Saatchi was confronted about the misuse, they offered
a flat fee of $500 (if I recall correctly ) for each photo. Several of the
photographers took the deal. A group of around 10 of us hired a lawyer and
settled for much more (withholding amount was part of the deal) per
infringement.

~~~
mikeash
Wow, $500 is an amazingly insulting offer. Statutory damages for willful
infringement are $150,000!

~~~
sgfc
That is the maximum for the willful infringement of an image that is
registered with the copyright office [1] and awards are highly vaiable. [2]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_damages_for_copyright...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_damages_for_copyright_infringement)

[2]
[http://www.ipinbrief.com/whyitsdifficultpredictstatutorydama...](http://www.ipinbrief.com/whyitsdifficultpredictstatutorydamages/)

~~~
dmourati
After the infringement was discovered and before the settlement, I did have to
register the photo with the US copyright office. It was a simple procedure and
I think I paid $35. This was done to establish that I did indeed hold the
copyright Toyota and friends infringed.

------
chasing
Good! I find it depressing how sites like that sponge value off of actual
content creators.

~~~
iamshs
It is very interesting business idea. No original
research/thought/idea/journalism of their own. Scout common websites (reddit
on top), find tidbits, use other people's work (their idea, photos etc.) and
post lists. Get your blogger to dilute the content to pander to the most of
web so that the virality factor increases, and the author should use
"interesting" language. This formula gets you pageviews, and you are on your
way to explosive growth.

~~~
sharkweek
OK let me start by saying... I really despise buzzfeed -- I think it's a waste
of space on the web and notorious for stealing content and just re-flavoring
it. I have created a little self-righteous boycott of the site where I refuse
to click on anything from their domain. A man has got to have a code...

 _HOWEVER_ \-- I think it would be REALLY fun to write for them -- I think the
challenge of trying to figure out what's hot on the internet and what has
people's attention and then trying to get as much traffic as possible would be
a ridiculously fun daily challenge.

Would I ever actually consider doing it? Not a chance in hell

~~~
iamshs
Oh definitely, it is a challenge to figure out how to gauge readers interests
and more importantly to generate constant readership. But getting content by
vetting internet forums, and regurgitating stuff is also not a taxing task.
Let's see:

What is author's contribution in this article?
[http://www.buzzfeed.com/samir/drug-addict-robs-a-store-
and-a...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/samir/drug-addict-robs-a-store-and-
apologizes-a-decade-later)

Or this one:

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/diesels-new-ad-campaign-
feat...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/diesels-new-ad-campaign-features-a-
model-who-is-both-topless)

Ha a post contributed by a community member:

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/emilys123/15-signs-you-did-a-
musical...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/emilys123/15-signs-you-did-a-musical-in-
high-school-eahu)

Or the cliched magazine cover story:

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/23-cringeworthy-
magaz...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/23-cringeworthy-magazine-
cover-photoshop-fails)

Or let's see what is hot on imgur:
[http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/obama-asks-the-hill-
to-...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/obama-asks-the-hill-to-bomb-
syria-as-explained-by-the-hills)

But looks like brain does some research:

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/15-celebrities-you-
neve...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/15-celebrities-you-never-
realized-released-albums)

------
exratione
And this is an example of one of the many, many reasons why intellectual
property in the age of the leviathan state is a terrible idea, terribly
executed.

As a practical matter you can't own public, unencrypted arrangements of bits.
All attempts to enforce ownership of public, unencrypted arrangements of bits
are forms of rent-seeking or forms of begging or, at the pleasant best, forms
of politely asking other people to go along with your view of the world for a
while.

~~~
mangoman
What? Not everything on the Internet is public domain. Just because I put a
photo on the internet that's not encrypted doesn't make it fair game to go
sell my photo.

Maybe I just didn't understand what you were trying to say...

~~~
logic
His position, I'm guessing, is that when a good has no natural scarcity
(pictures and music in digital form, for example, or compiled code), society
should not be creating an artificial scarcity in its stead (ie. compelling
others not to reproduce it through force of law). He views the idea of this
compelled scarcity to be, basically, rent-seeking behavior codified into law.

I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect the "you can't own" portion of his
statement was a point of possession and direct control, not necessarily law.

exratione, please let me know if I'm misrepresenting your position here at
all, and I'll correct my post. (I'm intentionally leaving out my opinion, just
trying to clarify yours. :))

~~~
snowwrestler
The thing is, most physical goods no longer have natural scarcity in rich
western societies like the UK or US. A bottle of water is not at all scarce,
but it's still illegal to take it from a store and use it without permission.

