Month: April 2008

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG2i_5i9OqE]

Possibly The Most Ridiculous DMCA Take Down Yet

Mike Arrington has a blog post over at TechCrunch regarding a recent censorship case over at Yahoo where taking down and destroying user’s content seems to be business as usual.

In this most recent case, Loren Feldman uploaded a video mocking Shel Israel and the Village People to Yahoo Video only to see his video taken down after an extremely weak DMCA notice was presented by Scorpio Music.

The video in question, embedded above, certainly would fall into the fair use category. It is absolutely parody which is protected as fair use and the amount of the song used is a brief snippet, also brief enough to count as fair use even if the video was not parody.

But in typical Yahoo “shoot first ask questions later” fashion, they have removed Feldman’s video. They also sent him a threatening email saying that they could terminate all of his yahoo services and deactivate his Yahoo ID. Fortunately a copy of the video in question still exists over at Google on YouTube as embedded above. I guess Google cares a little bit more about a user’s fair use rights than Yahoo does.

It is terrible that it seems that anybody in the world can send a DMCA notice, valid or not, to Yahoo and get them to censor user content. Personally I think Yahoo has a higher obligation to the users who use their sites.

A while back Michael Crook sent Yahoo a bogus DMCA takedown request for one of my photos on Flickr. How did Yahoo handle this? They not only removed the perfectly valid and legal photo in question. But they *permanently* destroyed the uploaded photo along with dozens of comments. Later on Crook resceinded his bogus DMCA notice in my case but it was too late. The photo I’d posted and all of the comments were permanently erased by Yahoo from the internet.

A similar thing happened to Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir who also saw Yahoo destroy her photo along with over 450 comments which Flickr Chief Stewart Butterfield later chalked up as a “mistake,” to the BBC News.

The problem with Yahoo! is that these “mistakes,” only seem to get apologized for when they receive a lot of publicity. How many hundreds or thousandhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifs of Yahoo users have simply seen their content destroyed by Yahoo and didn’t really have the voice or reach to really do anything about it.

Shame on Yahoo for censoring Loren. And shame on them for treating their users so poorly. Yahoo should take more care when reviewing DMCA takedown notices and give their users the respect that they truly deserve.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft does a better job with the censorship once they take Yahoo over here shortly.

On Slashdot here.

Webometric Thoughts: Average photos per Flickr Member: ZERO

Webometric Thoughts blogs that based on a random sample of 324 Flickr users that 216, or 67%, had zero photos.

If this is true that would leave you to believe that more people may be consuming photos on Flickr than publishing photos on Flickr.

From Webometric Thoughts:

“67% of Flickr members have no photos! Whilst Lotka’s law teaches us that the majority of contributors to a community make very few contributions, I was still surprised at the number of members with no photos; after all, I am not talking visitors to the site, but those who have taken the trouble to join. What is the point of joining Flickr if you are not going to put photos on the site?”

Two things that this survey doesn’t really address though.

1. Just because someone’s stream shows no photos doesn’t mean that they really have not uploaded any photos to the site. Some people will have 100% of their photos marked as “private” for friends and family only. For someone who is not their contact it will merely look like they have no photos on the site.

2. A lot of people sign up for things and then never use them. I’ve signed up for hundreds of sites in the past that I never used. Sometimes I sign up to try them out and then get frustrated when sites are not intuitive and I bail, other times I just simply lose interest.

In either case I’m not sure that all users are necessarily good representative sample for all active users.

Life Before Death at the Wellcome Collection | Society | guardian.co.uk

An interesting photo essay over at the Guardian by German photographer Walter Schels and his partner Beate Lakotta who photographed and interviewed people on the day before and the day of their death.

Thanks, Grow-a-Brain!

TWIP has a post out on Adobe updating their TOS for their new online Photoshop Express product. Initially some photographers had been concerned because the previous terms of service with the online service suggested that you were signing over rights of your photos to Adobe by using the service.

Adobe’s TOS now reads:

“Adobe has retained only those limited rights that allow us to operate the service and to enable you to do all the things the service offers,” the company said in a statement. “If you decide to terminate your Photoshop Express account, Adobe’s rights also will be terminated.”

By relaxing their TOS and adding a clause into the agreement that Adobe’s rights cease if a user terminates their account this gives photographers a lot more protection with regards to using the service.

I haven’t actually used the service yet myself. I tried to sign up for it but the site kept returning blank pages. Could be a flash issue. Hopefully I’ll be able to try it and report back at some point in the future.

Spent some time going through Eyetwist’s photostream today on Flickr. Eyetwist has some of the best post processed images on Flickr. Definitely worth checking out if you get a chance.

