charleswood

<p>Just thinking out loud as to why outside city boundaries.</p> <blockquote> <p>(d) As used in this section:<br> ~<br> (ii) "Open land" means land outside the exterior boundaries of any incorporated city, town, subdivision approved pursuant to W.S. 18-5-308 or development approved pursuant to W.S. 18-5-403;</p> </blockquote> <p>Open land is outside the jurisdiction of police performing their duties in incorporated cities, towns, subdivisions or developments? If so it sure looks like the statue wants enforcement to be exclusively by the Wisconsin State Patrol, by state police. So if they in the drafting were haggling about the cost of enforcement there's no budgetary burden imposed by the new law on local police departments.</p>

<p>Bert, OK good, and the punishment does appear to be the same. Any idea about why the law was written to not apply in towns?</p>

<p align="LEFT">Bert I don't think entry, purpose, and no permission or ownership are all required to prosecute and convict.</p> <p align="LEFT"> </p> <blockquote> <p>6-3-414. Trespassing to unlawfully collect resource data; unlawful collection of resource data.<br> <strong>(a)</strong> A person is guilty of trespassing to unlawfully collect resource data if he:<br> (i) Enters onto open land for the purpose of collecting resource data; and<br> (ii) Does not have:<br> (A) An ownership interest in the real property or, statutory, contractual or other legal authorization to enter or access the land to collect resource data; or<br> (B) Written or verbal permission of the owner, lessee or agent of the owner to enter or access the land to collect the specified resource data.</p> <p><strong>(b)</strong> A person is guilty of unlawfully collecting resource data if he enters onto private open land and collects resource data without:<br> (i) An ownership interest in the real property or, statutory, contractual or other legal authorization to enter the private land to collect the specified resource data; or<br> (ii) Written or verbal permission of the owner, lessee or agent of the owner to enter the land to collect the specified resource data.</p> </blockquote> <p>Can you be guilty of (a) and not guilty of (b)? I think so. It looks like having the purpose without permission is to be guilty under (a); and if you've been on the property long enough to have realized your purpose then you're guilty under (b). </p> <p>Trespass is an unlawful intrusion, a misdemeanor. But in this law an unlawful intrusion for the purpose of collecting resource data is a bigger crime than trespass. And actually collecting that data while trespassing is also a bigger crime than trespass.</p> <p>So it's a law that protects environmental law breakers by making felons of those who would give evidence of those environmental crimes. </p>

<p>So if you submitted and didn't intend to: no defense because you did submit whether you intended to or not. And if you collected it and didn't submit, if you intended to submit but didn't: that's criminal too if they can prove intent. Proving intent happens all the time.</p>

<blockquote> <p>(e) No resource data collected in violation of this section is admissible in evidence in any civil, criminal or administrative proceeding, other than a prosecution for violation of this section or a civil action against the violator.</p> </blockquote> <p>which is from the document link provided by Tim <a href="https://legiscan.com/WY/text/SF0012/id/1151882">https://legiscan.com/WY/text/SF0012/id/1151882</a></p> <p>from which is a definition of resource data:</p> <blockquote> <p>(iv) "Resource data" means data relating to land or land use, including but not limited to data regarding agriculture, minerals, geology, history, cultural artifacts, archeology, air, water, soil, conservation, habitat, vegetation or animal species. "Resource data" does not include data:<br /> (A) For surveying to determine property boundaries or the location of survey monuments;<br /> (B) Used by a state or local governmental entity to assess property values;<br /> © Collected or intended to be collected by a peace officer while engaged in the lawful performance of his official duties.</p> </blockquote> <p>"Including but not limited to data regarding" is language that can be broadly construed. Also the word data isn't specifically defined. The word 'collect' is defined:</p> <blockquote> <p>(d) As used in this section:<br /> (i) "Collect" means to take a sample of material, acquire, gather, photograph or otherwise preserve information in any form from open land which is submitted or intended to be submitted to any agency of the state or federal government;</p> </blockquote> <p>"Information in any form" apparently is the definition of 'data', such information not "...admissible in evidence in any civil, criminal or administrative proceeding, other than a prosecution for violation of this section or a civil action against the violator."</p> <p>So any data collected can only be used in a prosecution of, or a civil action against, the data collector. As to prosecution:</p> <blockquote> <p>© Trespassing to unlawfully collect resource data and unlawfully collecting resource data are punishable as follows:<br /> (i) By imprisonment for not more than one (1) year, a fine of not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000.00), or both;<br /> (ii) By imprisonment for not less than ten (10) days nor more than one (1) year, a fine of not more than five thousand dollars ($5,000.00), or both, if the person has previously been convicted of trespassing to unlawfully collect resource data or unlawfully collecting resource data.</p> </blockquote> <p>I think the Fox article was fair and balanced because it included the viewpoint of Prof. Pidot. I might have titled it "Evidence A Crime Transmuted Into the Crime of Collecting Evidence - An Offender's Dream Come True" But would that have been a fair title for the piece?</p> <p>TIm wrote "You can't be a citizen whistle blower if you're prevented by being arrested as a trespasser from even seeing whether an event detriment to the public is taking place."</p> <p>I read it such that you can be a citizen whistle blower if you don't collect resource data while trespassing.<br /> <br /> Scott wrote "Second, the law requires intent, meaning, "...to submit or intending to submit..." the data to state or federal agencies."</p> <p>Scott I don't read it that way. If you submit they can convict, OR, if you intended to submit it but didn't: it might be a little harder to convict, conviction would depend on the evidence presented documenting an assertion that intent existed in the mind of the offender. For example, email which showed the send button was clicked but that the email server was down and the email wasn't delivered. Clearly by pushing the send button the offender intended to submit and although a completed submission did not occur, a submission nevertheless was intended.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Can we not love this woman? She messed up and for that she belongs with us all.</p>

