Slashdot Mirror
White House Claims Copyright On Flickr Photos
Hugh Pickens writes "US government policy is that photos produced by federal employees as part of their job responsibilities are not subject to copyright in the US. But Kathy Gill writes that after originally putting official White House photos in the public domain, since January the Obama White House has been asserting that no one but 'news organizations' can use its Flickr photos taken by the official White House photographer, who is a US government employee. This change appears to be a heavy-handed response to last month's controversy resulting from a billboard that implied the President endorsed The Weatherproof Garment Co. after the company used an AP photo of the president for a Times Square billboard. However a New York law already protects individuals from unauthorized use of their image for advertising, and the billboard was quickly taken down. Gill writes, 'Whatever the reason, the assertion of these "rights" seems to be in direct contrast to official government policy and is certainly in direct contrast to reasonable expectations by the public, given that the photos are being produced with taxpayer (i.e., public) money. Ironically, the same Flickr page that claims (almost exclusive) copyright also links to the US copyright policy statement.'"
Also, how do you define "news organizations"?
Trying to define them seems like an infringement of Freedom of the Press.
> ...in direct contrast to official government policy...
In direct contrast to law.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
... not only for human beings.
Those commie bast...oh, wait, nevermind.
anything that is part of news corp
Hi. I (a US Citizen) am the owner of these copyrights. As being a such, I hereby grant permission for anyone to use this material freely.
Snark Snark.
if you or break a law and get caught, we'll probably have to spend a lot of time or money dealing with the consequence and end up paying a fine or going to jail. If government does it (like misusing tarp funds or falsely claiming copyright or tapping phones) .... nobody is fired, nobody is in jail, there's really no consequence.
But restrictions, no.
Assuming the judges aren't paid off ahead of time, the first suit will have this nonsense struck down.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's not about and never will be about copyright when it comes to government works. It's about control. Bend over Citizen, here come your tax dollars.
Shh.
That the Federal Government is overstepping its authority with these images.
To my knowledge, the Feds are only allowed to restrict image use based on its classified status. That is, if it is a matter of national security or not.
Since the Feds are not restricting these images due to security issues, they really don't have a leg to stand on.
You know things are in a sad state of being when even the government disregards the rules of copyright.
. . . by slashdotters come the next presidential election.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
You never did get me that tank, so I'm not sure I believe you this time.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
"asserting that no one but 'news organizations' can use its Flickr photos taken by the official White House photographer"
Just about anyone can be a news organization right? or are there rules like a requirement of a subscriber base of X level say 10,000...or something?
It eliminates the fake advertisement endorsements ok i suppose.
Actually, this is not true. The material the US government produces is not copyrighted, it is in the public domain (domestically, anyway). This means there is NO copyright holder and therefore no possibility of any license agreement with them.
I had nothing to do with creating them but since the law seems secondary and everyone is going crazy and trying to claim they own every image, I think I'd like to lay claim to a few photos I like. I want to start with all the Hubble Images. Actually make that all astro photos. I like them. I should own them. I'd also like to lay claim to all images of sunsets and sunrises. They are cool. Oh and the grand canyon. I've always wanted to visit but never gotten there so this is the next best thing. Which brings me to all images in Yosemite and Yellow Stone. Oh and all nature photos. Well all the good ones. Closer to home I'd like to claim all images of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House. (They can keep the images of Sydney Tower - they're ugly). Of course I have no basis in law or reality for that matter for such wild claims. But that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone these days.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Aaaand the Democrats continue their almost-perfect record of being totally clueless and draconian on copyright issues.
Or else he'll have you buried in an Obama t-shirt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2utB1DcEIw
If so, you can thank the government. That film was in the public domain, which let a relatively poor MTV utilize it for their early spots.
...anybody still seriously believe that Obama is that much better than Bush on ALL fronts?
...with Biden being a known media industry pupped, and half the white house staff coming straight out of media industry jobs?
They are known to have a distorted reality, and not care about anything else but their own money.
But hey, it’s what people in the US wanted, after all. (Also true for most other countries in the world.) It’s the very reason they voted for one of the (two big) straw-men parties.
Protip: When people say they don’t like that, chances are very high (number of voters for both parties), that they’re lying to both, you, and themselves.
But facts (re-voting them, again, and again, and again) are irrefutable.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
-1 unable to detect humor over the interwebs.
