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DMU Hangs Out on Mare Island

Lights Went Out

Well I had a great time hanging out last night on Mare Island for the first time. Mare Island is a decommissioned naval base in Vallejo. I’ve been wanting to shoot Mare Island for a while and Ivan Makarov helped organize an official DMU outing out there. Always being prepared, Ivan even briefed security ahead of time that we would be there and the entire great outing was completely hassle free of security.

We met at 7pm near the middle of the island and spent most of the evening night shooting more of the grungy industrial stuff down off of Nimitz Street. Mare Island is huge and I feel like last night I barely scratched the surface there and I’m sure both DMU and myself will be back many times in the future.

Meta CodyNukinFutsSuisunShims

It was fun meeting more folks from DMU who I hadn’t met before. I can now confirm that the elusive Cody Robertson, aka SFlights, aka sfso is in fact a real to live person. Sometimes with internet folks you can’t be so sure. 😉 In addition to Ivan and Cody, Shims and NukinFuts made the drive up, Rumnose actually brought his girlfriend Heather, Dave, StefanB, suisun and G Dan Mitchell, who had shot there in the past with the Nocturnes and knew the lay of the land a bit showed up as well. Unfortunately my photos of Dave and Heather didn’t turn out.

Before the FloodIvan MakarovG Dan MitchellRumnose

Stefan had a really cool laser that he used to assist him with his focusing in the dark. StefanbI’d never thought of using a laser pointer that way but it seemed to work really well for him. I just may have to get one of those at some point. For the most part I was able to use my flashlights to get my autofocus to lock in on things, but there were a few cranes that I couldn’t quite get with my 135 where it might have been nice to have one of those.

The weather was perfect out there last night, the moon was just right, and we got some great wind/clouds for those long exposure night shots.

Sleeping GiantThe outing was pretty much injury free, although I did scrape my hand up on once fence and unfortunately tripped a motion sensor alarm at one point that lit up a whole building like jiminy christmas. The moon provided great ambient light to go with the cranes and we saw some huge bats. There was also this weird animal screaming on the island. It sounded crazy, almost human like, and wild. It sounded like some wild animal or something was birthing or some other sort of crazy thing. Added just the right eerie feel to the night.

Mare Island is remarkably open. It reminded me of Treasure Island in a lot of ways that way, but with a bit more development and a lot more cranes and dry docks. If you want to check out some of the photos from the outing check out these photos tagged DMU Meet Up 083009 on Flickr.

Anyways, great meeting up with a great group of dudes (and Heather, who’s great too) and look forward to the next DMU outing that gets organized. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s back out on Mare Island yet again.

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So the Los Angeles Times Thinks It’s OK to Rip Copyrighted Photos From Flickr?

So the Los Angeles Times Thinks It's OK to Rip Copyrighted Photos From Flickr?

Yesterday Anthony Citrano, over on FriendFeed, pointed out an interesting tidbit regarding the Los Angeles Times’ coverage of the fires that are currently burning out of control in Los Angeles. Apparently the L.A. Times built this cool new little widget that pulls photos in directly from Flickr. It’s cool to see authentic real life fire photos as they are being uploaded by the masses. Except that there’s only one problem. The Los Angeles Times is pulling in your copyrighted all-rights reserved and Creative Commons non-commercial licensed photos in violation of your license.

To make matters worse and rub a little salt in for good measure they’ve even added a little “Copyright 2009, Los Angeles Times” disclaimer right beneath your very own photo. Of course the Los Angeles Times has not gotten your permission to run these all rights reserved photos of yours. Nor have they entered into any sort of compensation agreement with you over their use — which means that if you are one of the lucky few who have had had your copyright ripped, you might want to consider sending an invoice in over to the Times. I’d suggest that probably about $1,000 per image sounds about right given the national scope of this fire and the news. Remember that when folks rip your photos illegally they have to pay more for them.