<p>What I'm doing is to just be nicer to the bugs in my house. Carrying them outside v. crushing, drowning, etc. Those are my 'rescues'. As to ants, I get my bulb air blower to get them off the counter and try to leave things cleaned up. I'm working on a photo series (planning stages) of bugs I've rescue from the sadly sisyphean circumstances [alliteration - I should get extra credit for that] they've found themselves in through no fault of their own. I'm trying to put a different kind of energy out there in the universe and figure I would start with those closest to me.</p>

<p>Anders I thought the Anthropocene was a short epoch that's about at its end?</p>

<p>Yes the appellate court found as to privacy that Svenson's use of the photos was on solid legal ground. Here is the text of the appellate court's unanimous opinion: <a href="http://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/appellate-division-first-department/2015/651826-13-12998.html">http://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/appellate-division-first-department/2015/651826-13-12998.html</a> . "Undoubtedly, like plaintiffs, many people would be rightfully offended by the intrusive manner in which the photographs were taken in this case."</p> <p>And some would not be offended by the photographer's intrusiveness to the degree the plaintiffs were, perhaps not to any degree. Rather than locating the nexus of moral perception in the intrinsic quality of the act (judging that an act lacks empathy), those not particularly offended might instead locate that nexus in the results of the act, in the consequences of the act. Broadly, some advocate for moral reasoning that is based on the intrinsic quality of the act, advocate for moral reasoning that holds some acts as just plain categorically wrong. And some instead advocate for consequentialist moral judgment, a more utilitarian one.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Right, you can be invited into a home to take some pictures and in doing so take some candid shots, candid shots for which you weren't specifically given permission to take. Someone sitting on the pot with the bathroom door wide open, for example: use is fair game depending on the type of use apparently. If the bathroom door was open just an inch as opposed to being wide open? What circumstances make something actionable as opposed to just being offensive to our sense of decorum? I don't know really.</p>

<p>Bill Jordan " To me, common sense would dictate you don't take pictures of people inside their homes."</p> <p>What if the photographer is inside some people's home taking candid pictures? In a sense, not drawing the blinds isn't much different than inviting someone inside, IMHO.</p>

<p>Bill Jordan: "...I can't help but feel there was an invasion of privacy here."</p> <p>The appellate judges in their written opinion agree with you, agree that there was an invasion of privacy</p> <blockquote> <p>"...the invasion of privacy of one’s home that took place here is not actionable...because the defendant’s use of the images in question constituted art work" [the author of the article goes on to say]..."as opposed to used for advertising or trade."</p> </blockquote> <p>So as to where the judges drew the line in deciding there was an invasion of privacy: would have to look for that determination in their written opinion.</p> <p>Bill Jordan "I do have a related question - if he sells any of the photos, do the rules change?"</p> <p>Would seem to depend on the facts in and surrounding the contract for the sale of any of the photos. For example, if the contract of sale had The National Enquirer as the buyer, that use may be actionable use as far as the subjects of the photographs are concerned. If the contract of sale had as the buyer the Annenberg Space for Photography, that use may not be actionable.</p>

<p>The trial court decision reported here: <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/photos-nyc-family-shot-window-art-judge-article-1.1421959">http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/photos-nyc-family-shot-window-art-judge-article-1.1421959</a> (linked to in article in Bill's post). Trial court said: "She said it was within Arne Svenson’s artistic rights to promote his show by sharing with the media some of his photos of Martha and Matthew Foster and their children — which were taken without their permission." Which apparently is the decision the appellate court affirmed. The trial court was a New York court: "Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Eilee [sic]Rakower"</p> <p>So it <em>sounds</em> like the plaintiffs had in whole or in part argued that promoting the show via photos shared with the media was commercial use and the trial court disagreed, that decision affirmed on appeal?</p> <p> </p>

