Category: Censorship

Mike 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.

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.

“Flickr had removed the Joker image due to copyright-infringement concerns, Alkhateeb says the company told him in an e-mail. A Flickr spokeswoman declined to comment due to a company policy that bars discussing inquiries about individual users.”

There’s an interesting piece over at the Los Angeles Times today about the unmasking of the author of the iconic Obama/Joker photo (left). The photo recently began turning up in Los Angeles with the word “socialism” printed underneath it in similar style to the famous Shepard Fairey Obama HOPE poster and since then has been the subject of considerable debate and online interest.

It turns about that, according to the Times, a 20-year-old college student from Chicago, Firas Alkhateeb, is the artist behind the work. Apparently Alkhateeb made the image using Adobe’s Photoshop software.

After creating the image Alkhateeb posted it to his Flickr account and ended up getting over 20,000 views on it. 20,000 views that is until Flickr pulled the image down censoring him, along with everyone who commented on the image, citing “copyright-infringement concerns,” according to the Times.

Personally I think it’s too bad that Flickr decided to censor this iconic image. Whatever you may or may not think about this image and it’s appropriateness, the image would absolutely and unequivocally be considered parody and parody has always been one of the most effective defenses against any copyright complaint. Parody is why Weird Al gets away with creating a song called “Eat It,” directly to the tune of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.”

What’s more, in the interest of free speech, political parody *especially* is perhaps given the widest berth of all. This is why Ralph Nader was able to directly rip MasterCard’s “Priceless” campaign and why the courts subsequently ruled in his favor after MasterCard sued him over it. Earlier today, a friend and Flickr contact of mine from DMU, A Boy and His Prime, who is a law student, put it more directly. “If you produce something that is transformative, and not derivative, then it’s fair use (Folsom v Marsh). In Campbell v Acuff-Rose, 510 U.S. 569, Souter seemed to suggest that the main idea is substitutability, and that makes a lot of sense when you consider what copyright protects (i.e. your interest in your own work). The Jokerbama does not replace the original photo in any sense.” I’m not a lawyer myself of course and would be interested if anyone else out there who is would like to add comment as well.

Personally, I think it’s unfortunate that Flickr would embark upon yet another act of censorship when an image was so clearly parody and fair use. What bothers me even more is that this is still another example of Flickr censoring users who are critical of President Obama and his policies. In June Flickr deleted the entire account and photostream of Flickr user Shepherd Johnson after he posted comments critical of the President on the Official White House Photostream. Now I’m actually a Democrat who voted for President Obama and am super happy to see the President using Flickr. But while Flickr’s staff is obviously proud of the fact that they have President Obama’s official photostream on Flickr, I don’t think that this fact ought to be the impetuous for them to censor and delete users who are critical of the President.

I’m also troubled by this censorship in light of the clear pro-Obama bias that Flickr’s staff has shown. If you do a search for the word “Obama” on the flickr blog you get 74 different results, many of them very positive. By contrast a search for “Bush” on the Flickr blog only pulls up 5 results (even though Flickr has existed much longer under President Bush’s presidency than President Obama’s).

Now I have no trouble or problem with anyone on Flickr staff or anyone at Yahoo personally supporting whatever candidate they want. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz personally contributed to both Bush and McCain and currently serves as a finance co-chair for Republican Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s finance committe. But I think when personal politics begin to take on a bigger role in corporate communications and especially when it begins resulting in politically motivated censorship that things have gone too far in the wrong direction. I hope that Yahoo does in fact consider it a mistake in hindsight to have deleted this clear fair use image critical of the President and that they take steps to ensure that this sort of politically motivated censorship by Flickr Staff is curtailed in the future.

I’ve contacted Alkhateeb about his image deletion and will hopefully be able to report back with more directly from him when I hear back from him.

I’ve also posted the exact same image that Flickr deleted to my own photostream. Let’s see if Flickr decides to censor me as well.

Update: bitchville over at Flickr pointed out that using the Weird Al example is actually a poor one since Weird Al actually had permission from Michael Jackson to record that song. I should have researched that more. A better example of the courts rulling in favor of parody would be that of the band 2 Live Crew and their version of “Pretty Woman.”

The Supreme Court accepted 2 Live Crew’s song as a parody because the rap song mimicked the original to achieve its message and because it “reasonably could be perceived as commenting on the original [Oh, Pretty Woman] or criticizing it, to some degree.””

Update 2: More from The Inquisitor, Read Write Web, and I Think.

Update 3: News Busters points out that there are plenty of anti-Bush Time Magazine covers that are on Flickr that apparently are not “copyright” violations.

Update 4: On Slashdot here.

Update 5: RWW on the NY Times here. Valleywag/Gawker on the issue here and Techmeme here.

Update 6: Flickr is now saying that they received a DMCA takedown notice over this issue. From Heather Champ at Flickr:

“Flickr must be compliant with all local laws within the 21 countries where we are. The Yahoo! Terms of Service in all of those regions outlines what the process is for dealing with infringement of copyright. 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). Under the DMCA, an individual may choose to file a counterclaim.”

