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EFF Says Burning Man Usurps Digital Rights
Hugh Pickens writes "In a few weeks, tens of thousands of creative people will make their yearly pilgrimage to Nevada's Black Rock desert for Burning Man, an annual art event and temporary community celebrating radical self expression, self-reliance, creativity and freedom, but EFF reports that the event's Terms and Conditions include 'a remarkable bit of legal sleight-of-hand.' As soon as 'any third party displays or disseminates' your photos or videos in a manner that the Burning Man Organization (BMO) doesn't like, those photos or videos become the property of the BMO. BMO's Terms and Conditions also limits your own rights to use your own photos and videos on any public websites obliging you to take down any photos to which BMO objects, for any reason; and forbidding you from allowing anyone else to reuse your photos. This 'we automatically own all your stuff' magic appears to be creative lawyering intended to allow the BMO to use the streamlined 'notice and takedown' process enshrined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to quickly remove photos from the Internet giving BMO the power of fast and easy online censorship. 'Burning Man strives to celebrate our individuality, creativity and free spirit,' writes Corynne McSherry. 'Unfortunately, the fine print on the tickets doesn't live up to that aspiration.'"
just shot themselves in the foot, what better advertising is there than participants showing what a great time they had at the event...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
My assumption is that they ask/force people to take down images and videos that show extremely reckless illegal activity so as to keep the Powers-That-Be from having evidence to get the event shut down.
And here I thought it was about getting nude in the desert!
Protest by setting fire to something. People will notice then.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
IANAL, but....
In the Nevada desert? State owned property? Then I doubt they have a legal leg to stand on. However, if it's on private property, then they can probably stipulate what gets done with the photos. Stupid? Yes. Legal? Maybe.
Photographers, print this out and carry it with you at all times: http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm. It was written by lawyers who do actually know a thing or two about photography and the law.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
I stopped going to burning man years ago when it became a commercialized corporate mess.
Burning man today is not what it was 10 years ago.
today it's a brand to be protected, an event to sponsor.
Bleh.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
How about having everyone wear a V mask as a sign of protest?
America needs you, Lawrence Welk, now more than ever!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I think you might have just Godwinned without reference to Hitler. Impressive.
BY PURCHASING TICKETS ONLINE, VIA PHONE OR MAIL ORDER FROM BURNING MAN, I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT I HAVE READ THIS WAIVER AND RELEASE OF LIABILITY AND I FULLY UNDERSTAND ITS TERMS, AND I UNDERSTAND THAT I HAVE GIVEN UP SUBSTANTIAL RIGHTS, AND I DO SO KNOWINGLY AND VOLUNTARILY WITHOUT ANY INDUCEMENT OR DURESS.
How do you know you've agreed to the waiver if you haven't read the waiver? Surely if you buy tickets over the phone, (unless they explicitly ask you whether you agree to the waiver) neither party can reasonably expect that you've read the waiver.
And that's assuming this clause is even valid, which I think seems unlikely.
Just start your own Burning Man.
Burning Man isn't a sacred rite. It's a bunch of people who get together and decide to be goofs for a week. Nothing is stopping you from doing the same. I might even join you.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
is less about rewarding creators and more about corporate control of OUR culture
at this point, i am leaning towards "fuck you" to creators, as long as our legal system has an inability to differentiate between corporate distribution channels and actual creators
creators: i'm sorry your grandchildren can't live off your one hit wonder. i'm sorry you won't be a billionaire for "inventing" shamwow. but you can still get a great job as a respected engineer and you can still get great money from touring. sorry, thems the breaks: get to work like the rest of us dumb shlubs
the original idea that guided the creation of the notion of intellectual property: rewarding creators, has been completely corrupted as a way to reward distributors. the legal goon squads make sure actual creators get less $, and consumers fork over more $. in a preinternet world, distributors were necessary, but this is a scenario the internet has destroyed. now distributors are just unnecessary parasites. its called disruptive technology for a reason. it has disrupted the technological grounds upon which the rewarding of distributors works. all that remains is pushing the stake into the vampire's heart
intellectual property has betrayed its philosophical underpinnings, and we, the people, who are supposed to be the ones in charge, now have a duty to do our best to ignore, and/ or detroy intellectual property, since the legal system, which is supposed to serve us, serves corporate masters beholden to nothing but more cash for less reason
intellectual property law is still effective across the land because of legal goon squads, but philosophically, it is defunct, and you should ignore it... at the peril of the legal goon squads, but not at the peril of your conscience. it is at the peril of your conscience that you continue to believe in intellectual property
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Whilst there are probably a dozen practical and legal reasons why this probably isn't enforceable, the one that immediately springs to my mind is that Burning Man is taking place in a Black Rock Desert, which is government-owned and criss-crossed with historic trails open to the public. There are likely to be large areas of Burning Man which are visible from these public areas, and thus, according to Kantor's Legal Rights of Photographers (PDF), open to photographer to take photographs from as they see fit, without restrictions.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Sorry, BMO. Any pictures that I take are mine. You can get stuffed if you don't like them.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
If you're gonna call Stalin 'Joe' - you should call Corynne 'Cory' and Benito 'Ben' :P
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
Whats the matter, did the BMO organizers ban you from carrying your handguns and wearing your white supremacist t-shirt again?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Like most liberal fantasies, it rapidly devolved into an authoritarian group usurping natural ownership and dictating rules galore.
