NY Times Advocates Theft

<p>'It may be illegal to copy a CD to another medium but ethically I don't see why I should have to pay anything more than a token amount to do so.<br /> How on Earth people think that printing high resolution images for their own use is Fair is beyond me, it's not as if they have paid some license fee'</p>

<p>You really don't see a contradiction here? Your LP sleeve probably contains some text expressly forbidding you to do this, as such things go back rather a long way:</p>

<p>http://www.alchemysite.com/blog/2009/01/eula-end-user-license-agreement-edison.html<br>

http://www.natch.net/stuff/78_license/</p>

<p>Record players are still available, so there's nothing to stop you using the media exactly as the copyright holder intended. But copying gives you convenience, and the ability to enjoy the music away from the record player (in the car, on the train, when out running), just as someone who prints one of your images is free to enjoy it away from the computer screen.</p>

<p>Wow.</p>

<p>When you "pay for" a DVD, you are paying for a license to view the content. This license forbids breaking the region code. When you access flickr, you are granted a license to view the content. It makes absolutely no moral or legal difference whether or not you have paid for that license.</p>

<p>Are you saying that I am no longer allowed to play the DVDs that I purchased in the USA when I lived there, since I now live in Europe? Should I have sold them at a 70% or greater loss and then repurchased them in Finland? Wow.</p>

<p>Ilkka: Exactly. You are not allowed to do that, unless you also brought a region 1 DVD player with you or a computer that you left as region 1. It is no more legal or ethical to use electronics and software to evade region coding than it is for some guy to print a photo from Flickr. In many cases, it is more illegal.</p>

<p>That may not apply to Finland specifically, in some countries it's legal to copy a DVD, but it certainly does apply in the US.</p>

<p>Ilkka Nissila. Yes, that's exactly right. And if you don't like it, don't buy DVDs. If everyone stopped buying DVDs over that issue it would stop, but people don't care. If you don't like people printing your Flickr images, don't post your images to Flickr. It's really simple. </p>

<p>John and Andrew: it's good to check facts before posting; helps improve the quality of the forum. In Finland <strong>it is legal</strong> to sell and use region free players, to program players to be region free, and play other regions' DVDs. It doesn't matter what the producer of the disc itself thinks about this matter since the local law overrides whatever laws might be in place in the country where the disc originates from. In some countries (e.g. Australia, according to Wikipedia) it is illegal to sell DVD players that are <em>not</em> region free.</p>

<p>As another example of how the regional legislation can override these practices that try to limit trade, Nikon claims that their digital cameras and scanners have only regional warranty but in the EU the importer of the a product is responsible for manufacturing errors for 2-3 years (depends on country) irrespective of the origin of purchase of the product (as long as the same product is sold in the country where warranty service is seeked) or the claimed duration of the warranty. I read that in Finland Nikon lost a law suit with respect to this matter though I have no further details about it. Notice how prices between EU and US are this year more homogeneous (difference is typically only the difference in tax, while it used to be 10-30% more in many cases). I think they've had to realize that they can not maintain such large artificial price differences across markets any more; otherwise regional camera stores simply die as consumers become more and more internet aware.</p>

<p>You're in Finland and it's legal there. I did say it might be. However, the writer was writing in the US where we live in a DMCA-induced gray area, and the legality in Finland or Australia does nothing to address the ethical concerns, and this isn't a see-how-countries-are-different issue.</p>

<p>The question is, if you as a content consumer do not feel bad circumventing the DVD rights holders' intentions to control the ways in which their movies are viewed, when these intentions are made quite clear through their use of region coding (or the anti-MP3 intention of the record companies which have been made very clear in their public statements) why do you feel you write from a position of moral authority when you as a rights holder condemn the Flickr content consumers for circumventing the less-clearly-stated intent of some photographers to control how their photos are viewed?</p>

<p>Also, I'm still waiting to see those apologies for accusing the NYT writer of promoting crime and calling her a "twit".</p>

<p>No apology forthcoming, Andrew. I don't pirate DVDs, and I don't respect people who are paid to create intellectual propery (like, say, writing for the NYT) while simultaneously being a glib supporter of the content rip-off culture. The prevailing tone of that message wasn't "it's like taking the CD you paid for, and shifting it onto your iPod" ... but rather "you know, why pay a photographer for their art when you can pretend you didn't see the fine print where it says 'All Rights Reserved' under that guy's nice landscape photo on Flickr?"<br /><br />You know perfectly well that the wink-wink-nudge-nudge nature of that suggestion wasn't a subtle bit of protest agains DRM that lets you time-shift your TiVo recordings but doesn't seem to apply to the CD you bought in 1994... this was a simple case of "here's how to get some free stuff, and if you don't bog yourself down with the little details about whether it really is or should be free, you can skip the whole guilt phase and just conctentrate on what color frame to buy and whether it will go with your upholstery."</p>

