Photographers Want Their Cut From Google's Ebooks

It's not just the writers anymore: carluva writes "The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) and several other visual artist groups are suing Google over its digitization of of millions of books, claiming copyright infringement related to images within the books. The photographers initially wanted to be included in the authors' and publishers' class action suit, but filed their own suit after that request was denied. Google and others assert that images are only included in the digital copies when permission has been obtained from the copyright holder."

Comments

Hmmmm

[Vinegar Joe]

I wonder how this will develop.

Re:Hmmmm

[WrongSizeGlass]

I wonder how this will develop.

Colorfully?

Re:Hmmmm

[yincrash]

I think this one is clearly black and white.

Re:Hmmmm

[Vinegar Joe]

You guys are so negative.

Re:Hmmmm

[Knara]

Where she used to use lesser cameras, pictures taken with her Canon are quite often very dramatic and interesting.

People who use better tools end up with better end results with the same skill set? Shocking.

Re:Hmmmm

[icebraining]

Why do you talk about wedding photographers as the only type? That's like "the painters are those guys who paint houses".

The real art is not taking pictures for the driver's license. A picture from World Press Photo can sum up an half hour documentary in one frame. Robert Capa, for example, as a fucking genius.

Re:Hmmmm

[grcumb]

Most of us agree already that intellectual property goes too far. When it comes to things like movies and music and books, there is at least some real creativity. Photography? Not so much.

Baloney.

I've had formal training in writing and theatre (acting, design and directing) and have worked professionally in a number of creative disciplines. Just as with photography, the majority of writing work is workman-like documentary stuff that anyone with a decent grasp of the English language can manage. Writing clearly is mostly a matter of discipline. It's work, but it's not that difficult.

Telling stories as simply and elegantly as Graham Greene, however, is something to which most of us can't even aspire.

Likewise with photography. Taking a clear, composed and nicely lit photo is mostly a matter of discipline. It's work, but it's not that difficult. Taking a great photo on the level of Don McCullen or Robert Capa, for example, is something most of us will never approach.

If you're going to compare different artistic media (not really advisable at the best of times), at least try to compare similar things. Run-of-the-mill documentary writing, film-making and photography are similar in terms of time, discipline and effort required. (The biggest differentiator is the scope of the work itself. Photographers capture an instant; film-makers capture events.)

Great work in any discipline is likewise exacting, difficult, time-consuming and reserved to a rare, gifted few.

Re:Hmmmm

[jesset77]

Can you explain it to me in 1 paragraph or less?

"Opportunistic copyright trolls are opportunistic." Now I don't know what to do with the rest of my paragraph. ;3

Re:Hmmmm

[BlackBloq]

I just let these puns slide off me! Geta Holga yourself man!

And after that, the models will want their cut

[Palestrina]

The complexity is that a modern book can have a large number of owners, who may have come together and agreed to publish a given book, or even a given edition of the book. But republication, translation, adaption for the stage, movies, song lyrics, etc., all need to be negotiated separately. It gets even crazier with video, since then you have musician rights, composer rights, etc.

I think Lessig gave us one of the best reads on this problem a couple of months ago: http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/02/05_lessig.html

Re:And after that, the models will want their cut

[ClosedSource]

I guarantee you that Shakespeare never copyrighted his work, so I don't see how your example applies to this discussion.

and in a follow-on report ...

[nblender]

The American Pulp and Paper Manufacturers Association has announced they intend to claim royalties for scans of books printed on paper produced by members of APPMA!

Me too

[Idiomatick]

I think this is just becomeing a suing opportunity. Anyone that has anything to do with Google sues them because they have so much money. Hell, Google has been sued for linking to sites not using robots.txt or having thumbnails or images or.... the list goes on.

People are greedy and Google has money. Of course everyone sues it whether or not it is doing no evil.

Re:Me too

[bloodhawk]

Why I agree this is probably a huge case of opportunism, The fact remains google are evil bastards in how they are handling this and really they deserve what they get. An system that can take your property and requires you to "opt out" rather than opt in deserves to have as many law suits thrown at it as humanly possible.

Re:Me too

[beakerMeep]

I don't see how it is so cut and dried. If these artists have legitimate copyrights and Google is presenting the image in results, it certainly could be argued that is a form of republishing. Whether you agree or not, the issue is not exactly just 'me too.' While there may be an element of that TFA is pretty light on details as to what the plaintiffs are claiming represents unauthorized republishing of their work.

Re:Me too

[Chyeld]

That comment is so full of bullshit, I'm not even certain where to start.