Unlike most conservative fantasies, which start that way.
I could point out that the phenomenon your referring to isn't a feature of a liberal system, it occurs despite of your political lean, but...
It always amazes me how people throw things into one of two buckets "liberal" and "conservative". One of the buckets is good and one is bad, depending on the person. How about instead of using inconsistent terms like that we get right to the point, call the categories "us" and "them". Remember you don't have to think about it too much, ignorance is a plus when putting "them" down.
As opposed to Conservative fantasies, which don't even bother starting out as absolute do-whatever-you-want-just-don't-kill-anyone free-for-all and just go straight to the authoritarian group usurping natural ownership and dictating rules galore stage....
You would have been better off just saying "Power corrupts"
What the heck is "natural ownership?" Copyright is a government creation, not a natural right.
Anyway, BM "devolved into an authoritarian group" only once it sold out and lost touch with its "liberal fantasy". Once I saw Verizon running ads about "keeping touch on the playa" in a burner rag, it was pretty clear that the co-option was complete.
Some of the local burns retain the original spirit -- I've been to Playa Del Fuego several times.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
That's because when Burning Man started it was just goofs in a desert that no one cared about. Today it's a recognizable brand.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
"Horrible" is maybe too strong a word in this case, no? What's the matter are you opposed to the goatse man's right to self-expression?
Well let me tell you something, Mr. Man, you may not realize this, but at Burning Man 2004 the entire event's grand finale was every attendee striking that very pose.
At least I think that's what happened. To be fair, I had dropped some of the brown acid, which I later heard may have been ...(wait for it...) tainted.
[Get it? "Tainted"? As in "taint"-ed? Oh, never mind. My best material is wasted on Slashdot.]
You are welcome on my lawn.
Step 1: Buy tickets by phone
Step 2: Take pictures they don't like
Step 2a: Publish them
Step 3: When they complain, bring up 17 USC 204a: "transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent. "
(once again, no profit)
Like most liberal fantasies, it rapidly devolved into an authoritarian group usurping natural ownership and dictating rules galore.
"We automatically own all your stuff" isn't the only BMO rule totally contrary to the events original spirit.
More specifically, I'd say it is about "freedom", and when people are free to be themselves, you end up with the group devolving or evolving to whatever the average person in the group is really like at heart. So if you say to a bunch of nuns, "be free!", they'll probably spend the day in prayer. But if you say it to a bunch of people who believe "the system is bad", then often you get social drop-outs who couldn't organise anything more complicated than just... well they become a gang of thugs who wanna just live impulsively. And if there's some proportion of people like that who go to BM, then that's what it will devolve to.
...because my impression was that Burning Man had become a parody of itself (and, by extension, the whole Mondo 2000 era) years ago. Like, Turn-of-the-Century years ago. These aren't "creative people" making an annual pilgrimage, these are Marketing Execs and guys who view the pre-bubble dot-com era the way today's high school pop music fans view 80's synth-pop bands and narrow ties.
"Burning Man" ?!? Christ, why does that even get any ink here?
Go back about a century and "conservatives" were setting up the national park system and "liberals" were all for industrialization and free enterprise.
Capitalism started out as an absolute do-whatever-you-want-just-don't-share-with-anyone free-for-all.
Like most conservative fantasies, it rapidly devolved into an authoritarian group usurping natural ownership and dictating rules galore.
"We automatically own all your stuff" isn't the only feudalistic rule totally contrary to the system's original spirit.
That was fun!
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Not really new, is this ? I remember JWZ blogging about this years ago. See http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/burningman.html
What a depressingly stupid machine.
