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Why You Should Never Lose Your Digital Media
kkrista writes "What would you do if you found someone's digital media card from their camera in your taxi? One such individual has decided to provide the world with 227 days of entertainment. I Found Some Of Your Life will post a photo a day and accompanying fictional narrative for the next 227 days using the photos found on a digital media card left in a cab. Is it pure genius or pure evil? Who cares? Just be thankful they're not your photos."
Keep in mind that there have been hoax blogs before. Did they really find the camera card? Do you believe every blog is true?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
What are the copyright issues here? I'm assuming that by default the pictures are protected by a copyright belonging to the owner of the memory stick. If I am right, this could be a problem for blogspot.
The taking of the card itself is theft. If you find something on the sidewalk, in a cab, etc that does not belong to you, you do not have the right to take and keep it. It is still property of the orignal owner. To keep it is theft, pure and simple.
However this is also a case of copyright infringement. Works are automatically copyright to you upon creation, no registration is required. So these photos are the copyright of whomever shot them. To post them on the Internet without their permission is infringement.
If I was the person who this happened to, I'd go after the blogger with a vengence. Instead of being a good citizen and either handing it over to the police or trying to track me down and instead of just being neutral, and leaving it, they decided to be malicious.
Personally, I hope they go to jail.
I'll leave the legal issues for the lawyers to handle - but more importantly, is it ethical?
If you found someone's driver's wallet with their driver's license and credit cards, would you go ahead and impersonate them or steal their identity? It would be an identity theft - in some ways, I think that is exactly what this guy is doing.
I shudder to think what will happen if the real guy finds out. I for one know that if my pics were put up on the net - I would certainly get very mad, very pissed and would sue this guy to kingdom come.
Leave the fun and coolness part of it - it's just not quite right, it's unethical and wrong. I do not know about anybody else, but in my book what this guy is doing is simply wrong.
Not really evil, because the pictures don't really contain all that much. But still, if something like this happens, you should treat it like finding someone's credit card or driver's license. If you can find the owner, the owner would appreciate having it back. If you can't find the owner, laugh with your friends if you want, but don't post it.
I can understand being mad, wanting an apology, and wanting the blog aken down, and maybe criminal proceedings if any laws were broken. But why do people think they deserve money for something like this? What have they lost? Mental suffering? Bullshit. People are just greedy bastards.
/Rant
"would you go ahead and impersonate them or steal their identity?"
No, and neither is this guy... he has there, for all to see, the disclaimer that this is all 'MADE UP', that what is being said is not the truth.
It's almost as if the card was meant to be left there, what with exactly one year of photos on it... almost like it was an arts project.
Or not.
It is amusing though... and from what I've seen, there's nothing there to be really worried about if they were your photos. Plus, he's now got them on the net in a professional manner for his friends to see. (and it's not like he could get off his arse to do so himself if there was a year's worth of shots on there)
Comparing posting pictures on the internet to stealing one's identity is kind of a stretch. One is blatently illegal, and as stated in parent, the legality of this is unknown.
:)
Even on an ethical level, many people post personal pictures on a website/blog, though I don't think they go around impersonating themselves or others.
Illegal? Probably not. Immoral? Maybe. A cruel or at least embarressing joke? Yes. Made me laugh
An author CHOOSES to open source something. They actually make a specific declaration, in the form of the GPL. The choose to grant you a license to redistribute their work. That wasn't done here, the bloggers stole a card and then published the contents without the creator's permission. That's copyright infringement.
/. the hacker, or script-kiddie (which a large number of /. posters seem to be) mentality that if you CAN do it would should be allowed to. That it's ok to break in and copy someone's code and put it on the net, or to hack an insecure box and use it as your personal playground.
This is one of the things that bugs me about
No, it isn't.
It's the same as the physical world and goes back to basic kindergarden eithics: "Don't touch what isn't yours without the permission of who it belongs to." This is as true for vitrual stuff as physical stuff. It isn't any more legal or morally justified to steal a CF card and publish the pictures than it is to steal a wallet and use the cash to buy yourself stuff.
Even if you don't believe in copyright, you can hardly justify the theft of the card. That's real, physical property and they deprived the owner of it.