Wait, I know, lets start at the start:

• What did Google actually do originally
  • Google went to select libraries and asked their permission to scan in the works that the libraries had access to.
  • Google intended to make the works which were in the public domain available online for free
  • Google intended to make the works which were still covered under copyright search-able, just as a website is, and include them in Google's index.
      THIS SHOULD BE COVERED BY FAIR USE
• What has Google already made available online
  • The only items you can currently view in full on Google's site are the books they have PERMISSION to display, either from the copyrights holder or by virtue of the book being in the public domain
  • Books Google does not have permission to display in full are in some cases search-able (depending on whether the copyright holder has told Google block the book or not

What is evil about what they were originally working on? Where is the blatant disregard for copyright that you are stumping on about? The fact that the GBS greatly expands their plans and what they are doing is not because that is what they were originally planning, it's because that's what the lawyers were able to AGREE upon when they sat down at the table!

Re:Me too

[Fallingcow]

As much as I initially hated their methods, I can't say I'm completely against it now, having used it a bit.

It's a small glimpse of what a sane copyright policy might allow. Yes, it's a fucked up walled garden, but even the equivalent of a Disney park ride take on what reasonable copyright policy might look like is exciting. It's possible it's the only time I'll see something like that in my lifetime, if it gets shut down and the idea doesn't spread.

Photographs

[Andy Smith]

I'm a newspaper photographer. I'll offer this perspective on Google's respect for copyright:

Google recently used some of my photographs on Google News, as the 'headline' photos to represent collected coverage of major stories. This fell outside any reasonable definition of fair use. This was for-profit publication of photographs that other publishers were paying for the right to use. Google used them for free.

Now, it's common in the news business that publishers use breaking news photos without permission, because they need to publish them quickly. But they ALWAYS pay afterwards, market rate, without question. This side of the business works on trust.

When I sent Google a bill, their first reaction was exactly what it should be: They would pay the market rate. They rang up to get my banking details for fund transfer, and that should have been the end of the matter.

Then they wrote to me saying that they wouldn't pay. They even denied publishing the images, which was clearly untrue. They told me that to take the matter further I would need to file a DMCA complaint -- and in doing so I must give Google permission to publish the DMCA complaint online. I believe this is outrageous! I only sell my pictures to UK publishers, yet here was a US company publishing my work without permission, and telling me that I would need to pursue them through the US legal system!

This gives me a fairly clear view of Google's attitude to other people's copyright. It seems that Google will take what they want, publish it however they want, profit, and then to hell with the people who originally produced the material in question.

Re:Photographs

[Ron Bennett]

Google likely believes use of your images falls under "fair use" in the same manner as those shown on Google Images, and hence feels no obligation to pay.

I assume the images in question were shown as smallish (ie. 80x80) thumbnails?

You might be able to strongly encourage Google to pay, if you can document them using the images out of context ... but I presume the images all linked to the related news items that contained the full size images. And thus, to reiterate, likely why Google feels no obligation to pay.

Ron

Re:Photographs

[nblender]

So if I understand you correctly, you want google to pay 'market rate' for an 80x80 portion of a picture that you took with your EOS 5D-II? How small a part of your image does google have to use in order to qualify for "fair use"?

Re:Photographs

[stephanruby]

Google recently used some of my photographs on Google News, as the 'headline' photos to represent collected coverage of major stories.

You mean. Google recently used some photographs of yours on Google News, as the 'thumbnail' image to represent the collected coverage of major stories, linking back to the original online newspaper which originally published your photograph.

This fell outside any reasonable definition of fair use.

Who says? You do, but you're a little biased. Aren't you.

This was for-profit publication of photographs that other publishers were paying for the right to use. Google used them for free.

Yes, Google links thumbnails and summary information to online sources. It does the same thing on its search engine, which is also a for-profit operation. And it does this with the robots.txt (or sitemap.xml) permission of the original newspaper that published your photographs. If the original newspaper had just listed the folder in which your photograph was in, and told the googlebot not to index your photograph, then google wouldn't have used your photograph (to make a thumbnail out of it).

It seems your original beef is with the newspapers that published your photographs, not google. I think many would argue that indexing, linking to, publishing the summary information, and automatically making thumbnails, all because the original web site permits you through the robots.txt file, falls well within the purpose of 'fair use'.

Re:Photographs

[Chyeld]

Actually no, they do it because they either have a marketing agreement with opposing vendors who didn't want free advertising to be given to the competition or because the image was TRADEMARKED and they were worried the use of it in their show might bring legal trouble on that front.

Unless they have an incompetent legal department, they are never doing it because they fear they are infringing copyrights, as it'd be a 100% slam dunk when they showed up for court and said "Your honor, fair use."

Re:Photographs

[cpt kangarooski]

Which is like having your neighbor say it was OK to use your pool without your permission because they did the same thing to the guy down the street.

