Slashdot Mirror
Your House Is About To Be Photographed
An anonymous reader writes "Photographers from a Canadian company are going house to house, shooting pictures of every house in America, in hopes of building a giant database that can be sold to banks, insurance companies, and appraisal firms. While this activity is legal (as long as the photographers don't trespass on private property to get their shots), there are obviously concerns about security and privacy. Considering that an individual can be detained and questioned by the FBI for photographing a bridge in this country, why should this Canadian company get a free pass? Tinfoil hat aside, something seems very, very fishy here." From the Arizona Star article about the photographing of Tucson: "'The [handout given to people who complain] made it sound like they're doing it for law enforcement, when in reality they're doing it for sales and marketing,' said [a City Council aide], who received several calls about the company."
Because there is a photographers exception to the portion of copyright that covers architecture. Photos taken from a public place of a building that is in public view don't require any kind of permission from the building's owner to be distributed or used.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
The Cook County Assessors office already photographs homes and makes the photographs available online.
t ml
http://www.cookcountyassessor.com/ccao/startres.h
You can just search by address and find a lot of the public information about private residences online, including photos in most cases (in all cases in the small sample I've tried).
I wonder how common this is with other regional governments?
http://littlerock.craigslist.org/etc/271792246.ht
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
... by taking a picture of my home, you agree to all of the terms and conditions outlined in my home's EULA. Those terms include a 99.99% revenue share on any income related to use of said picture...
Nope, not legally. Those easements are for the utility companies and only the utility companies. They do not confer any access rights to anyone else, including invaders from the great white north.
My easements are specific to a particular type of utility (power), so any other one would have to negotiate a new deal with me.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
The Walmart that I worked at has salaried staff members who have been deputized by local law enforcement. If you leave the store with something you didn't pay for, they can (legally) detain you. The company policy for this though is that the 'loss prevention' person has to see you pocket an item and then have eyes on you all the way out of the store. Hourly paid associates are not allowed to even accuse someone of shop-lifting, most they can do is be cheery, helpful, and everywhere in the hopes of making the suspect uncomfortable enough to put the stuff back and leave. I guess there's somtehing about hourly employees are personally liable but salaried employees are protected by the company.
I don't know if this is true for other stores or even other Walmarts, but the one I worked at, the loss prevention guys had the paperwork to prove that they had been deputized and the the authority and the right to detain someone on suspicion of shop lifting.