<p>You know perfectly well that neither of us have a properly reasoned argument one way or the other that arrives at legal or ethical certainty. Present one or accept that this area is gray, drop the personal insults and let this entire thread die a well deserved death.</p>

<p>I haven't insulted you at all, Andrew. And I find that it's <em>perfectly</em> reasonable to establish this ethical certainty: photographers who post their images in a context that's clearly meant to expose their work to a web-viewing audience, but who <em>take the deliberate step while doing so to indicate that they're reserving all rights when it comes to further reproduction in any form</em> are being ripped off when someone decides that the assertion of those copyrights doesn't apply to them, and crank off prints to decorate their house. The salt in that wound is the author's self-congratulatory tone, and blythe erring on the side of "I'm in the clear," rather than erring on the side of ... reading the words "All Rights Reserved" and thinking that, just perhaps, that might actually be the artist's wishes. Flickr has more than one licensing model for photographers to choose from. The author sweeps them all under one ethical and legal carpet. Of course that carpet will look lovely with that new artwork on the walls.<br /><br />This thread does indeed deserve to die if it can't stop fussing over semantics and just pay attention to the <em>very simple</em> ethics of the situation. The photographer who shows her work (say, in a gallery, or on Flickr) isn't also granting visitors to that gallery the license to reproduce those images by other means, unless she <em>says she is</em>. Whether or not a piece of web browsing software needs a temp file of the JPG to actually display the work doesn't change the <em>moral</em> situation or indeed the legal circumstances at all. Where's the gray? The photographer has, or <em>has not</em> made it clear that visitors to the gallery are welcome to reproduce their work. Has, or has not. Black, or white.</p>

<p>Sorry for being unclear, I was referring to the insult to the author, though I did get called "disingenuous" earlier.</p>

<p>And thank you for phrasing your ethical concern in that concise and sensible way - I think you've got to what I've been trying to get somebody to get to :)</p>

<p>Ilkka: You feel that since you're in Finland you are morally free to ignore the copyright claims of American content creators. How is that any different from me, here in Canada, saying that I am free to ignore your Finnish copyright claims?</p>

<p>If you need not respect the wishes of foreign content owners why should anyone outside your own country respect yours?</p>

<p>'And I find that it's <em>perfectly</em> reasonable to establish this ethical certainty: photographers who post their images in a context that's clearly meant to expose their work to a web-viewing audience, but who <em>take the deliberate step while doing so to indicate that they're reserving all rights when it comes to further reproduction in any form</em> are being ripped off when someone decides that the assertion of those copyrights doesn't apply to them, and crank off prints to decorate their house.'</p>

<p>Similarly, you might say:</p>

<p>'And I find that it's <em>perfectly</em> reasonable to establish this ethical certainty: recording artists who make their music available in a context that's clearly meant to bring their work to a CD-buying audience, but who <em>take the deliberate step while doing so to indicate that they're reserving all rights when it comes to further reproduction in any form</em> are being ripped off when someone decides that the assertion of those copyrights doesn't apply to them, and crank off mp3s to fill their iPods.'</p>

<p>If not, why not?</p>

<p>I think this is being taken far too seriously.</p>

<p>Imagine this scenario:</p>

<p>You have a website with images on it. Someone you don't know and will never meet downloads one of your images, prints it out and hangs it on their wall. You don't know about this and you never will.</p>

<p>What are you going to do about it?</p>

<p>'And I find that it's <em>perfectly</em> reasonable to establish this ethical certainty: recording artists who make their music available in a context that's clearly meant to bring their work to a CD-buying audience, but who <em>take the deliberate step while doing so to indicate that they're reserving all rights when it comes to further reproduction in any form</em> are being ripped off when someone decides that the assertion of those copyrights doesn't apply to them, and crank off mp3s to fill their iPods.'</p>

<p>That is legally correct. Except for one thing, which does NOT change the illegality--the 'artists' MAY very well want to have their music on your iPod or whatever, but the record labels oppose their wishes.</p>

<p>Also note: copying a CD produces a bit-for-bit identical product; the artist's and producer's intent is maintained. Not so with a cheap inkjet print of a Web-posted JPEG. I am NOT advocating any illegal practice, mind. I also think that the New York Times should not advocate illegal practices.</p>

<p>'...the 'artists' MAY very well want to have their music on your iPod or whatever'</p>

<p>I think that's probably true. Which makes me wonder why many photographers see media shifting for personal use so very differently.</p>

<p>'Not so with a cheap inkjet print of a Web-posted JPEG.'</p>

<p>Or a low bitrate mp3...</p>

 