~~~
Dylan16807
That's not what scarcity means. There is a limited supply of bottles, and it
costs real pennies to get some and transport them full of water.

Low-cost is not no-cost, and digital copies made by someone else are actually
no-cost.

~~~
snowwrestler
For any practical purpose, there is no limit on our supply of plastic bottles.
They are incredibly cheap to make and the raw materials are incredibly
abundant.

> Low-cost is not no-cost, and digital copies made by someone else are
> actually no-cost.

They're not actually no-cost, it's just that the costs are indirect so it's
easy to lose track of them. For example, I'd be interested to see someone make
and use a digital copy without a computer and electricity, both of which cost
money. Distribution takes an Internet connection and servers, which cost money
too.

~~~
Dylan16807
>For any practical purpose, there is no limit on our supply of plastic
bottles. They are incredibly cheap to make and the raw materials are
incredibly abundant.

The raw resources for bottles are abundant, but it requires labor to make and
transport them. Labor is not free, so bottled water remains scarce. If robot
swarms will refill and restock bottles for you, _then_ you can take one off a
shelf.

>They're not actually no-cost, it's just that the costs are indirect

None of those come out of the pocket of the person being copied. I guess I was
too unclear about specifying _made by someone else_. When we're talking about
a '''theft''' scenario, the burden imposed on the person being '''stolen'''
from is very important, and when it comes to digital copies they are
uninvolved in the action and have no costs at all.

~~~
snowwrestler
You're not playing fair with your comparisons. In the case of bottled water,
you want to count all the costs of making the bottles, filling them,
transporting, them, etc. In the case of digital content, you want to ignore
the cost of producing the original, and focus only on the subsequent copies.

When you take a bottle of water, the cost of inventory (which captures the
entirety of the amortized cost of production) is less than half of the harm to
the shop keeper, because the markup on bottled water is well over 50%. The
primary harm is the revenue the shop keeper will forego because he cannot sell
that bottle.

In the digital realm, using a copyrighted piece of content without permission
causes the copyright owner--who did have to invest in the original creation--
to forego revenue as well.

~~~
Dylan16807
>You're not playing fair with your comparisons. In the case of bottled water,
you want to count all the costs of making the bottles, filling them,
transporting, them, etc. In the case of digital content, you want to ignore
the cost of producing the original, and focus only on the subsequent copies.

With bottled water, I want to count all the costs to the manufacturer of
making a specific bottle: materials, wages, property taxes, equipment wear,
etc.

With digital content, I want to count all the costs to the manufacturer of
making a specific copy: none.

I'm not saying that unlimited copying of work is fair, I'm just saying that
there is a qualitative difference in scarcity.

I don't really want to argue about what hurts more. I'll just point out that
using nothing, or purchasing a license to work A, or purchasing a license to
work B, can _all_ be looked at as causing the creators of A and/or B to forego
revenue.

~~~
snowwrestler
There is no single manufacturer of digital content. In that respect, I agree
that there is a qualitative difference.

The difference is that water bottle manufacturing is centralized, while
digital content "manufacturing" is distributed--each person "manufactures" the
digital content on their personal electronic device. That is, they use a
device and energy that they paid for, to turn the IP into something that is
physically consumable (sound, images, etc.)

So the concept of scarcity is different too, but it doesn't go away. There is
still a physical cost to digital content, it's just unbundled from the act of
creation.

You could not give infinite amounts of digital content to everyone on Earth,
because you'd need to first give everyone an electronic device that can store
and play it, the power to operate that device, and a means of digital
distribution (network connectivity or shippable media). There are physical and
cost limits on all of that.

Digital content only looks free and infinite if you ignore the required
infrastructure.

~~~
Dylan16807
But infrastructure is paid for separately. I'm ignoring the cost of the
highways for water bottle shipping, because highways are needed with or
without them.

Basically, since people already have computers and power for them to do things
completely unrelated to getting this media, the 'cost' of a copy is in the
same range as asking for one. Tap your phone against someone else's and you're
done, for example. And if you think asking is a real cost then you've defined
things so that it's impossible to be past scarcity, so I reject such a
definition.

------
Thereasione
BuzzFeed is notorious for STEALING content from other websites. Using pictures
without permission isn't the only bad thing they are doing. They even
copy/paste chunks of text verbatim into lists without attribution (For example
"13 Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Movie 'Clueless" is comprised
almost solely of sentences copied from the IMDB trivia page for Clueless, with
no sign that they are anything but his own words.). Also their lists are
rehashed from other blogs.

