Ever feel used??

[acherontia]

The ramifications of this are very far reaching - throughout the whole gamut of photography.

The article deals with 2 separate issues which, to my mind, infringe on our rights.

In an age where the big boys are well protected (ie piracy laws) it appears the little man can be used, abused and exploited as much as the already minted publishers/media etc want to.

Boy am I mad.

Watch out for your images being nabbed without your permission!
Your thoughts on this please?


UK Gov nationalises orphans and bans non-consensual photography in public | Copyright Action

Acher

[MartynA]

I concluded a long time ago that if you don't want anyone using your images in an unauthorised way it's best not to put them on the web in the first place, and if you do, it's best to make sure you only up load very low resolution images that have some copyright notice on them.

The world wide web is just that... world wide. And it doesn't matter what piece of legislation one country introduces it won't really have much effect on the web users in other countries that happily download your snaps images already and will continue to do so.

If you can see the access logs of the website where your photos are you'll realise the extent to which they are linked to from other sites, embedded in forum postings on other sites etc.. etc..

Bearing in mind the high quality of images in the WAB Gallery one does wonder whether more should be done to protect the copyright.

Martyn

[Ukwildlifeo]

A sad sign of the times. Sad to think my photos of a fox showing its teeth could be used in Countryside alliance propaganda and I would be powerless to stop it.

The most annoying part of this is the idiots removing the small man's copyright over their photos are also increasing protection for record companies etc. with stupid over the top anti-piracy laws. They are bending over backwards to help them by stepping on the rest of us and I can't see any thing changing whoever is in power. Yet another reason to move abroad....

[pressld2]

Originally Posted by acherontia

Your thoughts on this please?

My thoughts? Uttery outrageous but not in the least surprising. Our government seems hell bent on protecting everyone's rights until they pick up a camera. Then they should be robbed blind and criminalised as quickly as possible.

And leaving aside the photography aspect, the very notion of passing any law with all its terms left undefined so that the secretary of state can make it up as he goes along afterwards should set alarm bells ringing very, very loudly.

"If you tolerate this..."

Dave P.

[Ukwildlifeo]

Originally Posted by pressld2

And leaving aside the photography aspect, the very notion of passing any law with all its terms left undefined so that the secretary of state can make it up as he goes along afterwards should set alarm bells ringing very, very loudly.

"If you tolerate this..."

Dave P.

The silly thing is the civil liberties folks seem to hung up on the body scanner 'issue' and stopping criminals being deported to worry about real threats to liberty like this - its a slippery slope and this is further down it than most the things being moaned about!

[Lancashire Lad]

I couldn't believe what I was reading when I first read Acher's linked article.

Then, (as Dave.P's post so lucidly describes), I realised that this is just another turn of the screw, in the Orwellian society that is England in the year 2010.

Acher's linked article in turn carries links to a template letter which (though somewhat long winded) can be used as the basis of anyone's response, and also links which will enable anyone to obtain their own MP's contact details.

I've just spent some time writing a letter to Jack Straw, and urge each and every photographer who reads this to write to their own MP.

My opinion of our MP's in general is of a fairly low order, given the scandals which seem to be continually rolling out. But my opinion of Mr. Mandelson, in attempting to get this Bill, with so many undefined terms into legislation, could not possibly be printed openly on WAB.
, very very .

Regards,
Mike.

[BillyPilgrim]

So to sum up... the government are going to legalise theft and share the profits of the theft with the thieves?

Sounds reasonable to me

[loripo]

To quote from that article:-
So Flickr, Google Images, personal websites, all of it will become commercial publishers' photolibrary. A fee will have to be deposited with a collecting society in case the owner spots the usage. The author who discovers his work has been used as an orphan can then make a claim and receive a percentage of the peanuts, after the collecting society has had its share, and the government its share.

The quaint notion that the author alone has prime and inalienable rights over his/her own work, must be able to restrict usage, negotiate a fee, prevent usage they consider immoral or distasteful, or assert their moral right to attribution, is about to pass into history.

Doesn't a personal website indicate ownership of media, unless otherwise stated? What about video. TV programs etc?
The only advantage I can see is that non-entities who only exist because of photographers might have to find proper jobs.

[pressld2]

Originally Posted by loripo

Doesn't a personal website indicate ownership of media, unless otherwise stated?

You'd think so wouldn't you but like most of the salient points this is left un-defined by the bill. But even if it does, this only protects you up until the point that someone lifts a picture from your personal website, accidentally or intentionally strips out the metadata and posts it on another site. Then it's an orphan, freely available to all and sundry until you spot that it's been used. And even then you'll get little in the way of compensation once the "Collecting agency" has taken their cut.

The real issue here is not the prevention of use of genuinely orphaned images, it's that the bill makes no attempt to prevent anyone from creating such orphans in the first place. You want that picture? Simple - just orphan it then use it and you've done nothing illegal! This really is legalised theft.

Dave P.

[diggleken]

Have I missed something here?
I thought we were in a democratic society with individual rights, not a fascist one.
Silly me.
Scandalous.
Ken