There is a good reason for it. Burning Man permits all sorts of non-standard behavior, including nudity. For people to feel comfortable in such an environment, photography has to be limited. For the most part this is not a problem -- real Burners ask before taking a person's picture. But there is a bad element that goes to Burning Man; the tourists. They generally arrive on Thursday or Friday, camera in hand, and start snapping pictures.
Those pictures do two bad things: They inhibit people from acting freely, and they present the wrong image of Burning Man. It is not about nudity, but the daffy ducks with their cameras would make it look like it is; as they walk right past some of the most inspiring art in the world to snap a picture of a person who chose not to wear clothes that day. Keeping those pictures -- which misrepresent the event and are widely reviled by Burners -- off the Internet is a good thing.
I am a hard-core supporter of the EFF, but this time they are wrong to judge. Burning Man is a community with certain standards. Making sure Black Rock City remains free -- in both the legal and the psychological sense -- is one of them. Much like the GPL or anti-trust laws, sometimes freedom is best served by restricting behavior that inhibits freedom.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
A place in my area does something like Burning Man on a much smaller scale every year, and they too use a policy like this. I happen to know the organizers of the event in my area and I asked them about this sort of policy. It's not what it seems. The reason for the seemingly underhanded legalize has to do with people using drugs at the event.
Basically, if someone takes pictures which could "let the word out" this enables the organizers to take down those pictures and control the information, so the cops aren't up everyone's ass every year. This has worked for the last five years, and as a result it's fine and encouraged to smoke pot and drop acid all weekend long, even in front of event security (they do it too). I don't know if this is the same reason Burning Man does this, but it would make a LOT of sense.
Burning Man implements a Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ):
One of the essential supports for a TAZ is to ensure participants that their temporary experience - which can greatly differ from normal life - be temporary, rather than permanent. People do all sorts of crazy stuff at Burning Man. That self-expression is easier because they know that photographs and videos of their experience will be handled in a particular manner - for example, not taken and turned into a motion picture.
If you don't agree with BMO's photo and video terms, then you don't understand the concept of a TAZ.
Do you WANT the terrists to win?
It's not FEDERAL LAND. It's leased from the BLM.
It's not walking around the desert naked-- it's private leased property.
The land underneath is BLM. The area is leased and is private.
Ridiculous is fine when you're with people that have consented to whatever. But you're incorrect in comparing BM to RenFests. They can do whatever they want, just like it were a nudist camp--- because the lease provides nexus of control to the BM organization. Even the Pershing County sheriffs will walk by, gawk, then walk on-- unless someone's obviously in trouble or violating the law by doing illegal drugs, etc.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I think the text is a bit litigious, but my bet is that it is there to help protect the events participants more that BMO itself. Burning Man has had problems in the past with amateur pornographers going to the event to film people naked and then selling the tapes/photos online for profit. This is absolutely against the spirit of the festival, which is still a not for profit event. The money earned off ticket sales just goes right back into funding next years event and to the salaries of a staff of year-round employees. I've seen and posted thousands of pic online and from past events and have never heard of anyone getting a cease and desist letter. As long as you are not trying to sell naked pics, I think you'll be fine.
Burning Man started out as an absolute do-whatever-you-want-just-don't-kill-anyone free-for-all. Like most liberal fantasies, it rapidly devolved into an authoritarian group usurping natural ownership and dictating rules galore. "We automatically own all your stuff" isn't the only BMO rule totally contrary to the events original spirit.
I'm struck by how much this statement also applies to the nearby /. story about the current state of Wikipedia.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
The difference between Liberals and Conservatives ....
Liberals pretend there are no rules, but make lots of rules to cover shit they don't like.
Conservatives makes lots of rules, and pretend to not have any rules.
See, they are different!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
You don't really understand Godwin's law, do you?
You Godwin's Law Nazi!
The reason for this rule was due to Girls Gone Wild coming to Burning Man and later selling footage of naked girls from whom they did not receive permission to do so. It is a rule intended to protect the privacy concerns of the participants, and the idea that Burning Man is a commerce-free zone. If you do a search for Burning Man images you will see that there is no shortage of photos of the event. As an anonymous coward (actually just to lazy to set up an account right now) I will not attempt to say that the way in which BMO responded to the situation, or the language which they use to make sure that doesn't happen again, is right, but in the comments I have read thus far I did not see the cause of this rule's existence stated and I believe it sheds light on why they reserve the right to do what they do. I haven't heard of them actively going after anyone other than GGW.
