Slashdot Mirror
Flickr Yanks Image of Obama As Joker
An anonymous reader writes "An interesting article yesterday about the unmasking of the recent creator of the controversial and iconic Obama/Joker image that has been popping up around Los Angeles with the word Socialism under it. The Los Angeles Times has identified the images' creator as Firas Alkhateeb. Even more interesting though is the fact that after getting over 20,000 hits on the image at Flickr, Flickr removed the image from Alkateeb's photostream, citing 'copyright' concerns. The image in question is clearly both an independent derivative work and unquestionably a parody of the President and Time Magazine which would be covered under fair use. It has appeared on many other sites without issue on the Internet." According to the same reader, "Flickr also recently nuked a user's entire photostream over negative comments on President Obama's official photostream."
Proof? I'm finding exactly nothing of the sort, and all similar searches lead to a cartoonist's drawing published in Vanity Fair.
I'm sure that the Obama administration has his info on file already through the http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/ website.
Isn't anyone else bothered ONE LITTLE BIT by the administration asking people to forward email rumors, etc., critical of the Obama or "the health care plan"? The site says "please don't forward names, etc." but they publicly ask that those things be forwarded. So if you have a slightly conspiracy minded friend, and you are one of the many recipients of his email, guess what - the Administration likely has your email address.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
It's a political parody. It's VERY hard to pursue claims of copyright infringement against specifically political speech; the courts are very conservative about such things.
The EFF has also gone on record saying they didn't think this was an infringing image.
to be fair use as a parody, something has to be a parody of the copyright work, not the subject of that work. Second, it's not at all obvious to me that this is a parody of Time Magazine. What feature of the Time cover is being parodied, exactly?
Congratulations, in traditional slashdot fashion, you forgot to RTFA. The original work on Flickr was a version of the Time Magazine cover with the doctored Obama photo. According to the artist, it was done out of curiosity about photoshopping an image and not really any sort of political statement (educational, also fair use). A different faceless internet artist grabbed his photoshop and did more photoshopping to produce the poster with "Socialist" on it. And you might want to read up on parody, I don't think you really came close in your analysis of the legal definition of parody. But, I'm no lawyer, so I won't pretend my opinion on the matter carries any weight.
The Joker was about chaos and anarchy which is so far away from Socialism that the juxtaposition just strikes me as ludicrous.
It depends what kind of socialism you're talking about. Of course, though Obama isn't a socialist of any sort, he's even less a libertarian socialist than he is a social democrat (which I think is what people mean when they accuse him of being a socialist).
Well, lets take a look really quick.
on the home page for flickr, I simply types Bush in the search box and found these results in the first few replies.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bar-art/1549247793/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/inkvision/43028237/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrwaldo/309309512/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eduardo_dacosta/511117225/
I think the one that probably shows the most evidence of this is this one.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmj/5799991/
Notice the caption "it's true, photo's don't lie".
Yea, it's obvious that they are protecting Obama. Probably because Obama has decided to steer a bunch of government money/usage their way with making the government sites on Flickr.
BTW, when I searched for Obama, it was about 10 pages in before I found the first photo criticizing him.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/3834570613/
It's nothing more then a re-posting of the pulled photo with a story under it about the action. I wonder how long it will stay there?
If by miracle my post is not drowned down into depths of oblivion, note that Dubya was depicted tens of times with very unflattering altered photos, and so was Cheney, while the W. administration was in power - and nobody complained.
See this or this, for example.
Also, while Mc Cain was campaigning, this rather shocking picture was publicized by The Atlantic - who later recanted and apologized - but the point is, nobody in the McCain camp complained, let alone did you have public and officers making a fuss about it.
But with Obama, the thought police is up in arms bigtime.
And they are right to be: Obama is sacred and he farts rainbows, and his words are words of wisdom, and he poops gold nuggets. And Obama won't speak up: it is the Will of the People that is against any criticism of the Beloved President.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Yes, it is, but it was Times' parody and he just added "socialism" under it.
Time made no parody with it's cover.
When you claim the media is 'liberal' you do two things: you demonstrate that you do not understand what the word 'liberal' means, and that you subscribe to a simplistic view of the world where everything is black and white.
OK, then how's this: The media treats Democrats better than Republicans. I could also say that the media treated anti-war protesters much better than the anti-government-insurance protesters or "tea-baggers" as the press likes to call them.
Prime example: Here is a CNN reporter at two different protests. One is an anti-Bush protest where she calls a giant Bush head with a Hitler mustache a Bush "look alike". Then you see the exact same reporter interviewing a Tea Party protester with a picture of Obama as Hitler. She says, "do you have any idea how offensive that is?" Same situation, different presidents, different responses. Watch that and please tell me that the press is not biased.
Here is a quote from a UCLA study (not a conservative school, btw):
"Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said coâ'author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar.
Google "media bias" for more.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Actually, Obama's overall approval rating dropped below 50% as early as July, with his Approval Index being below zero every day since June: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/obama_approval_index_history
Not a lawyer by any means, but I'm more familiar with the UCMJ than I am with civilian law.
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/punitivearticles/a/mcm94.htm
Also found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition
Laura Berg, a nurse at a United States Department of Veterans Affairs-run hospital in New Mexico was investigated for sedition in September 2005[13] after writing a letter[14][15] to the editor of a local newspaper, accusing several national leaders of criminal negligence. Though their action was later deemed unwarranted by the director of Veteran Affairs, local human resources personnel took it upon themselves to request an FBI investigation. Ms Berg was represented by the ACLU[16]. Charges were dropped in 2006[1].
I did read a page dealing with US Code, and the final entry said something about being repealed, but it wasn't clear if a subsection, or the entire section dealing with sedition had been repealed.
I strongly suspect that it can be rolled out if the government chooses to use it. I also feel that sedition should have been used against US citizens who went to Afghanistan to fight against US forces, rather than creating some damnfool "illegal combatant" laws to cover them.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The Bush as Joker image was published by Vanity Fair and received no critical media attention. No one was offended.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2008/07/bush-as-joker.html
link to one that uses material that is in copyright?
You realize all photographs are copyrighted, right? It's no longer something you must apply for, it's been automatic for decades.
Have you seen the picture in question? in infringes on Time and the Joker...
The image in question can't infringe on both, as both were separate images orginially. Putting them together (i.e. replacing Obama with the Joker) is called Parody, particularly political parody, and falls well within fair use. So much so, that Flicker hasn't bothered to remove any other parodic photos from their website, just the Obama pic.
SCOTUS defined parody as "the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works."
The Obama pic is certainly a new composition, and it definitely comments on the original work. It is both making a comment on the TIME cover (by mocking it), as well as making an association between Obama and The Joker. It's all parody.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Bullshit. They had free run of the place before the war and Bush pulled them out to begin bombing.
Youre wrong again.