When you're perfectly free to photograph things, and security shuts you down
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/65326/
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
There are always several laws, frequently very contradictory, everywhere. The long-written "offcial" law, is supposed to be universally accepted, but isn't. There is acceptance and interpretation of it, first. Then the cultural customs, the political momentum, religious laws, individual morality, social morality, community rules, family rules, secret rules, business rules, contracts, all of which usually conflict in dozens of ways. The wise citizen knows which law to follow in each situation, and more importantly, which is more moral or immoral. Political and business momentum and rules, at this historical moment, basically says copyright law can almost always be used to stop someone who isn't the copyright holder, who is frequently whoever has the most power and lawyers, and some sort of legal argument. Clearly the president, in this case. Even if dozens of public and fair use long-held-written laws say otherwise. In this case however it should also be interesting to investigate how do government produced and owned intellectual property rules work in general. I'm no lawyer, though.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
It sounds more like Obama is tired of seeing blatant attempts to imply his (or Michelle's) endorsement of practically everything (which is a clearly deceptive practice). I doubt very much that an elementary schooler will get a visit from the secret service if they print one of those photos for a diorama.
This may not be the very best way to accomplish that, but something needed to be done. It's hard to codify that sort of thing perfectly in a simple statement. Say "may not be used for commercial advertisement" and you'll see him appearing to endorse the flat-earthers or PETA. Say not for commercial purposes and the very much commercial news outlets are ticked off.
This notice has been a part of the WH photostream since at least November; Techdirt wrote about it, and I wrote about it.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
It didn't mention the OBAMA White House. If t his had been BOOSH, his name would have been mentioned 50 times.
So, how is that Hopey Changey thing workin' out for you?
...using Creative Commons like they already are? Creative commons already states that on most of their licenses that you can't use whatever is licensed in a way that makes it seem like the copyright holder (in this case, the US government) endorse you or your derivative work (without permission, of course, like if Obama officially said that he approved of something). I mean, really, there's WAY more than only two choices, and Creative Commons just makes sense to use.
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
How can Obama continue to claim that he is going to run a "transparent" government?
... when his own white house staff wants to restrict photos that by law cannot be copyrighted?
... how TARP money that has been paid back by big banks is now going to be lent out to smaller banks. It basically means if the US taxpayer is paid back that money will be lent to somebody else, until the entity getting money fails to pay money back, i.e. we ensure we waste 700 billion dollars.
... how recovery.gov has tons of mistakes and hasn't been updated in months.
... how he pretends he is open by recording White House visitors, but he conveniently leaves out lobbyists he meets with outside of White House.
... how he promised not to hirer lobbyists, still insists he hasn't hired lobbyists, yet has 40 lobbyist on staff (they aren't counted as he gave them a special "waiver").
Honestly I hate how much the President lies and how he gets a pass, merely because Bush sucked. I agree Bush had a ton of problems, but it makes no sense to give Obama a pass on his problems. Obama sucks also, just in different ways.
Respect the Constitution
Also, software created by U.S. government employees cannot be copyrighted. You can ask for source code, but that may involve an Electronic Freedom of Information Act (EFOIA) request, and you'd have to pay for the cost of providing you that information (considerably less than the cost of the software source code if you developed it). Unfortunately most software now developed for U.S. government is written by contractors (not U.S. government employees), and most contractors retain all rights to that software even though it was paid for 100% by government money. This makes it less costly for the government to produce software.
Keep Doing Good.
It's a good thing that "news organizations" is now defined as individual people on the Internet.
If the government doesn't grant itself exclusive rights to photos produced by federal employees as part of their job responsibilities, then what incentive will the government or its employees have, to produce photos as part of their job responsibilities?! They need exclusive rights in order to recoup their investment without competing with knockoffs.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If the government doesn't grant itself exclusive rights to photos produced by federal employees as part of their job responsibilities, then what incentive will the government or its employees have, to produce photos as part of their job responsibilities?! They need exclusive rights in order to recoup their investment without competing with knockoffs.
I sincerely hope you're going for ironical subtle humor, because the government's incentive to publish photos is... to publish photos. They were _Asking_ for them to be used in things other than the Flicker pages.
Read the flicker statement. There's no full copyright, only a 'don't use this image for commercial gain' - which is standard. Usual political BS from an obvious republican shill. Pathetic that no-one on /. fact checked for a second, instead of regurgitating the BS.