No, it's more like if your house is plainly visible from the sidewalk, with no tall hedges, or anything else obstructing the view, and your neighbor stands on the sidewalk and looks at it. The house may be your property, but he is perfectly within his rights to look at it, if you haven't concealed it in some fashion.

Remember: Copyright is defined by statute, and is limited; it does not cover absolutely anything regarding a work. An author's rights in his work stop at the border of fair use (among other things). Fairly using a work simply does not, and cannot infringe, by definition.

Of course, I'm not surprised to see the sort of rent-seeking behavior that you seem to condone. We just have to stand firm against those who would disparage fair use (which, because fair use is meant to promote public policy with regard to copyright, is really a disparagement of copyright as a whole).

Re:Photographs

[cpt kangarooski]

And indeed, that argument was made in Kelly v. Arriba Soft, back in 2002. The court in that case decided that image thumbnails produced as search results were a fair use.

The use was commercial, which counted against defendants, but transformative (instead of being pictures qua pictures, they were merely search result) which counted for. The pictures were creative works, but published, which counted against, but not so much against as it might. They copied the entire work, but this was no more than necessary for users to be able to identify the results, so it counted neither for nor against. And the use as thumbnails in search engine results didn't harm the market for the images themselves, so that counted for.

Re:Photographs

[grcumb]

I never realized that fair use was based on pixel count.

You should have done. It's obvious.

A sufficiently reduced-quality image (or a detail from a larger image) is perfectly analogous to a quotation from a written work. It serves to convey the essence (or a detail) of a particular work without reproducing it in toto. Past a certain point, however, the exercise becomes a case of wholesale copying i.e. no longer Fair Use.

If that weren't the case, then I could sue you for using the same white and black pixels that I used in a graphic this morning, or the same alphabet (or phrases, if you like) that I used to create my last newspaper column.

I'm a member of one of the organizations named

[Anonymous Coward]

Most photographic work is licensed in a rights managed fashion. The payment calculated for the image is based on usage and distribution. What Google is attempting to do, is no different than a publisher initiating a second print run, sometime generating income for them, without compensating the photographer a second run. In most walks of life, we call that stealing.

Re:Stupid laws

[Lunix Nutcase]

No, the problem is that Google thinks it can just violate the copyrights of people who have contributed to the books they scanned. And even more ridiculous is they think they can set up an opt-out system in order to negate these copyrights.

Imagine the uproar if a GPLed program had its codebase relicensed and did so without the consent of all the copyright holders. Then after getting in trouble, they still continued with the relicensing effort and the only way you could assert your rights was through their opt-out system that any number of copyright holders may not even know about. Do you not see the problem with that?

Return to Values that Work

[flyneye]

Time to return to old values that worked till they got changed. Let the originator hold rights to the invention or work for a short time (4 years) and if they can't make a profit from it in that time, tough shit! The world marches on. If they are talented they will make more. If not it was a fluke and who cares! This copy and patent crap is taking up too much time and waaaay too much progress.
        Senator Bono blowing Mickey f**kin' rat is a perfect example of the crooked kind of crap that got the U.S. in the mess it's in now. Thank God for trees and skis. Now if we could get the rest of the crooked bastards on a tough slope drunk and blindfolded.

Re:Stupid laws

[geekoid]

I suspect /. is being Astroturfed today.

Do you even know how the internet works?
Here is what a I wrote to another twit.

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1610916&cid=31768624

"Imagine the uproar if a GPLed program had its codebase relicensed and did so without the consent of all the copyright holders
If that was remotely what was happening, you would nearly have a point.

What property?

[Anonymous Coward]

> An system that can take your property and requires you to "opt out" rather than opt in deserves to have as many law suits thrown at it as humanly possible.

Well, I don't believe that IP is property, so I'll have to disagree with you there. There's no way to drag books online (which is where they need to be to be useful) except to do this wholesale, and I'm sorry, but I don't care about the estates of long-dead artists who are out to get another buck or two. Hell, they'd make money if only they signed on to this, but the lawyers wouldn't make as much by not suing, so go figure.

Anyhow, any book that doesn't get digitized will fall into much-deserved obscurity soon enough. I wish they'd make sane copyright laws so that anyone (not just Google) could do this, but that's not going to happen any time soon, so I guess I'll disagree with you and say that I'm glad we're finally getting a digital library.

If authors want to stand in the way of progress, they shouldn't complain about getting run over by it. Nobody cries for the buggy whip makers.

Alternative headline

[geekoid]

People who make money taking picture without paying for what they are taking picture of complain about not being paid.

Re:I'm confused

[icebraining]

What about fair use? If I buy a music CD, I can make private copies of it. Why should it be different with books? According to a professor of law at DePaul University, it probably isn't: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1437812