Slashdot Mirror
French Deputies Want Labels On Photo-Altered Models
Psychophrenes writes "A number of French deputies are proposing to pass a law requiring all published photos that were modified by means of an image manipulation program to include a statement indicating that 'the photo was altered in order to modify the appearance of a person.' This indication is to be mandatory on all ads, packaging images, political posters and even art photos, and is considered a matter of public health, aimed at fighting anorexia." The related article is in French, but Google Translate does a pretty good job.
Isn't the very act of scanning and printing using a computer a digital modification?
What if the camera's software tweaked the lighting or white-balance as the picture was being taken?
If all photographs are labeled, then the label becomes meaningless.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
But does this apply to persons only? I hope we'd finally get to know the truth about McDonalds hamburgers. Or can we count them as persons?
Well, maybe they were at one time...
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Why not make it mandatory to label surgically altered models also? I want to know the boobies I look at are all natural.
Two all-beef Patties, Special Scott and Lester Cheese picking bunions on a Sesame Street Bus?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You mean removing the antlers?
We knew that.
men's magazines are full of pictures of... women
women's magazines are full of pictures of... women
except the women in men's magazines are usually well-proportioned in the t&a department
meanwhile, the women in women's magazines are pure heroin chic: ribs showing, no curves. yuck
i really don't know why, but for some reason the female standard of feminine beauty (as opposed to the male standard of feminine beauty) is starvation porn. women for some reason or another think the ideal female form is that of a prebuscent boy
as for the magazine industry "creating" or "feeding" this phenomenon: no, if it didn't appeal to women on some level, the magazine wouldn't sell. media and consumer exist in co-dependency. media follows what its audience wants, for obvious reasons: $. (as an aside, this simple truth should dispel the whole idea of media-created trends on a whole number of other issues that some people believe: its the audience, not the media, stop blaming the media)
if you want to know what men want and like in the female form, it is well-established fact, biological fact, not cultural, that men prefer women who are heck of a lot more well-fed than what women see as an ideal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf
the whole scary skinny trend in high fashion is created by, and perpetuated by, and invested in, by women, not men. yes, there are few strange men who actually prefer their women to be unfeminine stick figures, but these men are not the norm
so girls, listen up, from the male perspective of beauty: go fix yourself a sammich. its your fellow women that want you to waste away, and on some archaic level we don't understand, its your own strange female mind that wants you to be so skinny, not us men
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You sound like a programmer who is completely ignorant of how legal systems work.
Laws aren't written like "if photo.is_manipulated() then display_disclaimer() end". They actually use words and sentences to express the intent of the law in a reasonable way. Cropping will not be considered manipulation; airbrushing will. Furthermore, even "gray area" can be part of law, thanks to an amazing technology called "courts."
Basically, your objections are complete nonsense.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Actually in Australia for many years Playboy and Penthouse published nude photos with women's genitals airbrushed smooth to look like a Barbie doll. That created a generation of women that think something is wrong with them and that they should have bits cut off.
not Photoshop. As long as fashion models have to be under normal weight to be accepted for the top fashion shows and magazines, young girls will follow this role model and that is the real problem, not photoshopping bad skin. If you type "anorexic models" into any search engine you find a lot of gruesome stories about girls who literally starved themselves to death on the job. Alternatively: force yourself to watch "Fashion TV" for an hour. That's not a new problem ("Twiggy" turned 60 last week, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiggy) and not one likely to be changed by any law.
1) This two-dimenstional photo is an alteration of the model depicted. The actual model exists in three dimensions and has volume, unlike this photo. Do not attempt to reduce your volume to zero, as it might affect your health.
2) The photo of this model is only 7 inches tall. The actual model is over 5 feet tall. Do not attempt to reduce your height to only 7 inches, as it might affect your health."
"It might be a little annoying reading a porn magazine which has the text "'the photo was altered in order to modify the appearance of a person." thrown all over it."
I'm reminded of California's cancer "warning label" law. I stayed at a hotel a couple months ago, and there's a sign right at the door - "This building may contained substances known in the State of California to cause cancer." Same at the parking garage.
Label everything, meaning nothing.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
As a photojournalist, I think it would be interesting to see just how many photos in fashion magazines are airbrushed or otherwise manipulated after the fact. In terms of ethics, I was taught and have come to believe that there are a few "ethical" manipulations -- cropping, limited use of burning and dodging, etc., that you can use while still maintaining the integrity of the original photo. But once you change what was actually there -- whether it's airbrushing the blemishes off a model's face or using the clone stamp tool to take a few pounds off her hips -- you've crossed into photomanipulation. And it's only fair for people to know when this is taking place, IMO.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I can only assume that one or more of the following is true:
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
... since the anorexia epidemic is so much greater a problem than the obesity one.