[http://gawker.com/5922038/remix-everything-buzzfeed-and-
the-...](http://gawker.com/5922038/remix-everything-buzzfeed-and-the-
plagiarism-problem)

[http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2013/03/buzzfeeds-
ha...](http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2013/03/buzzfeeds-happiest-
facts-all-time-were-mostly-plagiarized-reddit/62918/)

[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/06/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/06/_21_pictures_that_will_restore_your_faith_in_humanity_how_buzzfeed_makes_viral_hits_in_four_easy_steps_.single.html)

------
sethbannon
From the article: "On Slate Jonah Peretti goes on to say ”would love if every
image contained some secret metadata and a way to license that image. But the
practical reality is that it is pretty challenging“."

Now there's an interesting startup idea.

~~~
minimaxir
It already exists:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography#Digital](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography#Digital)

Unfortunately, it's easy to thwart. (just transform the image slightly)

~~~
maurits
Not at all. Enough methods, such as spread spectrum watermarking, survive a
multitude of digital deformations and 'analog' attacks like printing and
physically deforming. Action from 1.30 and German, but the demo is pretty
clear. [1]

[1]
[http://www.3sat.de/mediathek/index.php?display=1&mode=play&o...](http://www.3sat.de/mediathek/index.php?display=1&mode=play&obj=11689)

~~~
deletes
I can't watch the video, can you please provide some information/source about
the technique.

------
twilightfog
As you mention in your article, copyright infringement is not theft. You have
a legitimate claim against BuzzFeed, but don't start using the terminology of
MPAA/RIAA , unless you want to be hated as much as they are.

~~~
greenyoda
MPAA/RIAA aren't hated for abusing terminology. They're hated for extorting
exorbitant payments from people (some of whom don't even own computers, let
alone download copyrighted material) by abusing legal process (threatening
people with lawsuits that are probably groundless, but which the defendants
can't afford to pay a lawyer to defend). I doubt that the author of this
article could ever deserve that amount of hatred.

~~~
benologist
Yeah right. They're hated because they look at the people ripping off their
stuff and sites like ThePirateBay profiteering on their content and try to
stomp on that sandcastle.

~~~
venomsnake
And also subverting the public domain (the Disney extensions) and trying to
force everyone on the internet to do policing for them (SOPA). And pushing for
much harsher IP laws both in scope and penalties.

~~~
benologist
The Disney thing is largely unrelated, the amount of content even a decade old
being pirated is negligible compared to the latest whatever.

~~~
jlgreco
Are we discussing why they are hated, or why people use sites like The Pirate
Bay?

Because Disney is sure as shit related to the first.

~~~
benologist
I'm talking about the Copyright Extension Act in 1995, largely attributed to
Disney, that makes really old stuff almost nobody is pirating remain copyright
and out of the public domain?

The reasons they may be hated _for that_ don't bear much relationship with
copyright infringement which focuses _almost exclusively_ on newly released
things that would be copyright regardless of Disney's lobbying.

~~~
jlgreco
The Copyright Extension Act in 1995 is a significant part of why they are
hated. It is _anything but_ irrelevant or unrelated.

 _You_ are the one attempting to insinuate that only people who use The Pirate
Bay object to their perversion of copyright laws and discussion. Multiple
alternative reasons to be angry with them have now been presented to you, but
you just claim they are unrelated because you assert that the real reason is
that they are just interested in pirating recent things. In discarding these
alternative reasons because they they don't mesh with your already unsupported
assertion, you are begging the question.

People _are_ in fact upset with the MPAA/RIAA for their abuse of terminology
and all that it facilitates: the corruption of copyright laws, weaponized
lawsuits, and the shackling of (frankly _ancient_ ) culture.

Pretend that people are only upset with their abuse of terminology because
they want to pirate things all you want, but you are _dead wrong_.

~~~
anigbrowl
If that were really true, then there should be markedly less piracy of content
from publishers not affiliated with the MPAA or RIAA, but that doesn't seem to
actually be the case.

~~~
jlgreco
How do you think that follows? I am not asserting that people pirate MPAA/RIAA
content because they hate those organizations, nor do I think that is the
case. That would be a foolish thing to assert.

I think that people pirate primarily opportunistically. _Some_ of these people
try to justify their piracy by saying they hate the MPAA/RIAA and pirate for
ideological reasons, _other pirates do not_.