Even more impressive to me was Eyetwist’s amazing collection of neon signage. As some of you know, I collect neon signs myself. I’ve seen a lot of neon sign collections on the internet, but very few with the quality that Eyetwist presents his with. Another thing that is super cool is that Eyetwist geotags so many of his shots. Geotagging takes time for people to do and it is a very generous effort for a photographer to make to share with others where they were able to get the great photography that they shot.

Anyways, check out Eyetwist’s work, you won’t be disappointed.

Remember on February 15th and March 12th of this year when I said that if I were Microsoft I’d drop my price on the Yahoo bid given how badly Yahoo was handling the offer?

Well now this from Reuters:

“SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp is evaluating its bid for Yahoo Inc because the Internet company may have lost value since Microsoft made its offer, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The news, first reported by Reuters, sent Yahoo shares down more than 5 percent in extended trade.

The sources said Yahoo has lost some key personnel, making the company less valuable, while generous severance packages it handed out to executives and full-time employees in the case of a takeover have made it more expensive.”

Go figure.

Update: Ok it looks like Microsoft is being more official about the whole thing now. Although they put it in nicer language than I might, they are basically saying that if Yahoo! doesn’t play ball now they may be lowering their bid.

From Microsoft:

“Given these developments, we believe now is the time for our respective companies to authorize teams to sit down and negotiate a definitive agreement on a combination of our companies that will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders, creating a more efficient and competitive company that will provide greater value and service to our customers. If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo! board. The substantial premium reflected in our initial proposal anticipated a friendly transaction with you. If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal.

It is unfortunate that by choosing not to enter into substantive negotiations with us, you have failed to give due consideration to a transaction that has tremendous benefits for Yahoo!’s shareholders and employees. We think it is critically important not to let this window of opportunity pass.”

Not only is it stupid for Yahoo! to continue to rebuff Microsoft’s advances at this point, but their management very well may face shareholder lawsuits if Microsoft either ends up pulling out of the deal or actually lowering their bid. The more key employees that Microsoft loses in this transaction (remember Gates pointed to talented engineers as one of the reasons for the acquisiton) and the more that Microsoft ends up having to pay out in Yahoo! instituted severance, the more likely that Yahoo! management will end up stuck with shareholder lawsuits.

In fact, if Microsoft really wanted to play hard ball at this point they could simply give Yahoo 48 hours to accept the terms or pull the offer off of the table. With the offer off of the table Yahoo stock would immediately drop. The lawsuits would take place driving the stock down further and if Microsoft just waited 6 months or so they might be able to end up buying the stock in the end for somewhere around $8 a share.

Remember folks, you read it here first.

Part of my Beautiful Plastic People Set.

ACME Photography | Blog Archive ? Flickr – Free stock Photography for Bloggers?

Adam Nollmeyer has a post out about blogger Amit Agarwal stealing a photo he took of Seth Godin.

From Adam:

“Sure enough, Amit Agarwal a “well known professional blogger and personal technology columnist for national newspapers” had stolen my photograph of Seth Godin as seen below. He did not simply embed the photo on his blog, he re-uploaded my photograph, and then marked the photo as Creative Commons (CC) which means that he is allowing others to use, share and re-mix a photograph which HE does not have rights to. “

I’m not sure why, but Amit seems to have scrapped various web sites and put a bunch of Web 2.0 type celebrity folk up that he’s found in his Flickrstream. In the case of the Seth Godin photo it looks like subsequent to Adam’s post this photo has been removed from his stream.

A few of my photos seem to be in Amit’s photostream as well.

My response?

Personally I could care less.

My photos are routinely used without my permission all over the internet. I just don’t care. I think it’s fine for Adam to care. And my friend Scott Beale cares a lot about this too and that’s fine as well. But my choice is that I just don’t. I’m more concerned with creating new art than I am with what happens to my previously published photos. My photos are licensed CC non-commercial with attribution. But even when people use my photography commercially or don’t attribute I still don’t ever do anything about it.

Life has a finite number of days, hours, minutes and seconds in it. Every hour I spend worrying about unauthorized use of my photography means an hour less that I get to spend with my kids or taking photos or processing photos or engaging in conversations that are valuable to me. I’ve always considered theft of my photos simply to be a byproduct that goes along with the choice to share my work online.

Amit may be a photo thief, but it doesn’t much bother me personally. And I’m certainly not going to go through the time or take the trouble to have him remove photos of mine that may have ended up in his photostream. I’ve got too many other things I’m working on for the time being that are more important to me.