Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

"The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface but you’re never allowed to answer back. Well, they started the fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back.

Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place."

– Banksy, Wall and Piece

Shepherd Fairey, the famous graffiti artist responsible for Obey as well iconic imagery used in the Barack Obama presidential campaign was arrested in Boston on Friday night. Fairey was in town for an opening of a new show of his, "Supply and Demand," at the Institute of Contemporary Art. He was arrested on two outstanding warrants for graffiti in Boston.

Fairey told the Los Angeles Times last year that his "Obey Giant" street art campaign had led to his arrest many times.

When Fairey came to San Francisco for a show at the Shooting Gallery late last year the entire City was bombarded with his art on everything from the back and fronts of billboards to abandoned gas stations. Most of his work in San Francisco last year was around his Obama images.

Earlier this week I blogged about an ongoing dispute between Fairey and the Associated Press regarding the source of his famous Obama HOPE image.

In another high profile graffiti arrest about two weeks ago, 7 high profile graffiti taggers from the crew MTA were arrested in Los Angeles.

If you think marijuana should be legal, digg this here.

Kellogg Co. today become the first major company to drop Michael Phelps over the photo that appeared of him smoking marijuana.

“”Michael’s most recent behavior is not consistent with the image of Kellogg. His contract expires at the end of February and we have made a decision not to extend his contract,” spokeswoman Susanne Norwitz said in a statement.”

1. Kellogg Co. is idiotic. Apple Jacks, Cocoa Krispies, Eggo waffles, Froot Loops (yes, you heard that right Froot Loops!), Frosted Flakes, Frosted Mini-Wheats, Cinnamon Marshmallow Scooby-Doo! cereal, Spider-Man Spidey-Berry cereal, SpongeBob SquarePants cereal (say it ain’t so!), Cheez-It crackers, Mother’s Cookies (and I’m talking pink and white frosted animals sailor!), Pop-Tarts, Rice Krispies Treats, and the list goes on. Do those idiots not realize that stoners probably make up at least 50% of their sales?

Fortunately Cap’n Crunch still remains safely owned by by Quaker Oats and their parent, our good friends over at Pepsi (whew! dodged a bullet with that one!).

2. By dropping Michael Phelps for the sole reason of smoking pot, they are making a statement that pot is bad. That pot is evil. That by extension pot ought to be criminalized. In a very public way.

Earlier this week when several of his sponsors announced that they’d be standing by him, I think Dave Winer put it best, “Glad to see some sensibility emerging. Smoking pot is like having a beer. BFD.” And that’s exactly how Kelloggs should look at this as well.

The War on Drugs has cost our country dearly. It’s cost millions of dollars to incarcerate people for doing something that is no different than imbibing in a little alcohol. Instead of legalizing pot, taking the profits away from organized crime and drug dealers, and taxing it to raise much needed revnue, the politicians (along with their friends from the alcohol lobby) would rather just keep wasting money. To this end Kellogg Co. is not part of the solution. And they are very much a part of the problem. And for this reason, as much as it pains me, I’ll be keeping away from my Froot Loops and frosted animal cookies for a while.

Hopefully someone can talk some sense into Kellogg and Co. and have them reverse this horrible decision announced today.

Update: an interesting article from Anthony Citrano. Michael Phelps Should Not Be Sorry.

The Associated Press is out this morning claiming copyright ownership to what will certainly be considered one of the most famous and important images of this century.

The image in question was also one of the most used images in the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign and also now sits in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. The image was seen all over the United States, from graffiti in San Francisco to dorm rooms in Iowa. And apparently now the Associated Press has decided it wants to muscle in on a little of the ca-ching going on.

From CNN:

““The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission,” the AP’s director of media relations, Paul Colford, said in a statement released Wednesday. “AP safeguards its assets and looks at these events on a case-by-case basis. We have reached out to Mr. Fairey’s attorney and are in discussions. We hope for an amicable solution.”

Fairey, a Los Angeles street artist, has said he found the image online and created his now-famous depiction in early 2008. He says he has not profited at all from the work, which he donated to the Obama campaign.”

Fairey is claiming fair use rights, but the bigger question really is does the Associated Press even *own* this image at all. If it turns out that they do not, they may come out looking like even more like the idiots that they were painted out as a while back when they decided that they wanted to start going after bloggers for quoting their stories.

Both Shepherd Fairey and the photographer who took the original image, Mannie Garcia, agree that the image was originally taken by Garcia. And now Garcia is saying that he owns copyright on the image not the Associated Press. It also seems that Garcia is a really cool guy and while wanting to be recognized as the original photographer, he isn’t trying to milk this thing for all it’s worth personally like your friends over at AP.

In an interview over at Photo Business Forum, in fact, Garcia has said that the majority of any money due him from this photo at all he’d like to see go to charity.

“Now, monies – monies that might be made by me signing my photograph. I am concerned, that the image out there – I would like very much to figure out a way that my signature on a photograph that I made of then Senator now President Obama, that maybe the monies = most of it – could be donated to the American Red Cross, children’s cancer research, and women’s breast cancer research. This is not about me making money off this, it’s about recognition. I made the most iconic image of our time, and I’d like it to make a difference, not make me money. I’m a blue collar photographer – I am out there on the grind every day. I spend more energy looking for work than doing work. I just want Shepard Fairey to say “alright, you’re the guy. Thank you.”"

In terms of the APs claim of ownership of the image, Garcia states that he was not a staffer for the AP when he took it, that he wasn’t even an AP freelancer, but rather a temporary hire with no contract and that the ownership of the disputed image belongs to him.

And I think he just may be right on this. Without a contract with him signing over his rights to his photos to AP, as far as I’m aware Garcia ought to own the rights to his work.