So why and how did this all happen? Well, fortunately a representative from the Times has responded over at Friendfeed. Sean Connelly from the L.A. Times claims to have created the widget that is currently pulling these photos into the Times’ website. According to Connelly, the fact that your copyrighted images are appearing on the Los Angeles Times website is the result of an unfortunate error. Connelly responded to Citrano’s complaints about the image grabs here:

“Anthony — my name is Sean Connelley. I am the one who created the Flickr widget used on the LA Times. I wanted to just explain what happened from my side, in hopes it clear some of this up for everyone. The CC issue was an honest mistake on my part and in know way was I just trying to hijack or steal anyone’s photo. When retrieving photos using the Flickr API, there is a parameter called “license” and it can accept 7 different values which can be found here. Well the mistake I made was that I used the “name” of the license instead of the “id” for the license. Big mistake on my part, caused it to pull in all the the images. Second issue, about links back to user pages, another mistake on my part. When I pull in the image information, I do a test to make sure the information is there before I display it, well I left out a character that caused it to fail everytime. I understand why everyone is upset but I just want to explain it from my side. In hindsight, I should of not tried to rush this out with really testing it further, which we normally do. So I’ll just have to take one on the chin for this one. Any other questions, please feel free to email at sean.connelley[at]latimes.com”

Initially Connelley had neglected to include links back to images as is required per the Flickr Community Guidelines, but that part’s been fixed now.

Now normally I’d say that Connelly’s excuse is good one. Except that it seems like the problem is still happening. Connelly provided another more detailed response as to why this problem happened last night in more detail at the Friendfeed link, after his first apology, but this morning when I checked the first photo from Flickr on the L.A. Times’ page it was yet another all rights reserved photo. Now I have no idea how tricky of a thing this is to debug, but my recommendation to the L.A. Times is that they take the widget offline until they can get it working correctly. And when they *do* think they’ve got it working correctly, maybe they ought to try actually clicking through a photo on the widget just to make double extra sure for the third time.

The all rights reserved photo that *still* is currently being featured this morning as photo number one on the L.A. Times’ widget is this one, by truedeluxe.

By the way, hats off to the L.A. Times for using FriendFeed to actually discuss this issue. Big points for that part of this whole dilemma.

Update: Well the good news is that the Los Angeles Times appears to have fixed this problem now. An explanation in the form of a couple of friendfeed comments from Sean Connelley with the Times: “oh, my nightmare continues… I assumed the widget was taken down. I have now corrected it, with a version that should eliminate any of your photos from being grabbed please check in a few minutes, also might need to clear cache and reload page. I apologize for these series of mistakes.” – Sean Connelley and “ok, I just checked… it does not appear to be loading any “All Rights Reserved.”… Anthony to your question of why I didn’t just check. I should of and I didn’t, I wish I had a better answer. Can I ask this group a question. Seeing as you all seem to be passionate flickr user’s and photographers. Do you see any value and/or need in a widget like this? Of course, a widget that worked correctly and respected copyrights and provided links back to the owners” – Sean Connelley.

Update #2: Jim Goldstein seems to object to the fact that I’ve raised this issue, while in the past stating a more liberal view of personal use regarding copyrighted material. Jim offers up his own “black and white” interpretation of how copyright ought to be talked about which is ironic given that he previously was hosting copyrighted music on his own site prominently as a background track to his photos. Best I can tell, he seems to feel that if you host copyrighted material as a .mov file vs. a .mp3 file it’s somehow o.k. Why are the copyright zealots always the ones that are the most hypocritical?

In terms of my past comments on copyright, I believe that it is virtually impossible to work as a photographer respecting copyright in the pure black and white world as Goldstein views it. Maybe if you just stick to nature photography like he does that’s one thing. But if I go to Disneyland and shoot a Mickey Mouse character. Or if I shoot the giant Coca Cola neon sign in San Francisco. I’m personally not going to lose any sleep over this, even if I am breaking Coke or Disney’s copyrights. I’m still going to post these images on Flickr and Zooomr and my blog and am perfectly willing to suffer any consequences of my decision to do so. I’m also personally not going to lose any sleep if people use my own work for personal use. Want to print out one of my photos and hang it in your home, even though it’s all right’s reserved? Go for it. I even make it easier by hosting full high res files online.

But there is a big difference between my shooting Mickey Mouse and posting it to Flickr. Or someone printing out one of my shots out and hanging it in their kitchen vs. a major media company publicly and flagrantly posting protected content on a highly visible high profile public for profit website.

Anyways, glad to see that the times got this cleared up.

