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Flickr Censors A Photographer's Plea
Bananatree3 writes "Popular Icelandic photographer and art-student Rebekka Guoleifsdottir has been targeted by Flickr for posting a plea for help in a theft case involving an online retailer selling copycat art. She requested that people send the retailer letters concerning the issue, and in response her original post was promptly deleted. It is still ironically available on Yahoo cache. In the end it appears that the retailer had been duped by a rogue art dealer under the title "Wild Aspects and Panoramics LTD". However, Flickr seems to have overstepped its bounds in deleting this post." This whole case brings back up the messy issues surrounding content ownership in this strange new world of a services based internet.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Flickr HQ has since issued an apology for the removal of her post.
The downside to Flickr, Blogger and other providers of services to the masses are the Terms of Service which generally give them the right to re-appropriate your content for their own uses.
So if you were, say traveling around the world and want to document it, best to use a combination like MovableType and Gallery so you retain complete control. If you are concerned about copyright I can't imagine why ANYONE would use a service provider like Google, Yahoo, etc.
Or at least use it enough to "see more here"... and refer them to your real site.
I don't know nuthin about censorship, but man she is hot!
Move along nothing to see here. Matter resolved peacefully...Flikr reposted the blog.
Update 2:Flickr have acknowledged that made a mistake, and have restored _Rebekaa's blog.
No, it's still called copyright infringement.
/. articles on this subject. I think it's universally accepted here that the commercial pirates are frowned on and disliked. The P2P sharers are on muddy ground.
However, most of the P2P infringement that the *IAA go after is not for profit, and often raises visibility of the artist in question, producing more sales in future.
In this case the motive was purely profit (as shown by the thousands of dollars worth of sales the artist had been able to track herself, which would be a significant portion of her own income). These are demonstrably 'lost sales' to her, as money was indeed exchanged, so the demand was there. They were also mis-attributed to another author to cover the for-profit infringement.
In the *IAA case, as the 'consumers' are often people without the money to pay at the time, who are influenced in the future to purchase when they can for things they may have encountered on P2P, while still being illegal, the ethical ground is slightly muddy.
In the latter case, of deliberately ripping off another artist's work, passing it off as your own, and making money, there is no ethical uncertainty.
Read the old
The irony lies in the fact that flickr, owned by yahoo, removed the post, whereas another yahoo service retains it. flickr made its best effort to completely remove the post, while yahoo cache put a bee in that bonnet.