Last week I blogged here about the case of Edelson Flores’ and his recent account deletion on Flickr. You might remember Edelson. He was the professional photographer who had his photographs posted on Flickr that all included watermarks pointing to his image copyrights. While Edelson focuses on male models, as his subject matter, his photos did not include nudity or other prohibited content by Flickr. Edelson had his account nuked by Flickr after Terrence at Flickr alleged that he was posting other people’s copyrighted work — something that Edelson denies.

Apparently Flickr may have reinstated Edelson’s account, but not without him having lost all of his photos, all of his contacts, all of his social activity on the site, and all of the time, work and energy he spent working on his profile, etc.

I received this following update earlier today from Edelson on his account Flickr deletion:

“Tom,

Edelson”

As a result of protesting these sort of account deletions and the fact that flickr has no viable way (nor are they even working on a way) to recover accounts when they mistakenly delete them, and especially for pointing to a new blog which seems to be focusing on an anti-gay account deletion agenda on Flickr’s part, I was called “abusive” and banned from the Flickr help forum yesterday. So much for honest and open communication.

An update on Edelson Flores’ account deletion case here.

Well unfortunately another week is upon us and that means we have to deal with yet another case of Flickr/Yahoo censorship. The victim this time is professional photographer Edelson C. Flores. Flores first aired his concern about his account deletion in the Flickr Help Forum after trying to contact Flickr staff privately with no success. That thread subsequently was locked by Flickr staff. Flores tried to again air his concern in another thread in the help forum that also was promptly locked as well.

From Flores’ original complaint:

“I have written several times asking why my account “adoniel” was deleted several days ago without any previous notice or warning but I have yet to receive a formal reply from Flickr with an explanation. I am a professional photographer and all the content in my photostream was my own work, creation and intellectual property. I also don’t believe I had posted any content that would have been deemed inappropriate or violated your guidelines. I am very disappointed as I had spent a great deal of time uploading my photos, tagging and adding descriptions. Your actions are extremely inconsiderate and highly questionable. I was about to upgrade my account to a Pro 2-year account, but I am very glad I did not upgraded. I would prefer to spend my money elsewhere if this is how you treat your customers. You have certainly lost my trust, business and support. I am writing to Yahoo Inc, your parent company to let them know exactly how you run this web site and treat customers. I am very disappointed with your actions and lack of communication.
Sincerely,

Edelson C. Flores
Flickr: “adoniel” “

In addition to locking the threads above where Flores was protesting his account deletion, Flickr also redacted the name of the Flickr staffer in question who had provided Flores the reasoning for his account deletion, Terrence.

Below is the original email informing Flores of his account deletion provided by Edelson to me:

[Flickr Case 1278697] Re: Report Abuse: Other Concerns
Thursday, August 6, 2009 4:06 PM
From:
This sender is DomainKeys verified
“Flickr Support”
Add sender to Contacts
To:
adoniel@yahoo.com
Hello,

-Terrence

Based on the above email it would seem that Flores’ account was terminated because Flickr alleged that he was hosting photographs that were not his. But Flores tells a different story. When I contacted Flores about this issue he said, “I have been a professional freelance photographer for the last 10 years. All the content/images that were posted in my Flickr photostream were all my work, creation and intellectual property.” Furthermore all photos in Flores’ stream were watermarked with his own personal copyright information. It is hard for me to see how Flickr could make a mistake of deciding that these photos did not belong to Flores.

When I asked Flores if he’d received further emails or warning emails from Flickr regarding his account, he said he had not. He said that the email above was the only email that he’d received from Flickr.

I’ve contacted Yahoo to try and get their side of the story on this although I have not heard back from them yet. I suspect, as is the case in other situations that they will refuse to comment on Flores’ case and refuse to reinstate his account. This is not right.

Flickr owes their customers better than this. When we spend our time and energy investing in the work to upload, tag, store, etc. our photos on Flickr, Yahoo owes us at a minimum a warning before they delete accounts, as well as an appeals process to reinstate deleted accounts. Flickr’s policy of shoot first, ask questions later is short-sighted. Because Flickr largely has a monopoly on the online photographic community, however, they seem to feel that they can abuse their customers and get by with impunity. And that also is too bad.

Personally I think that Flickr owes Flores an apology and also owes him his account back. Rather than trying to push yet another of their censorship mistakes under the rug by locking threads complaining about it, they ought to own up to their error and offer us a roadmap on how they will prevent this sort of error from happening again next week. Unfortunately though it seems that to Flickr/Yahoo, it’s just one more disgruntled censored customer and who the hell cares about that.

Update: It seems after yesterday’s account deletion without warning, Flickr is back at it again today. Read the latest complaint below taken from the Flickr Help Forum by user Riann Flynn:

More here.