<p>Steve: imagine this scenario...<br /><br />A writer for one of the most influential media companies in the world (who depend utterly on copyrights to stay in business, and regularly defend those rights against copyright infringers in civil law suits) makes a sweeping recommendation about how to get around paying for copyrighted art. It's not about what you're going to <em>do</em> about someone you'll never know about contemplating one of your landscapes while sitting in the bathroom every morning. It's about giving moral support to the larger epidemic of entertainment piracy, and moral comfort (and tactical advice) to those that think they are entitled to free entertainment, on their own terms, no matter what the artists who create what they want have chosen as a publishing model. <br /><br />There <em>are</em> artists who are OK (indeed, deleriously happy) with strangers enjoying, sharing, reproducing, displaying, modifying or otherwise using their art as they see fit, at no charge and with no legal entanglements. Those artists use things like the Creative Commons license models specifically to lay out the framework under which they'll allow and encourage people do just those things.<br /><br />Flickr provides a mechanism for photographers to do just that, or to exhibit their work in a more restricted manner, in terms of subsequent reproduction. But the author glosses over the distinctions between these licensing models and the way that they reflect the artist's engagement with their audience. The author asserts that his private use of the art means that the artist's copyrights <em>don't apply</em>. Which is exactly how many people justify ripping off movies it costs millions to make, novels it takes years to write, etc, to avoid paying a few dollars.<br /><br />Again: this isn't about debating the nuances of whether media-shifting your purchased CD is something that needs to be revisited, from a standards/practices point of view. This is about the author's thesis, to wit: "This is for my private use, so the artist's copyrights don't apply." That's simply wrong on the face of it, and for a paid NYT writer, it's a short-sighted, self-destructive devaluing of the rights that he enjoys - at the expense of other artists generally - in exchange for a fleeting bit of NYT blog traffic.<br /><br />It's the hypocrisy that chafes, here. I called the author a 'twit' because that cognitive dissonance - that juvenile embrace of immediate gratification without cost or thought to consequence - isn't what you'd expect from a person paid to think and write. Especially when they are paid by a company that, without the ability and demonstrated willingness to protect their copyrights and seek legal redress when infringed upon, wouldn't be able to meet their payroll. His paycheck doesn't bounce because his employer defends his copyrights. He celebrates that system with the smug observation that the same shouldn't be true for photographers.</p>

<p>"It's the hypocrisy that chafes, here. I called the author a 'twit' because that cognitive dissonance - that juvenile embrace of immediate gratification without cost or thought to consequence - isn't what you'd expect from a person paid to think and write. Especially when they are paid by a company that, without the ability and demonstrated willingness to protect their copyrights and seek legal redress when infringed upon, wouldn't be able to meet their payroll. His paycheck doesn't bounce because his employer defends his copyrights. He celebrates that system with the smug observation that the same shouldn't be true for photographers"<br>

Exactly!</p>

<p><em>I think that's probably true. Which makes me wonder why many photographers see media shifting for personal use so very differently.</em></p>

<p>I said the artist MAY want you to rip his music to your MP3 player. On Flickr, which the NYT blogger discussed, you can (legally) DECIDE if you want All Rights Reserved or variations on Creative Commons license. Dear Sonia didn't bother to mention this. I truly wish that musicians had a similar right when they have contracts with major labels.</p>

<p>@Geoff: Funny, it's the hypocrisy of the people who think copying images from flickr is bad but (ripping mp3s, breaking region coding, etc) is fine. When legally it amounts to the same thing. Ignoring the wishes of the copyright holder and making illegal copies.</p>

<p>@Les: Of course the musician has all those same rights. If they choose to sign with a major label, they're choosing how to exercise their rights. </p>

<p>Well for those of us who do love to find images on the internet might I suggest if you do a google search on a topic, add source:life at the end, you will be directed to a marvellous collection of downloadable images from decades of Life magazine's archives. For private use only of course. Mostly black and white but full page reproductions.</p>

<p>It's not like a person who would print out a low res web reproduction (with my watermark) for their house would otherwise buy it. Unless they are selling it or taking credit for it I'm not too concerned. If you are then don't post your images online.</p>

<p>Lots of valueable copyright talk going on here but regardless of intellectual laws etc etc, "Intended use" vs "Actual use" should be viewed as the same thing.<br>

As a producer of art, images, music, or otherwise, we have to know that if we are using the internet, then the likelihood of someone downloading it is inherent.<br>

Music, programs, movies, photos......Nothing is secure.<br>

We should understand and accept this whether it is right or wrong because this is just the way things are.<br>

Not saying that we should passively roll over on this issue. We just really need to understand the way things work online, and take the necessary measures to control the quality level (use low res ONLY), and prevent the sampling of images (flash protected).<br>

These are things we <strong>can</strong> do.<br>

Not protecting yourself leads to endless amounts of copyright talk, and negative feelings of infringement.</p>

<p>an</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Oddly enough I personally would be thrilled if someone printed out one of my photos to decorate his wall :-)</p>

<p><em>Oddly enough I personally would be thrilled if someone printed out one of my photos to decorate his wall :-)</em></p>

<p>But wouldn't you prefer it if they asked you first? And gave you credit, so others would know about you?</p>