<p>Owen my guess is that recurring sales with few expenses gives you a profit motive that makes your photography at least in part a business engaged in for a profit. That does mean that you may also deduct ordinary and necessary business expenses like for the travel required to produce the photographs. If you display your photos for sale on a web site consider some part of the cost of web hosting as a business expense. There may be more expenses to consider that weren't associated with that particular shoot that would be deductible against that shoot's income nevertheless.</p> <p>The other issue is whether or not your net profit is or isn't self-employment income subject to self-employment tax. This article touches on that issue <a href="http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2009/Jul/20091639.htm">http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2009/Jul/20091639.htm</a> . From that article, considering whether a you are or are not in a trade or business for self-employment tax purposes: "Revenue Ruling 58-112 further characterizes a trade or business activity as one that is regular, frequent and continuous." My opinion, and certainly there is room for disagreement here and despite the fuzzy facts, your sales were for profit, but your photography sales business isn't regular, frequent, and continuous enough to be considered a trade or business whose income is subject to the self-employment tax.</p> <p>The easiest thing to do is report the $3,000 as other income on Form 1040. If you itemize, take the travel expense and other expenses as itemized deductions. Not reporting it on Schedule C emphasizes that it isn't self-employment income if like me, you honestly believe it isn't self-employment income. If you choose Sch C instead, look for a check box like "Not subject to self-employment tax" and consider checking it.</p>

<p>Kam: "My first question is concerning written evidence for >50% business use. Do my image files constitute written evidence (there are very few pictures of family, friends, etc. there; almost all are like the photographs I sell)?"</p> <p>Yes.</p> <p>Kam: "My second question is whether to use GDS (general) or ADS (alternative) depreciation system."</p> <p>GDS. Generally you would only go with ADS if required to.</p> <p>Also, take a look at the hobby loss rules if you haven't already. <a href="http://www.irs.gov/uac/Is-Your-Hobby-a-For-Profit-Endeavor%3F">http://www.irs.gov/uac/Is-Your-Hobby-a-For-Profit-Endeavor%3F</a> </p> <p>I'm a CPA.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Charles here's an article specific to Walmart on-line and California sales tax. Nexus is discussed.</p>

<p>Charles Webster: "Jeff, I was going to ask, if it's so simple, why aren't any merchants except the very biggest (i.e., Amazon) doing it?"</p> <p>Obviously I'm not Jeff, but here is the answer: because law doesn't require those merchants to do so while at the same time law does require ones like Amazon to do so. </p>

<p>I've suggested Photo.net to a handful of younger people and they hadn't heard of it, asked why I didn't use what they did, and I surmised that their needs were being met somewhere else.</p>

<p>Jeff, why not respond to my main point? I'm saying that there aren't numbers for PN among the young. I suggest a reason why. Do you disagree or agree with that point? If it's that you disagree, link to an article or study as I have done to support your point of view. But you didn't respond to my main point. You lectured me about coming off as arrogant to young people. I recognize that you only speak for yourself. Do you?</p>

<p>We members have interests, talents, and appreciations that haven't been fully reproduced in younger generations.</p> <p><a href="http://www.edutopia.org/arts-music-curriculum-child-development">http://www.edutopia.org/arts-music-curriculum-child-development</a></p> <blockquote> <p>Arts education has been slipping for more than three decades, the result of tight budgets, an ever-growing list of state mandates that have crammed the classroom curriculum, and a public sense that the arts are lovely but not essential.</p> </blockquote> <p>It isn't that what the site offers isn't valuable. It isn't that this member or that member has deficiencies. Quoting Matt Laur:</p> <blockquote> <p>The people who own it and run it have every right and every reason to decide when and whether someone is using the site in a way that diminishes its purpose.</p> </blockquote> <p>Rephrasing: the people who own this country and run it oh so arrogantly do indeed think that they have every right and every reason to diminish Culture in any way that suits their pecuniary reasons and purposes.</p>