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Hey Flickr … Why So Censorious? MSNBC Report on Flickr

MSNBC is out with an article on a lot of the recent censorship that’s been going on at Flickr. I’m not talking specifically about the Obama/Joker image here (which I now believe Flickr did receive a valid, albeit potentially bogus DMCA takedown notice on) but more about the general tone (baby talk, etc.) of how Flickr handles customer service issues, account deletions, and customer criticism in their help forum (where I’ve personally been banned indefinitely). In the past month alone Flickr has locked many threads in the forum where recent users have complained about account deletions and other issues.

I spoke with the MSNBC reporter on the article, Helen Popkin, yesterday in an interview about Flickr’s customer service practices and shared with her my own frustrating experiences of being both censored repeatedly and banned by Flickr most recently in the help forum.

The thing is, nobody is a bigger fan of Flickr than I am. I’ve invested thousands of hours over the course of the last four years into the site. I’ve personally uploaded over 29,000 images on Flickr. I’ve faved over 75,000 photos there. I have over 14,000 contacts. I’ve made dozens of real life friends through the site. I spend time on the site every single day. I’ve sold photos through the site and currently participate in Getty Images stock photography offerings through the site. I’ve blogged incessantly about the site from the very beginning. A google search for my name with Flickr brings up 248,000 results. While at times I have been critical of some of the decisions that Flickr has made, mostly having to do with censorship cases, account deletions and the permanent loss of indivdual’s photos, etc. I’ve always felt that I’ve done so respectfully. I quite honestly love the place and a big part of my photographic goal is to upload a million photos to the site before I die.

That said, unfortunately, I do think that Popkin’s article is pretty much right on the money. Flickr currently holds a monopoly in the photosharing space and as such has gotten away with abusing their customers in my opinion. I don’t deserve to be banned indefinitely from the help forum simply for posting a link to an anti-Flickr blog (not mine) that is criticizing Flickr over what they feel is an anti-gay bias. Don’t shoot the messenger. Rather than censor me, Flickr should take time to address the concerns of the anti-flickr blog and openly and honestly discuss them with their users so that an anti-flickr blog is never started in the first place.

The article points out that as a private company Flickr can do anything that they want. They can limit speech. They can delete user accounts. They can censor whomever they want. And I totally get that. I’ve never maintained that Flickr is not a private business owned by a private but publicly traded company. But just because they can do these things doesn’t mean that they *should* do these things. And as a company it doesn’t mean that it’s in their best interest to do these things.

I hope Flickr, and my participation in the Flickr Community, last for the rest of my life. Hell, I hope that before I die I can figure out a way to maintain my Flickr account for hundreds of years beyond my death (personally I think it would be interesting to see Flickr offer an infinite sort of Pro account that would maintain your images even after you die). But I also believe that the best communities are communities that are open, transparent and free of censorship. Free speech is not something that should threaten any community. And I suppose this puts me at odds with the current Flickr administration who rather see themselves as shapers of communities and moderators of the content on their site.

For the first time yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to see Flickr staff crack just a little in admitting that taking down an image only (and not all of the corresponding comments, faves, and other meta data around a photo) when they get a DMCA takedown notice might not be a bad idea. I still think Flickr needs to do more though. Account and image deletions should not be permanent and irrevocable. Both could be pulled down by making the images private and thus invisible to anyone on Flickr but the owner while Flickr gave users an opportunity to take corrective action over problems flickr has with accounts or to appeal censorship decisions. Help forum threads should not be locked when users are critical of the service. The Help Forum is the number one way that Flickr staff communicates with their users and when they lock critical threads it only frustrates users even more. Nor should users be banned from the help forum for issuing comments critical of Flickr practices.

I hope that Yahoo takes a hard look at Popkin’s article. There is much improvement that could be done with Flickr. Flickr is a tremendously important cultural jewel that in a strange way I feel belongs to society at large at this point as much as it belongs to Yahoo. So much art is being made and shared at Flickr. So many people are using it in a way to culturally enrich the world. Yahoo should look at this cultural jewel that they have and recognize it for what it is, also recognizing that censorship has often been the enemy of culture.

I’d much rather blog about all the great things going on at Flickr than the things that I feel are negative going on there. And I do hope that some of the practices over the course of the past few years mentioned in this article are addressed and changed.

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Does Flickr Censor User Content Over Blatantly Fake DMCA Notices?

Does Flickr Censor User Content Over Blatantly Fake DMCA Notices?

