An interesting report from PDNPulse yesterday regarding the latest in the Flickrgate case of why Flickr decided to censor student Firas Alkhateeb’s image of the Obama Joker. You’ll remember that the image caused all the uproar (here’s a list of most places where the story ran) last week after Flickr was reported to have removed the controversial image from Alkhateeb’s stream and their site.
Flickr’s defense of their removal of the image eventually came from Community Manager Heather Champ (in a Help Forum thread that has subsequently been shut down) who told Flickr users that the reason why the image was removed was that someone filed a DMCA request to take it down.
“In this intance, the Yahoo! Copyright Team here in the US received a complete Notice of Infringement as outlined by the DMCA (Digitial Millenium Copyright Act),” stated Champ trying to deflect blame for the deletion on the controversial law. Champ added, “There appears to be a whole lot of makey uppey going in the news and blogosphere about this event.”
But now PDN is saying that they have contacted spokespeople at TIME Magazine, DC Comics, and the photographer who took the original image for Time Magazine, Platon, and all are denying having filed a DMCA takedown notice against this image. Apparently the photographer Platon’s office wasn’t even aware of the Obama/Joker issue.
So if TIME Magazine, DC Comics and Platon didn’t file a DMCA takedown notice against the image, who did? And if someone with no possible IP interest in the image filed it, wouldn’t it be a tad disingenuous at this point for Flickr staff to be hiding behind this takedown notice in justifying their act of censorship? No wonder why when they were asked by the Los Angeles Times *who* filed the DMCA takedown notice, they were told that Flickr wasn’t able to give this information out. Aren’t able to give this information out or won’t give this information out?
I was in contact yesterday with with Alkhateeb. I asked Alkhateeb if he’d learned yet from Flickr who filed the takedown notice and he told me that he hadn’t. “I actually don’t know who filed the DMCA notice,” wrote Alkhateeb to me in an email, “but I figured it must be from Time magazine, since it’s their image. All flickr told me was that one was filed, but not by who.” Alkhateeb said that he is working with the EFF in order to defend the image, adding “I’m in the process of consulting with lawyers now and figuring out my options but so far one guy I talked to at the EFF told me in all likelihood the image is fair use and I shouldn’t have any problems with a long, protracted court case, but well have to see in the coming stages.”
Could it possibly be that this image was censored because a party with no plausible IP interest submitted a DMCA takedown notice and Flickr staff just blindly removed the image — possibly just sheer incompetence? Or could it be that Flickr staff knew that the DMCA takedown request was bogus but wanted to use it anyways to take down a work of art that offended their personal and political sensibilities? The thing is that we just don’t know at this point because for all of Flickr’s claims to be an open and transparent service with their users, they are unwilling to address the issue of whether or not the DMCA request was issued by a party with a valid IP interest. I will say though that if Flickr staff knows that the DMCA takedown request is bogus and is now using it to deflect criticism against them over their censorship act that this would actually not be an open and honest way to communicate with their users at all, that this would in fact be a disingenuous and dishonest way to communicate with them.
I do think that it’s odd that Flickr/Yahoo won’t tell anyone, even Alkhateeb himself, who filed the complaint against him. Clearly Yahoo has informed people of who have filed complaints like this in the past. This shouldn’t be top secret and I’m not aware of any legal reason why a company can’t inform someone about who filed a takedown request against them. Mike Arrington blogged last April about Yahoo pulling down content by Loren Feldman and 1938 Media which clearly identified that takedown request as coming from Scorpio Music. So why is it that now, suddenly, Flickr/Yahoo is so tight lipped about who filed this request? Sounds to me like there just may be a bit more “makey uppey” going on at Flickr and Yahoo than in the news and blogosphere.
Wow. I didn’t know this happened. Sounds like Flickr lied, huh?
Amazing how you take a minimal amount of facts, ad a whole bunch of speculation, then within the same paragraph treat your own speculation based on those thin facts as truth and draw the conclusions you wanted. Michael Moore would be proud.
If only your would put your investigative journalism towards something meaningful.
Makes me wonder if the Obama staff didn’t file this notice. They could present themselves as interested parties, since it is Obama’s likeness. Even though I just can’t imagine (suppress a big fat grin) that particular group trying to suppress free speech.
If we’re speculating that Flickr is being disingenuous, why are we ruling out the possibility that there was never any DCMA notice filed at all (since there doesn’t seem to be any record of it) and that lie was made up after the fact?
Who Asked Flickr to Take Down Obama Joker Photo?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/08/26/who-asked-flickr-take-down-obama-joker-photo
http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/104389
This URL has the following quote from a Flickr staff member:
“The name of the complainant was included in the warning. I don’t know whether or not our member has published the warning that he received when the work was taken down.”
I would like to see Alkhateeb publish the original notice he rec’d, is that available already?
Sounds like a publicity stunt for some website called Flickr. They could have just as easily posted some cartoons of Muhammad and had their other interns post persecution emails from some imaginary arab group.
As far as I can tell no-one checked with Warner Bros who also hold IP on Dark Knight.
They throw around DMCAs like they’re free donuts.
four chan anon will not come out of the shadows :p
It could conceivably be one of the authors of one of the front cover stories that filed it on their own instead of through official channels at Time, but then they probably wouldn’t have any IP claims because those were probably sold to Time.
In any case, the EFF is probably right. This would probably fall under being a parody and therefore, fair use.
Ah for fuck’s sake, people… I filed the notice! Alright? Satisfied now? You can’t blame me. I mean, look at what that punk did to my image! I’m supposed to be your hero, not this disgusting “joker.” So what if I’m ordering the deaths of innocent people in Afghanistan and Pakistan? So what if I’m continuing almost all of George Bush’s domestic policies (e.g., warantless wiretapping, indefinite detention) — at least you still have the ability to hope, right?
Shout outs to the Yahoo and Google corporations for helping me keep all you cyber terrorists under control!
opps, my bad, I work at Yahoo, I didn’t like the image, so I removed it,… I guess I’m in trouble now
Wow! Alex Jones has hit the bigtime. My hero, the Star of the “alternative” media.
everyone who can search online with google can see firah’s is a liar. the dates stamps on several posting of this artwork clearly show edward przydzial is the artist. he also lives in beverly hills california which is a few blocks from where the first joker posters were seen… it’s so obvious this is a non news story and the drama queens of the bloggessfear have been hijacked by a heavy metal musician from detroit. what a fuckin’ joke our media has become.
lmao…
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