It's also a bad idea because he has no model releases from anyone in the photos. Any one of them could bring a lawsuit against him.
What would you do if you found someone's digital media card from their camera in your taxi
I would do what I would expect any decent person to do....give it to the driver and tell him someone left this behind. I can't image the sense of violation the owner will feel once identified. The scumbags putting these up for the world to see will face civil culpability almost certainly. IMHO they also belong behind bars, but I doubt this will happen. Now I eagerly await the flurry of posts along the lines of "Hey, they forgot the memory card so they deserve their private photos posted on the internet". This is Slashdot after all.
If I'm seeking data, I'll go the local univerisity. If I'm seeking wisdom, I'll go the local truck stop
The point isn't that they should receive the money. The point is that the person who's being an antisocial asshole deserves to LOSE it. After that, the person he wronged might as well get it.
In preparation for opening a website lampooning politicians (DailyHaiku.com, I asked a friend who is an intellectual property lawyer for some advice on what would constitute fair use for the photos we were planning on appropriating from the AP and other such sources.
His advice was pretty telling. While we had a good fair use argument, he indicated we would most likely run into legal problems anyway with model releases for people who weren't public figures, and even some politicians (like Arnold Schwarzenegger hotly contest their public figure status regarding copyright.
As it is we had to go strictly with photographs in the public domain (and thankfully almost everything the federal government produces counts) or expressly granted for general use.
Posting entire found pictures (actually an entire collection), especially if used with a profit motive, with no permission from the photographer and the subjects is just asking for an incredibly brutal pounding in court.
-dameron
Still waiting for my C&D from Dick Cheney...
But why do people think they deserve money for something like this?
Distributing copyrighted works without permission, especially unpublished copyrighted works straight out of a camera, can result in severe statutory damages.
Unfortunately in todays society people really don't understand the consequences of their actions unless its associated with a dollar value. Money is an excellent deterent.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
...But why do people think they deserve money for something like this? What have they lost? Mental suffering? Bullshit. People are just greedy bastards. /Rant
Come on people, help me out. FreeIPods.com [freeipods.com]
The "greed" of the subjects of these photos is pure speculation on your part.
Your greed, however, is very evident. You're begging us to join in a pyramid scheme with your sig.
my password is private, but unchanged.
Well, there's the copyright issue, for one... Any picture taken is, by default, owned by the person who took it, even if it's not registered with the copyright office. Distribution of said photos, without consent is a straightforward copyright breech. I don't even think it could fall under the parody clause, necessarily, but I haven't read the blog to see how funny or ironic it might be. It certainly doesn't fall under the fair use doctrine, particularly if you consider the contents of one memory stick to be a single collection of work, which is how the blogger is treating this.
This sig intentionally left justified.
But why do people think they deserve money for something like this? What have they lost? Mental suffering? Bullshit.
Obviously you are not from California.
Table-ized A.I.
Do I support it because it's a good idea, or condemn it because it's Microsoft's idea?
Do I condemn this transgression on someone's privacy, or do I support it because there's a Tri-Delt being exploited?
paintball
First off I found the site very funny. Now reading the posts here, I'm very disappointed that I live in a country where everyone's first reaction to this seems to be "I'd sue the bastard" or "put him in jail".
Yes the guy who found the card should attempt to find the real owner, what better way? If he posted a few pics on the net, it would never get enough notoriaty to be found. Its a memory card, its not like there is an address and phone number on it. The cabby wouldn't be able to find the person, the person I'm sure doesn't know where exactly they lost it, and wouldn't be able to remember the cab companies name either. The cops would just junk it. This is the only way the real owner can get his pictures back.
Yes, in a way this is copyright infringment, but geeze, for a place that is sooo against musicians being able to keep people from copying things they actually make money off of, this guys pics seem like a bizarre hypocrisy to try to protect. It's not like he's a pro, or that he was gonna sell these pictures for money.
People here posting that this guy should be put in jail, or fined, or sued... well just chill out. He's having fun, I had a good laugh, and its actually possible that the real owner will get his pictures back, whereas if the poster didn't post them in this manner there is basically 0% chance that would happen.