Update: When adding an extra letter to last name that Alkhateeb had provided me, I was able to pull up what appears to be another artist who would appear to be claiming the Joker/Obama image as his own creation. The details are still fuzzy and am just basing this update on some Google searches that I’ve found with the new name. I have contacted this artist and am trying to determine if he in fact is the person who filed a DMCA takedown notice with Flickr over this image and if he is claiming the Obama/Joker creation as his own in contrast to previous reports from Alkhateeb and the Los Angeles Times that Alkhateeb is the image’s creator. I’ve also contacted Alkhateeb to discuss the claims of this individual. I will report back when I learn more.

For the past week or so I’ve been reporting on the Flickr Censorship case involving Firas Alkhateeb and his popular Joker/Obama Time Magazine cover. You’ll recall that Alkhateeb had posted his image to his Flickr account, garnered over 20,000 views, along with many comments on the image, saw the image subsequently used with the word “socialism” printed underneath it in Los Angeles and various other cities as street art… and then Flickr nuked his image and all the comments that went along with it.

Many bloggers and news outlets accused Flickr of censorship and political bias in the removal of what was seen by many as a clear fair use parody image critical of the President. The case made the national press and with an EFF attorney adding that Alkhateeb indeed had a very strong fair use defense. After a substantial amount of critical press over the image, Flickr Community Manager Heather Champ finally came out defending Flickr over the issue saying that Alkhateeb’s image had been removed from Flickr due to a “a complete Notice of Infringement as outlined by the DMCA (Digitial Millenium Copyright Act)” In the same breath Champ accused the press and blogosphere of being “makey uppey.” Shortly afterwards, the thread where Flickr users were complaining about this image deletion was shut down by Flickr staff.

Later that day in reporting on the issue The Los Angeles Times asked Champ who had issued the DMCA takedown request and Champ replied that Flickr was not able to give that information out. “I don’t know how this crazy game of telephone got started,” Champ wrote. “I’m not sure how complying with the law has led to the idea that we (the Flickr team) have a particular political agenda.”

Yesterday I reported on PDN’s efforts to get to the bottom of this takedown request. PDN contacted the logical parties who might have objected to this image. Time Magazine (whose logo was incorporated in the image), DC Comics (who would own the rights to the famous Joker image used on the Obama photo) and Platon (the photographer who had taken the original image used by Time). All three parties denied having filed a DMCA takedown notice with Flickr, which lead people to wonder all the more just who the hell *did* file the takedown notice.

While Alkhateeb originally stated that flickr had not told him who filed the request, after looking more closely at the email sent by Flickr he realized that they did in fact list the name of the person who had filed it. At first the way that it was presented was confusing to Alkhateeb and he thought the name that they gave him was a Yahoo representative’s name and not the person filing the report.

So who filed the report?

Well because Alkhateeb is currently working with lawyers on the case he asked me not to publish the name flickr provided him, but Alkhateeb has shared the name with me and after having seen the name, what I can say is that it wasn’t Time, DC Comics or Platon, or any other party with any possible plausible IP interest in this image. In fact, the name that was given is very likely a totally bogus made up name entirely. A google search for the odd name turns up zero results and even a google search for the last name alone turns up zero results for that surname. It’s like someone just typed random characters on a keyboard to make up the name used in the DMCA takedown notice.

The fact that the name filing the DMCA takedown notice would appear to be totally fake leaves one to wonder. Does Flickr just blindly pull down any content when any DMCA request is presented? If so that’s not very reassuring. If, for instance, “Donald Duck” or “Bob Xjibtstruytubopluy” claimed copyright over images in President Obama’s stream, would they simply remove these images as well? Somehow I doubt they would. Or was Flickr staff aware that the takedown request was bogus and instead decided to use it as cover to remove an image that offended their own clear personal and political sensibilities? A few months earlier Flickr nuked an entire account of a user who wrote critical remarks on President Obama’s photostream.

Whatever the case, I do think it is disingenuous at best for flickr to try and hide behind a clearly bogus DMCA notice when dealing with criticism over their decision to remove this image. Many people last week were led to believe by statements by Champ in Flickr’s Help Forum and in the press that Time or DC or the photographer had complained to flickr about the image and Flickr never bothered to clarify about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the stated notice.