<p>Vince - "To illustrate how the artist communicates, Tolstoy included a sentence about a boy who experienced fear upon seeing a wolf in the forest."</p> <p>That's interesting as it relates to Arthur's remark: "I think I mentioned that truth is an objective in science and engineering to which I referred it, but not necessarily key in artistic expression." Interesting because of the distinction made between 'the world' as described by science and 'my world' as portrayed in art, the desperate descriptions coming on the one hand from Logos and on the other from Mythos, if I may fairly interpret Arthur's science/art dichotomy in that broader way. Tolstoy's boy and wolf story is a case in point.</p> <p>In the objective world of science a wolf is nothing to fear when seen in a forest. Informed by Logos, wolves fear us and run away from us upon a chance encounter. But in the 'my world' of Tolstoy's boy, the world of mythos, a wolf is a creature that elicits fear. Art can make the story of wolf and boy more interesting, a wolf made to represent childish domination by fear generally and a Peter and the Wolf story a telling of a boy's triumph over fear itself. A boy/wolf story isn't about a wolf at all and the story can leave intact a mythic misperception of the wolf as nevertheless a legitimate object of fear. The wolf is an artifice in the telling where the point of the artistic telling isn't to tell us that a wolf isn't to be feared. Instead it tells us to overcome our fears, the wolf with artistic license deployed as a fearsome object. The lesson from the artfully told boy/wolf story is to not be ruled by fear regardless of the fearsomeness of the thing. The thing may or may not objectively be fearsome - no matter - just don't be ruled by fear as the story goes. Fear is what we, as Vince I believe points out, share in common and we are not alone in our fear response in dangerous situations. In that sense that we all can be ruled by fear, art can destroy the separation between artist and audience, destroy the separation between audience and audience cathartically.</p> <p>I saw the movie <em>Wild</em> recently, didn't read the book, and in the movie a fox is used to symbolize an encounter with 'wild' as a curative for a woman who had been merely reactive in her life. And after her encounter with pure 'wild' as represented by a fox, began to instead live her life, 'wild' a curative for the destructive taming that assuming a culturally specific identify is. For a shaming culture such as ours, particularly harsh on women, wild is as objective a mythic truth as is e - mc2 a truth to Logos. The problem generally is that Logos has no soul and we can't live there exclusively and yet be satisfied. Water is not just H2O and air is not just a mix of oxygen, nitrogen and inert gasses. Art's descriptions of air is up for grabs because, all things considered, Logos just doesn't cut it. Some problems find their cure in catharsis. Some instead require a confrontation with the wild nature that objective psyche as a term was coined to describe in scientific terms, but which has always been described by one art form or another, along with all the other things that are the subjects of art.</p>

<p>That's equally convincing, not equally competing. Equally convincing parses out unconvincing meanings. And it's equally convincing points of view, not interpretations, where point of view is meant more broadly than interpretations. Ambiguity is defined as understood in more than one way, having more than one possible meaning, so interpretation, meaning is necessary in identifying expressions that either are or aren't ambiguous. The expression "Take an umbrella with you" is unambiguously in the imperative case and someone taking an umbrella as instructed is compliant behavior which also is unambiguous. (The expression "Take something with you" is ambiguous, subject to more than one point of view about what the something might be.) The order is unambiguous, it's instruction. An examination of the mind giving the instruction: I wouldn't call that an interpretation of the order, rather, it's an examination of the reasons behind the order, not an interpretation of the order, the order having been expressed clearly, not subject to interpretation, not able to be understood as something other than commanding a specified act. The question of why the command is not a question about the command itself, not an interpretation of the order itself.</p>

<p>Competing interpretations. I like that. So pulling a couple ideas together with Albert's: Ambiguity in a photograph results from a competition between equally convincing points of view that might make sense of the same thing, each competing point of view finding support in image elements, photographer body of work, etc. I think that definition works whether the interpretation is of a literal story, manifest content, or of meaning, values, metaphor, etc.</p>

<p>Of course, you don't want ambiguity in pictures of food on a restaurant menu, a good one is apetitious and not suggestive of alternative and equally convincing points of view. So at least in a product shot we know the intent is to make a product appealing to the viewer and we can readily mark the point at which our individual tastes contribute to our assessment of the product, there being no underlying confusion about the intent of the photographer. Ambiguity as a design element can as thoughtfully be employed by a photographer as is clarity in product shots.</p> <p>In thinking more about Albert's "Ambiguity is the result of a conflict between equally convincing points of view that might make sense of the same thing." I don't think there is necessarily a conflict between equally convincing points of view, interpretations. Each interpretation if well supported in the image isn't necessarily in conflict with other interpretations, much like where a good poem could be read in several equally convincing ways. But just being vague, letting a photograph just support any number of equally unconvincing interpretations: to me that happens when I find that in a photograph I can only discover my own personal associations and for me, my own personal associations aren't interesting except if it is the case that either I'm trying to communicate or am trying to receive a communication. I don't like spending time with a photograph only to find that the photographer was must mumbling, being intentionally obtuse or intentionally vague for no worthwhile purpose.</p>

<p>Albert that's said with precision and concision.</p> <p>I think the way Steve Curry's Ethiopia picture works for me is that because there are competing though uninteresting literal interpretations possible, the fact of that ambiguity leads me toward a meta interpretation more in the direction of McCurry's philosophical blog statements. </p>