November 22, 2004
Should war have a copyright?
by Liza Sabater
The editor of Fallujah in Pictures posted this warning the other day :
It has come to my attention that Google deleted "Fallujah in Pictures" from their search engine. It could be an accident or a mistake. (I have not heard back from them yet.) I do know that there are many private individuals who are trying to have this site shut down. I'd like to address them directly: IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
What is interesting about Fallujah in Pictures is that almost all the entries are coming from photoservices like AP, Reuters and Getty Images --and almost all of them are stamped with a copyright sign or watermark. Thus the editors' defiance.
As per the last 10 years of copyright law interpretation and enforcement, the editors of the blog should not be using those images, even though they are not making money out of the site. Fair Use has been so limited that sampling of a copyrighted 'product', no matter how small the sample, is almost impossible. So imagine how easily in trouble the editors of Fallujah in Pictures are and the potential liability they could be for Blogger, and ultimately, Google; for allowing and abetting the publishing of those images. That is, if we were using the current interpretations of the law and not looked at the reality of technologies like Google or Yahoo!
If you look at it from the standpoint of Google, Fallujah in Pictures is a curatorial version of their search engine. What they are doing is taking all the pictures that are out there on the web and putting them in once place, for all the world to see. And giving them a context.
Which brings me back to the idea of should there be a copyright to a History? Should anybody have the right to say
This image is mine (Getty Images Editorial - Image Results | Image #51756587, U.S Marines Patrol Streets Of Fallujah)
or
This is mine (MAGNUM PHOTOS | Susan Meirelas, NICARAGUA. Esteli. 1979)
or
This is mine (Russell Means, Dennis Banks at Wounded Knee)
And have the right to limit the distribution and circulation of the image for the next 75 years?
I can understand photojournalists wanting to have attribution and getting paid for what they do since, after all, these photographers are putting their lives on the line by doing what they do best. Once history is recorded, should these journalists be paid derivatives? Or even more prescient, should a company like Corbis or Getty Images have the right to treat these records of historical events as products?
Shouldn't History be available to all and not just those who have the money to pay for it?
Shouldn't this kind of work immediately fall into the Public domain?
When it comes to 'white collar workers', I believe that Cultural Creatives are some of the most grossly underpaid workers in this country, if not the world. If we took away the scarcity incentives of copyright and just left their attribution purposes, wouldn't that positively affect how much a cultural creative, such as a photojournalist, gets paid upfront for what they do?
Posted by Liza Sabater in Activism, Blogs, Censorship, Commerce, Copyright, History, Iraq, Journalism, Media, Photography, Propaganda, War, War
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Found inNovember 23, 2004 02:33 PM
Say it loud, say it proud!
Getting in between someone and something they need is a surefire means of getting ahead, if you're a parasite. Carried to its extreme as now it means the things we all need to live are metered to us by those whose ownership is claimed as moral right but enforced by threats and violence.
It was a silly thing the way the Indians were unable to comprehend the idea of land being sold or stolen or given away, or bought - owned.
Silly to the thing that runs the world now, but in the long run it was true. This way is false, and it doesn't work.
Disney is defending their rights to the abomination they made of A.A. Milne's work, as intellectual property. All by itself that settles the argument.
If they could meter the air we breathe, we'd have to pay for it.
1
Comment by: Bucky at November 25, 2004 01:26 AM