...and they both end up in the same place: fucking people over.
...you would pretty thankful that BMorg's totalitarian, authoritarian, rights-usurping power grab on federal land is in place. Most folks that are up there are happy to have a safe space to get their freak on, and safe means not having to worry about some local TV station looking for titilating footage pointing their lens in your direction. Does that take away some of their rights? Sure it does. But it's a decision the the community made collectively, and one that is integral to maintaining the unique character of the event.
TFA seems to imply that one can't take photos on the playa without BMorg tracking you down and hitting you with a DMCA take-down notice, which is patently false. Everyone takes photos at Burning Man, everyone goes on to post most of them all over the web. BMorg's policy is targeted toward commercial content.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm no BMorg fan-boy. They're a bureaucratic and self-important bunch, but on this one they're right.
[ ] Inherently over the shark right from the start--every counterculture is doomed to devolve into authoritarianism.
[ ] left Bay Area
[X] charging admission
[ ] mentioned on Malcolm in the Middle
[ ] guy burned the man prematurely and got in legal trouble for it
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
There are plenty of privately-owned, privately-occupied cabins on Forest Service land. By your argument, anyone can break into them any time, because they are "public". The same would apply to a privately-owned vehicle on a public street.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
don't like that? then don't get nude.
Do you not see the inhibition to freedom implicit in that statement?
Nope. Freedom doesn't mean "I get to do whatever the hell I want and bugger the consequences." It means "I get to make the choice to do it or not."
I have never seen a liberal deny the need for rules, they deny the need for rules which only protect people from themselves or enforce a moral stance not everyone has.
A conservative on the other hand wishes to use rules to enforce his moral stance on everyone regardless of whether or not anyone else agrees with that stance.
Don't confuse Democrats for liberals or Republicans for conservatives either... neither one fits either bill.
Uh, no. Saying the argument holds no water doesn't make it so.
It's private property for purposes of the event. You must buy or be granted a ticket and comply with the terms. Go on, pay some money and ask a real lawyer. I lease my office. It's the same as if I own it. You get to come in if I say it's ok-- otherwise you're trespassing.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I was under the impression that some of these stringent rules were put in place to protect participants, rather than limit their rights. IE, the organizers want people to be able to walk around naked without ending up on "Girls Gone Wild: Burningman Edition!" and use drugs without the possibility that their "crimes" may end up on the evening news.
i know this is slashdot where talking out of your ass gets you modded as insightful but this is just too stupid to pass by.
you've clearly never been to the event and have no appreciation of its history. i grew up in reno i went for the first time in 1996. at that time there were only 8,000 people (at least according to wikipedia) last year there were 49,500. there's absolutely no way you can scale that without changing the rules. i remember talking to people that we upset that there was no more drive by shooting range. there was a rave camp a mile from central camp and everyone drove their cars around. and that year three people in a tent got run over by a car, so the next year only art cars were allowed and a speed limit imposed.
they don't make rules just to make rules. the rules are either: a) responses to clear problems to keeping the ever increasing number of people from killing each other b) imposed by the counties (washoe and pershing) or blm in order to obtain the permits.
As someone who is going there for the third time this year, I strongly recommend that you try to change your attitude.
Don't get me wrong, if you ignore this advice, it won't bother me one bit. I don't need you to have fun in order to have a good time myself.
Let's be clear - there are plenty of things that are wrong with Burning Man, including your example of the double-standard of what is for sale. The physical environment is terrible. The heat during the day is intolerable, and it can get freezing cold at night. Furthermore, your skin will dry and crack and bleed if you're not careful, and by the time you get back, you are likely be coughing hard at the dust. Then, there are the people. A lot of people go there to get drunk and look at tits. There are those who come out Saturday night and steel shit. My girlfriend's backpack was stolen last year.
If you go to "satisfy your morbid curiosity," I guarantee you that will find a bunch of stupid jerks and washed out hippies hanging out in the desert.
Contrary to what anybody may tell you, Burning Man is still the real world, so it is up to you to try to have a good time. Don't like dance parties? Grab some homebrew and B-movies at the Bad Idea Theater. Want something more interactive? Try shooting a flamethrower or just go for a late night bicycle ride and enjoy the art.
The point is that there are a LOT of different things going on, and despite a lot flaws in the event, there are still a lot of really, really cool things going on (eg, 70' towers of fire). Try to put up with the crap and enjoy the good things.