Transparency, fairness and a willingness to communicate openly with your community ought to be the hallmark traits of a site that is dependent upon their users for their content. By hiding the illegitimacy of this complaint, Flickr has shown themselves yet again trying to sweep their actions under the rug dismissing negative criticism with half truths. It is ironic that they would accuse the press and blogosphere of being “makey uppey” while in the same breath hiding behind a clearly bogus DMCA request on their own.

So what should Flickr do at this point?

Well, given that the DMCA takedown notice was bogus (and even had it been by an actual interested party Alkhateeb would have had a legitimate fair use to the image) they should apologize to Alkhateeb and restore his image and all of the comments that they nuked along with it.

Of course it is worth pointing out that even though former Flickr Founder and Flickr Chief Stewart Butterfield called it a “mistake” for Flickr not to have a mechanism to restore staff deleted content over two years ago that still today Flickr has not built (and is not working on) the ability to restore staff deleted content. So even if Flickr wanted to at this point they couldn’t put Alkhateeb’s image back. While Alkhateeb may be allowed to reupload the image in the future, his original image (along with all of the comments to the image and all of the links to his now dead deleted image) is pretty likely gone for good.

And that’s too bad.

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So if TIME Magazine, DC Comics and Platon Didn’t Send Flickr a DMCA Takedown Notice Over the Obama Joker Image, Who Did?

So if TIME Magazine, DC Comics and Platon Didn't Send Flickr a DMCA Takedown Notice Over the Obama Joker Image, Who Did

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.

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Make a Run for the Border, Plate 2

Make a Run for the Border, Plate 2

Taco Bell
13223 Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 9006

I think it was almost 20 years ago that I was talking with my good friend torbakhopper about the genius of Taco Bell walking up Market Street in San Francisco. I can’t remember exactly if he was for them or against them, but I think he was for them, although he may have just been being sarcastic too, but in a post-modern especially delirious/delicious ironic sort of way.

In any event, the beauty of Taco Bell was in its consistency. You knew *exactly* what you’d get there when you ordered it. You ordered a taco supreme and you got a taco supreme. The same taco supreme you had yesterday or last week or two years ago or back on Milpas Street in Santa Barbara during college or the one across the street from the church back in junior high school. You knew exactly what you were getting. There was no surprise and great comfort in this predictability.

Taco Bell of course isn’t the best thing for you. For a few years I used to justify it by eating their "lite menu" that came and went. It was a poor but feel good substitute for the real thing. But even as the signage churns with the machinations of the hacks in corporate marketing at Taco Bell HQ (yum), the core menu seems to solidly remain the same. Taco, taco supreme, bean burrito, burrito supreme. Dr. Pepper mostly. Little things like the lite menu or the current fad crazy "Volcano" menu come and go, but the core menu, that always stays the same, loyal, consistent, and mostly there for you when and wherever you need it most.

We lost that little Taco Bell dog this year too by the way. YO QUIERO TACO BELL!

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TechCrunch Gets to the Heart of the Matter on the Flickr Obama/Joker Censorship Issue

CensoredMike Arrington over at TechCrunch gave his own opinion on the recent Flickr Censorship issue regarding the removal of the Obama/Joker image and I think it’s one of the best that I’ve seen on the issue yet in a post entitled “Free Speech, Where’s the Courage“:

“Yahoo/Flickr should have asked its attorneys if the copyright claim had any validity at all before removing the image, particularly since in this case the image is so clearly non-infringing and also is so politically charged. Yes, Yahoo would have had theoretical liability by not complying if the image was later proven to be copyright infringing. But as I said above, any lawyer could tell you that this is clearly a fair use of the original Obama image, Time Magazine’s copyright and copyright around the movie.

In the past Flickr has deleted accounts of users who are critical of President Obama, but as far as I know nothing like this was done to users who were critical of Bush.

It’s clear that the Flickr team wanted to take this image down. Not only was the image removed, but the entire page was taken down with all the comments to the image. There’s nothing in the DMCA that says you have to do that, too.

Flickr lost my trust over this issue. They failed to stand up for a user who chose to display his work on Flickr over competitors. ”

I commented on Mike’s article regarding my own previous experience with a DMCA takedown notice from Flickr here.

Update: Flickr responds to criticism from their users over this censorship issue by locking the thread that they are complaining in. I suppose one way to fight accusations of censorship is simply… more censorship. Oh the irony.