Now there are a lot of ways this might unfold. It might be that it doesn’t matter if the AP or Garcia took the original image, that it’s use might be considered fair use. I’m not an attorney, but I think there is a real case to be made here.

It might also turn out that AP has no rights to the image. They have no contract with Garcia and sans contract any ownership of the image likely would go to him.

Personally I think it’s very unlikely that the AP will get control over this very popular image. Which means that they may end up looking like money grubbing jerks yet again if/when they lose. Even if they win, enough people are probably impressed with the way that Fairey gave all of the money made on the image to the Obama campaign that they’ll still end up looking bad trying to squeeze him.

If the AP were smart, I’d think that they’d be better off right now from the start agreeing that no money would go to them if they do have any coming, and that instead any money raised would go to charity and Garcia. Garcia could of course also choose to give his portion largely to charity as well if they recovered any.

It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.

I license all of my photos on Flickr Creative Commons, non-commercial. This basically means that anyone can use them for personal use. It also means that non-profits and others can use them.

What it doesn’t mean is that commercial entities can use them for free.

I get asked almost every single day from people whether or not they can use my photos for things or not. These requests range everywhere from a ten-year-old asking me permission to use one of my lady bug photos for her book report (which is very cute) to major companies asking to use them. Many of the requests fall within the creative commons license, but either people don’t understand that or want to ask anyways.

My own general rule is that I, of course, always say yes to appropriate non-commercial or personal use. When the nature is commercial I generally feel out the situation. A lot of people who ask me to use my images for commercial use are pretty cash strapped. I’ve had unsigned bands ask me to use images for album covers. I’ve had first time authors ask me for permission to use my images for their new book. I’ve had poetry journals want to use them. You get the idea. Generally speaking, I tend to allow commercial use of my images to anyone that I feel can’t easily afford to pay for whatever reason. I consider it good karma.

Oftentimes people that use my photos this way will send me a CD from the band, a copy of a book or publication etc. Once I let this band Science for Girls use my images for free for their CD and Darren Solomon, the producer for the small band, later contacted me with an opportunity to use other images for a commercial project where I was paid. Goes around, comes around. It makes you feel good.

A lot of times I get requests from people though who truly can afford to pay. A law firm once used one my images for their company Holiday card, major corporations have used my photos in print or TV ads. My photos have been used in magazines, for greeting cards, for text books. Really all kinds of use. With these buyers I usually negotiate a price I think is fair based on the use. Sometimes $50, sometimes $100, sometimes $500. It just all sort of depends. I’m pretty flexible.

One thing that does bother me a bit though is when companies that clearly can pay, ask for your images for free. They certainly are free to ask, but generally I say no to these people and it does rub me a bit the wrong way seeing large profitable corporations trying to get something off the backs of a community like Flickr for free. On Monday night on our photowalk I was talking to some of the other photographers about this and Jon Bauer mentioned receiving an email from GQ asking to use his images for free. It seems GQ is the latest company looking to score free images off Flickr.

So today I wasn’t surprised to get my own request on one of my images from GQ (photo above):

The email went like this:

“My name is [redacted], and I work in the GQ magazine photo department. I am trying to acquire images of The Griffin in Las Vegas for use on our website. We are going to launch GQ’s online guide to Las Vegas in two weeks and we would love to include one of your photographs.

Generally, I would never ask for something for nothing. However, at this time we are only able to give credit. If that is okay with you and we can have permission to use one of your images, it would be greatly appreciated.”

Now in GQ’s case I’m going to say no. GQ is owned by Conde Nast. Conde Nast is owned by Advance Publications. Advance publications is owned by the descendents of S.I. Newhouse. These are the mega wealthy of the world. Forbes Magazine ranked Advance Publications as the 41st largest private company in the United States last year. For a major company to try to beg photos for free off of Flickr is bad form in my opinion. And at a minimum they should think about offering a free subscription or something.

I feel that I’m very generous with my photography. Maybe to a fault. And I really like helping people out who I think ought to be helped out. But I’m not so sure that seeing major for profit companies begging photos off Flickr is the best thing for anyone.

My two cents for what it’s worth.

The Colbert Report had this great and very funny piece on a photographer who was harassed for taking photographs by Amtrak Police when he was trying to take photos for an Amtrak photography contest. Well worth watching.

Thanks, PDXSean!

Earlier today, the only group where I am really active on Flickr DMU was sabotaged when one of it’s administrators made everyone an administrator in the group.

This was done after an argument between admins over the nature of what an uncensored group on Flickr ought to be about. Some of the admins in the group wanted to begin censoring it.

DeleteMe Uncensored was the first uncensored group on Flickr. The idea was to play the game of DeleteMe (where people vote on photographs giving photos either a vote of "save" or "delete"). In that game if you get your photo saved 10x before you get it deleted 10x it goes into a special collection of images.

The catch though is that the game would also be uncensored. Uncensored meant that people can and will say ruthless things when critiquing your photograph that is submitted. Uncensored also meant that people can say anything they want in the threads of the group. Even very, very unpopular things.

An uncensored group is not for everyone on Flickr. Some people do not want harsh criticism on their photos and some people do not want to take part in a forum where people swear and sometimes say truly offensive things. It is not for the thinned skin. On the other hand some of the best political discussions, some of the best fine art discussions, some of the best discussions concerning the news of the day or just random mischef and mayhem took place in that group.

Today I started a new DeleteMe Uncensored group. This was done in order to replace the old group which had been deleted.

I’d like to invite you to join the new group. This new group will be where I spend the vast majority of my group time on Flickr. Be warned that this group is an 18+ group. That means that if you want in you will need to ensure that your account on Flickr has been set to allow you to see restricted content.

Hopefully over the course of the next week this new group will fill in and pick up where the old group left off.

You can join the new group here if you’d like to participate.