People, sometimes people who pirate, _sometimes not_ , hate the MPAA/RIAA for
a wide variety of reasons that have been beaten to death in this thread.

------
larrys
"As the kids grow up I’ve been collection various “Parent Hacks” were I’ve
discovered useful ways of doing things, with the aim of one day producing a
“10 Neat Things I Learnt While Being A Parent“. Now one of those things has
been splashed all over the internet, which kind of devalues the usefulness of
the list I was planning."

The above is the thing I find most amazing. If you are compiling a list so
that you can one day produce "10 neat things I learned" etc. then the last
thing you should be doing is putting that info _anywhere_ on the internet. The
saying that comes to mind is "possession is 9/10th of the law".

By posting it online, multiple small parties will potentially take it, spread
it around, and you will never have enough legal resources to police it.
Effectively it is gone forever.

~~~
FireBeyond
> The saying that comes to mind is "possession is 9/10th of the law".

The saying was never really that - only through bastardization and a gradual
veering away. In fact, it was that "possession is nine /points/ of the law".

------
hartator
Am I the only one who think the OP may have overreacted?

~~~
rabino
No, you're not the only one.

I totally get him, but I think the way in he expressed his belief came up as
just whiny.

Also I believe the problem is with copyright laws and not with BuzzFeed. They
are not selling that image, they are just illustrating their content and the
same article without his image would have exactly the same value.

But beyond all, what pisses me off the most is the blue background on those
link, good lord!

~~~
chakalakasp
I am not selling your code, I am just using your code verbatim without your
permission to make money and compete with you.

~~~
rabino
I do open source software released under GPLv2 so, literally, be my guest.

~~~
chakalakasp
Oh, you mean you gave the world permission in advance through a formalized
licensing agreement? Just like the article's author didn't?

------
austenallred
BuzzFeed bothers me as much as the next person, but how mad can you really be
at BuzzFeed for linking back to the _wrong page_ , according to how you see
it, that still contains the original picture and is publicly viewable?

~~~
porsupah
One thought that comes to mind is in the line "So all those 4 million plus
views who may click through, will they count as “Views” on my Flickr page?
No."

Bear that in mind - if this is accurate (and the guy once worked on Flickr),
then linking to the download page avoids bumping the photo's view count up,
which might indicate to the photographer that the photo's been featured on a
highly trafficked page.

~~~
austenallred
That sounds like a Flickr problem more than a BuzzFeed problem.

------
tristosam
Keep me updated. Really fascinated by your quest to get back the $75 they
probably owe you.

My god it must be nice to have something like this actually be a problem in
your life and make you mad.

~~~
interlopers
* $500 to $5,000

~~~
hojoff79
This is worth 500 to 5000 in the same way that the Winklevoss twins should own
half of facebook

------
chakalakasp
In general there are many companies out there who create entire biz models on
ripping off photographer's photos and compiling them into lists that sit side
saddle to paid ads. I have lots of personal experience with this, and if a
photographer registers his or her copyright, such companies are very much
liable for compensating the artist. These companies know this. Most
photographers don't notice the infringements or if they do haven't registered
their images. If more photographers registered, the pool of stolen images
would be full of many more legal torpedoes, so to speak, and the companies who
are less risk averse would spend the 30 minutes it would take to brainstorm a
system for getting images legitimately. (Hint: Cracked.com has accounts with
Getty and Corbis. It's not that hard.)

------
lightyrs
I feel your pain. On the plus side, you take great photos and now I'm aware of
your work (I know, I know — doesn't do much to help).

------
aidanbrandt
This is good to see. Too often the scum at Buzzfeed get away with blatant
infringements.

------
porsupah
It doesn't have to be this way, does it?

Yes, if BuffPo were to agree some payment for photo or writing reuse, they'd
have much greater outgoings. However, they'd also then become legitimate
channels for syndication, rather than incidental leeches.

I do profess some grim amusement in noticing that serial infringers - the
Daily Mail comes prominently to mind - are never punished with anything
greater than a nominal fee for whatever work they've lifted. Given these are
outfits that are entirely based around profit (rather than simply linking to
them in a personal journal, for example, with no money involved), surely the
consequences for copyright infringement ought to be amplified, rather than
diminished into inconsequentiality?

Imagine a BuzzFeed that shared the ad revenue with the creators of the photos
involved. It wouldn't lead to anyone's early retirement, I'm sure, but we have
the means to make such happen, very easily. Shouldn't such sites be working
toward helping creators be rewarded for what fuels those very sites?

------
sengstrom
Now in Bulgarian! [http://agronet.bg/agro-news/interesni-
novini/874-2009-02-09-...](http://agronet.bg/agro-news/interesni-
novini/874-2009-02-09-06-10-58.html) Tineye seems to be out of date, but
google image search comes through with a wealth of copies out there.

------
gallerytungsten
This guy has a great claim to some payment, anywhere from $500 to $5,000 (or
whatever he can settle for). The usage without permission is not in doubt. The
case for payment for this type of usage is well-established. The only question
is how much. Buzzfeed is in the wrong and they should pay up, pronto.