Screw the law, just appoint a photo-use-czar. No "advice and consent" needed. Voilà.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Yup, official law allows that, too. Someone in the White House could have used a dozen laws to stop use of presidential "endorsements" in ads, but somehow the first that came to their mind was copyright. Legal and strategic mistake, it won't work. Shows something though. A generally accepted social tendency for abuse of copyright powers, for protection in general in all kinds of issues. A certain large burger chain also uses "unathorized copyright use" to shut up people. The law is actually on the side of allowing these and many more uses, but the legal and business environment at the moment says otherwise. Businesses can abuse the law, copyright holders have infinite powers, that is the social-moral "law" of the moment. It influences interpretation of the actual law, modifying application of the law, modifying public behavior, and so IP owners get away with it. Ask thousands of people to join a protest with shirts saying "I copy mp3 music", and they will be afraid, thinking someone somehow will investigate, sue or arrest them. There is nothing illegal on the shirt, but it's going against the current political-business-legal-moral rules-climate.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
> I sincerely hope you're going for ironical subtle humor...
Doesn't seem subtle to me.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
If this is an independent photographer that has transferred the rights to the photos to the government then yes there could be copyright protection, if the photographer is an employee of the government then these pic should be public domain.
Please google "photographer work for hire."
The photographer does not retain ANY copyright over work done as part of employment. If it's contract work, it is unlikely that a government agency would agree to give the photographer copyright over the photos- I'm sure there's a mile-long line of photographers happy to work with the Whitehouse.
Please help metamoderate.
The authority is being a living person. As I understand it, right of publicity is more like trademark than like copyright.
Watermarking is most easily done with layers. With Photoflexer you should even be able to do that online, but there may be others that support layers. http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/extreme-britewhite-review-get-free-trial-now-1815590.html
It seems there are multiple circumstances where the photos may be protectable:
Caveats
* Other persons may have rights either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.
* Not all work that appears on US Government Websites is considered to be a US Government work. Check with the content curator to see whether the work is a US Government Work. Works prepared for the United States Government by independent contractors may be protected by copyright, which may be owned by the independent contractor or by the United States Government.
* The United States Government Work designation is distinct from designations that apply to works of US state and local governments. Works of state and local governments may be protected by copyright.
* Copyright laws differ internationally. While a United States Government work is not protectable under United States copyright laws, the work may be protected under the copyright laws of other jurisdictions when used in other jurisdictions. Outside of the United States, the United States Government may assert copyright in United States Government works.
(from: http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml)
I wonder if any of those caveats apply here.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
-1 unable would == +1 Able [Nelson] HAHA [/Nelson]
Finally he can be impeached, since merely being a Stalinist Nazi hell bent on destroying FOREVER absolutely EVERYTHING that all patriotic Americans love about this country isn't technically adequate justification. With the new Republican majority in the Senate, it should be a snap.
Or something like that.
Mostly, what they're trying to do is foreclose the use of White House photos in advertising. That's pretty clear. There are such things as right-of-publicity laws saying what you can and can't do with somebody's likeness, voice, or whatever -- but they're considered an offshoot of privacy laws, and they're different for every state. Not every state would recognize the Obamas has having much right to privacy at all, because they are public officials. (It's a different question for the daughters.) So the idea appears to reasonable enough -- they're simply asking people not to use the photos in advertisements. They cannot enforce those restrictions under any U.S. law. Yet.
Actually, this is not true. The material the US government produces is not copyrighted, it is in the public domain (domestically, anyway). This means there is NO copyright holder and therefore no possibility of any license agreement with them.
So how's Disney going to screw THIS up for us?
Not all of the images contain the same restrictive legend. Compare the LaHood-Obama example with the George H.W. Bush - Obama example. The first image contains this legend: "This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph." The second image leaves out the word "only," which changes the meaning from being prohibitory to merely explanatory: "This official White House photograph is being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph." I wonder if it's a partisan thing.
Actually, this is not true. The material the US government produces is not copyrighted, it is in the public domain (domestically, anyway). This means there is NO copyright holder and therefore no possibility of any license agreement with them.
So how's Disney going to screw THIS up for us?
For the time being, the US government is not a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney. So, for now, Disney doesn't care. I suppose they plan to cross that bridge when they come to it...
$ make available
Bey they'd HATE this...
http://pupista.blogspot.com/2010/02/presidents-office-disdains-public.html
I think that's exactly right. The White House cannot prohibit commercial use of these photos because they are inherently in the public domain. Copyright isn't waived or limited to certain uses, it just never applies. They have no control whatsoever over how the photo is used.
If a photo is used to imply endorsement, in violation of another set of laws entirely, then it's up to that person to challenge that usage. And, actually, those laws can get pretty vague when dealing with prominent public officials. The White House staff would probably be smarter to simply use their massive communications infrastructure to issue a statement making it clear that the implied endorsement is false and ask for it to be stopped. No need for legal threats except as a last resort.