Uh, in my state it wouldn't be theft. Also, in a twisted sort of way, this would count as disclosure in other states (provided that he returns the card to its owner upon request).
Secondly, lets assume they are copywrited works. The blog is a parody of those pictures. Seems to me that it would constitue fair use of said pictures.
Its harmless fun. If you don't like it, don't visit it.
They may be posing, but not for you. They have a very strong case against the blogger.
Additionally, most of the pictures are in public. There probably isn't a whole lot of expectation that your picture won't be taken/distributed if you're posing for a picture in public.
There is a very reasonable expectation if you don't see any unauthorized photographer close to you. We are not talking about spy cameras here, these are decent quality pictures taken either on private property, or with flash in darkness.
Problems with this blog:
I guess it's funny unless it happens to some Open Source product.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
I can understand being mad, wanting an apology, and wanting the blog aken down, and maybe criminal proceedings if any laws were broken. But why do people think they deserve money for something like this?
They deserve to ask for punitive damages to punish and deter people from commiting these kinds of acts. And an extreme amount of public exposure can bring all sorts of problems like stalkers and death threats. There are a lot of loons out there that will target someone simply for being well-known publicly. Someone in that kind of a position will need security. Who is going to pay for it? If a person receiving a great deal of public exposure isn't someone like an actor who actually recieves an income relative to that exposure, then what financial recourse do they have to protect themself from the reprocussions?
What have they lost?
They have lost their privacy. Having pictures posted on the internet against one's will is an invasion of privacy, especially if it gets Slashdotted. Remember the Star Wars Kid? He and his family weren't too happy about all that and took the parents of the kids that put his video on the net to court. They didn't want any part of the internt cult status the practical joke had given him and would have preferred not to have him humiliated with that kind of exposure.
Even if these photos are taken down by the poster, they could already have been copied and circulated around the net, just like the Star Wars Kid. And just because you're not doing anything wrong in a photo doesn't mean your privacy should be left to others to toy with and take away. Isn't privacy a fundamental right?
Mental suffering?
Something like this can indeed cause mental suffering. Have you ever heard of social phobia? It is a very real anxiety disorder, and someone with such a condition could be severely traumatised if they had their privacy invaded with all the internet as an audience, even if the photos were innocuous.
What if a photo of yourself in an embarassing situation had been circulated on the net without your consent? A practical joke between friends is one thing, but letting a worldwide audience through the internet see it is another and can cause extreme humiliation and mental suffering.
Yes the guy who found the card should attempt to find the real owner, what better way? ... The cabby wouldn't be able to find the person, ...
I don't know about how it works where he is from, but in my town, there's a good chance that you pay the cabbie with a credit card. Also, the card was probably lost the same day or the day before, so there is a chance that the cabbie could remember a face or an address.
I'd like to see the other person suffer
Wow, that's a statement. Too bad you weren't born in the 15th century, the Spanish Inquisition had a perfect job for you.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
Look at this picture:1 024/IMG_07 75.jpg
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/65/1386/
the girl on the left has a "I love Linux" button with 3 Tux.
So this guy finds the pictures, posts them on slashdot and it happens there are pictures of the only woman in the whole world with a Tux button. Yeaa, right...
Or Linux is really making progress on the desktop.
Besides, he says they are cute, and they are not, so he must know them, even probably dating (or hoping to) one of them.
Nowhere else in the world would anybody have much chance of suing just because they left some photos lying around and someone made fun of them and their 'jesus is my homeboy' hat. In america, a couple of lawyers will get fat for a year. Truly the greatest nation on earth.
... this being one's personal photos for god's sake. It's like you found someone private journal and published it page by page in a magazine or something.
With more then 200 photos ranging along a year's time one could easily gather some clues which could lead to 1. the owner, 2. someone who knows the owner.
Instead of doing some research and making someone happy for finding the lost pictures, this guy places them widely available.
I wouldn't sue the guy for doing this. I would kick his ass flat.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
234 comments so far, and nobody twigs?
