Slashdot Mirror
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.
Isn't it Flickr's site? They can do whatever they want. This isn't involving your rights online or anybody else's "right".
And, as a result of Rebekka's plea for people to send letters to OnlyDreemin, the blog entitled "Jumping to conclusions" states: So while Rebekka's post wasn't necessarily threatening, it sure resulted in threatening actions which, if I'm not mistaken, death threats are illegal in the United States and most likely in Iceland as well. If you read the rest of Flickr's ToS, they are very stringent about targeting other Flickr users with any kind of content/e-mail/threats whatsoever.
Why doesn't Rebekka just sue OnlyDreemin? They are legally liable for what they sell. If they can't produce the people who sold them the prints, that's their fault for doing business with shady people. Did they bother to ask the people for licensing information? I find it hard to believe that the art world doesn't have a way to catalog and look up sellers of art with licenses or anything like that. You don't just transfer (£3000.00) in cash or to an anonymous Paypal account. Come on, hold someone responsible, don't get on Flickr and start a smear campaign toward them!
I honestly think Flickr did the right thing. They shouldn't be involved in this, they aren't a legal site or a petition site or anything like that at all. They are a general photo content site. Don't run your business from it, don't use it for your political or legal battles. That's it, plain and simple.
There is a better place for this conflict, in the courts not on Flickr.
My work here is dung.
You should host your own stuff, instead of using using 'free' web-services, if it's important.
"It is a good divine that follows his own instructions" - Portia, The Merchant of Venice
Just because you post (submit) something on a web site owned and operated by someone else, that doesn't give you the "right" to force them to publish it or keep serving it up. You're not entitled to that.
If I submit a "letter to the editor" to my local newspaper, I don't have the "right" to force the newspaper to publish my letter. Whether they publish it or not is up to them, not me, because they own the publication. They are not violating my free speech rights if they refuse to publish my letter, because I am free to publish it myself or to utilize some other forum.
It's no different with the web. Really. If I post something on Slashdot or Digg or whatever, and they decide to take it down, that's their right as "publishers". I'm free to go post my speech somewhere else, or to set up and operate my own web server and publish it myself, so they're not violating my free speech rights.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
No, seriously. How is it ironic that a cache retained information was deleted? Is there some new definition of the word "ironic" that means "worked as intended"?
It will be interesting to see how the /. groupthink tackles this. Photographer (and hence, at least partially-nerd) from the imagined-to-be-always-hip Iceland strives to make some money doing something creative and leveraging the internet to become visible and reach customers. Someone rips off her creative work. Slashdot: "Man, she sure got screwed. But let's argue about whether and how to use the word "censorship" when Flickr removes a contentions and legally risky post from their system."
Or, she's a filmaker who puts, porportionately, the same amount of her money and reputation on the line (along with that of usually many other people), and works with a distributor as a way to make money from her work and fund her next project. Someone rips off her creative work. Slashdot: "That's cool. I shouldn't have to pay for bits."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
When the victim is an RIAA or MPAA member company?
Or is that mere copyright infringement?
There's this interesting cognitive dissonance when it comes to copyright infringement. When the little guy (or gal) gets ripped off, it's called stealing; but when a large company gets ripped off, it's called sharing.
Maybe, just maybe, we need a better model for understanding the interests of consumers and artists alike. It seems that in the digital age, the copyright model doesn't do a very good job of protecting the interests of either the artist or the consumer.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Today I have been in contact with OnlyDreemin and asked for clarification on this issue. I was saddened to learn they have received death threats over this matter, proving once again just how passionate people are, no matter how misguided, when it comes to this type of theft.
Calm down people it's just some pictures. If a post on my site was generating death threats, I'd delete the damn thing too.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Literature, for example, has always been fairly "digital", in that the relevant part (i.e. the words and not their typeset printed appearance) can be reproduced "exactly". Hand-copying is laborious and thus self-limiting, but although printed material isn't as easily distributed as the Internet, it still makes mass ripping off of intellectual works technically feasible.
The fact is that most intellectual property requires work (physical or mental) to create, regardless of how easy it is to copy *once created*. Unless you're living in some lala land, you'll realise that whilst some types of intellectual property (e.g. *certain* forms of art, *certain* types of computer programs) may be created for the love of it, many others will be created with the expectation of financial reward- and likely wouldn't be otherwise.
Might be unpleasant for you to accept, but some people are in it for the money. Very many worthwhile things have been designed/produced/etc in the name of filthy lucre, and may not have been otherwise. Copyright was (and is) intended to encourage such efforts by stopping parasitism because exactly as you said, if IP is able to be freely copied with no obligation to reward the creator, it is effectively worthless.
And you either accept that such things will not be produced and/or rely on someone being willing to create these things purely for the love of it (except that this will be restricted to their leisure time because most people have to earn a living, and they won't have the money to invest in expensive research equipment, etc.)
In short, you haven't stated the solution, you've stated the problem. Copyright was one solution and to imply "Ha ha, your material is worthless because it can be copied" is smug and misguided.
As I said, copyright should be a practical measure. It has doubtless been abused, and I'm not defending that, or badly-written copyright laws. However, the principle is (IMHO) sound, and if we accept your comment the implication is that we need to find new ways of making sure that people are rewarded- either via copyright or by other means.
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