~~~
Natsu
He mentioned that many of his other photos are CC licensed and this is one of
the exceptions. Isn't there any way they could have seen the CC licenses on
his other photos and mistaken this photo for one of the CC licensed photo?

------
mtgentry
I asked Jonah about this very thing a year ago. His response was lacking IMO:

[http://cdixon.org/2012/07/24/buzzfeeds-strategy/comment-
page...](http://cdixon.org/2012/07/24/buzzfeeds-strategy/comment-
page-1/#comment-596874688)

------
nicholassmith
As an amateur photographer I've actually been in the same boat, but with an
unnamed newspaper in the UK, it's an interesting process. It's also
ridiculously common for media companies to use photography without licensing
it properly, and whilst I've heard the argument of "don't post it if you don't
want it using" it just doesn't work. The world would be a poorer place if
creatives felt that they had to sequester their work away to maintain their
own rights of control over their product.

Plus most of the time if you approach a photographer first you're going to get
a much better deal than when you've decided that licensing it properly wasn't
important.

------
fourstar
I'm running into a similar problem with a trademark I hold for my brand (that
I created and am developing). People have fast-followed with different
(similar) Twitter accounts, but are calling themselves my trademark (thus
diluting the brand). The problem is, I reached out to Twitter and they said
that these accounts weren't in violation. I spoke to a lawyer who referred me
to someone else. Should I pursue it further or just be flattered that they are
promoting the name? The problem if I do that is that then everyone thinks
it'll be okay, so the trademark is essentially useless. Any ideas? By the way,
some of these accounts have > 400k followers where I only about about 5k.

------
hojoff79
What was the invoice amount for? You list all those reasons why "it's not
worth a lot" is not a good argument...so what are you arguing it is worth? I
have to say, your "I was going to use it" argument sounds a lot like "I had
that idea first" argument for start ups. In the end, buzz feed can just
execute with that photo better, your idea (no offense) was never going to
touch 4.2MM views.

Definitely not saying you necessarily deserve nothing, but what amount did you
put in your invoice? Want to know what you think the value is

------
smoyer
Well Reverend ... I think your claim has merit but I'd be interested in
knowing what denomination ordained you with language like that. I'd recommend
you avoid curse-words like that in your court filing and in the event you talk
with officials involved in your case.

~~~
lightyrs
Where is it written that a Reverend shall not use such language?

~~~
vacri
Religious arguments frequently don't work like that. Where is it written, for
example, that Catholics must not use condoms?

~~~
lightyrs
That's pretty much my point.

~~~
vacri
I think the GP has a fair question - the stereotype of people who label
themselves 'Reverend' includes a considered reluctance to use profanity. It's
not saying that reverends can't do this if they're 'real', but it is far
enough out of the stereotype to ask just what kind of denomination is the
author a reverend for?

Whether or not it's "written" somewhere doesn't mean that there isn't a
stereotype as to how 'holy' men (it's always men...) should behave. Witness
the confusion when Westerners got into Indian religions in a big way, then
couldn't quite square the way some gurus shagged themselves silly - 'holy' men
were 'supposed' to be celibate, if not in actuality, then at least in
behaviour. It isn't the done thing to have your Anglican priest bragging about
his last shagging session with his wife, for example.

Or is the author using 'reverend' as a joke appellation, without seriously
being one?

------
freework
Someone needs to create a new internet where everything that makes it way onto
it is automatically Creative Commons "by Attribution". If you can read it, you
can use it (as long as you give credit).

~~~
chakalakasp
This would not work, as it would be difficult to impossible to distinguish
legit content from content uploaded by liars, thus breaking the trust model
you are trying to create. Here, I uploaded the entire Harry Potter series via
ebook, it must be Creative Commons; right?

------
loceng
Good luck.

------
o0-0o
Congrats, buzzfeed! You just made my hosts file.