Are you people all idiots? This site smells suspect , 10 seconds of investigation yields.
perl -e 'use DateTime; print DateTime->today->add( days => (227 - 34) )->strftime("%B %d") . "\n";'
April 01
The idea of sending a man to prison is not to make others feel happy - it's to make HIM feel bad and pay for his crime.
The idea of sending a person to prison is to give him an education, show him where he was wrong and make him an usefull contribution to society. Your view is plainly inhuman and wrong.
Oh, I see. "Taking someone else's property is wrong." This from the same crowd that considers sharing copyrighted material via P2P is okay? At least the person who lost the camera memory can now get those pictures back and were not trying to make a living off them.
It's fun to watch Slashdot be morally indignant about both sides of an issue. If there was some way to financially gain from having these pictures I think we would see a whole argument. Something along the lines of "Information should be free!"
It might be legal to download music, but illegial to share it... Well if nobody shares it, nobody can download it.
This might be a stupid idea; or it might not.
Since they are two sides of the same coin, the act we wish to prevent is basically downloading/sharing. Making one illegal, but not the other shifts the emphasis of responsibility for the 'combined act' onto one party. This may be more practical in terms of law enforcement (better to prosecute one sharer than many downloaders).
In other cases with similar 'contradictions', such asymmetry may have the effect of protecting one party (e.g. if you simply made it a crime for an underage child to have sexual intercourse with an adult, you may be setting up the situation where a 14-year old is in danger of being blackmailed by a 40-year old, for fear of prosecution; and criminalising the 14-year old would almost certainly go against the spirit of the law).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Why would somebody run a story like this?
Yes, one is deterrence. You hope that, by instituting undesirable consequences for a particular behavior, you'll discourage people from doing it. Another purpose is punishment -- to correct a single individual's behavior by imposing said consequences. Yet another purpose is to provide some relief for the victim, his/her family, and society at large. To put it another way, society exacts retribution in order to prevent vigilantism.
This is why I make the first image on my media cards be one that displays my contact information and then I lock it so it won't be erased accidentally.
There is nothing technically innovative about posting some pictures in a fucking retarded blog. _What_ is the technical innovation there?
Now maybe if he was running Linux and Apache on a Dreamcast, with an ISCSI hard drive over the DC's broadband addapter (which is basically an Ethernet card), now _that_ would be technical innovation.
But "oh look, I can post pics on the net" stopped being new and original some 20 years ago. Any kiddie can just use pre-made software they don't even understand to get some text and pics on the net. Heck, nowadays you don't even need to know HTML to do that, as the software will do that for you.
So _all_ that is left is an asshole who thought it would be cool to (A) steal someone else's property, and (B) violate their privacy using the whole Internet as an audience.
And you know what? Even _if_ there was any technical innovation in there (but there isn't), there is no ammount of it which can justify the evil act. There are better way to showcase _any_ technical solution than raping someone's privacy.
And I'm not in the USA, and I too thought I'd sue the hell out of the fucktard.
Now _I_ wouldn't necessarily want his money. I'd just want him hurt so badly, people would cringe at the mere thought of such a stunt for the next 100 years. I'd want the asshole impaled and left there to bleed and die over several hours.
But since that's not an option, I'd probably sue for such a sum that he'd never see the end of the tunnel for the rest of his life. Then donate the money to some charity. Because, as I've said, I don't want his money, I just want him in a world of hurt.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You never lose title to something after is been lost. I can lose a diamond now, and if I can proved 70 years from now its mine, its still my diamond, and whomever has it has to give it back to me.
Mod point free since 2001
13.- 7. Requisites after the grant. No person shall be entitled to the benefitof this act, unless he shall give information of copyright being secured,by-causing to be inserted, in the several copies of each and every editionpublished during the term secured, on the title page, or the page immediatelyfollowing, if it be a book, or, if a map, chart, musical composition, print,cut, or engraving, by causing to be impressed on the face thereof, or ifa volume of maps, charts, music or engravings, upon the title or frontispicethereof, the following words, viz: " Entered according to act of congress,in the year by A. B., in the clerk"s office of the district court of ___________________"(as the case may be.)
This was supersceded by the Berne Convention; declaring copyright is no long necessary.
IANALBIPOOSD
I hate grammar Nazi's.