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Astronaut Sues Dido For Album Cover
An anonymous reader writes "Astronaut Bruce McCandless is suing Dido for her album cover that uses a famous NASA photograph of a tiny, tiny, tiny McCandless floating in space. McCandless doesn't own the copyright on the photo, so he's claiming it's a violation of his publicity rights ... except that he's so tiny in the photo, it's not like anyone's going to recognize him."
A NASA astronaut you've never heard of is suing a signer you've never heard of. We've launched investigations into both of these people and will try to explain who they are. Your Late Local News is next.
It's Dido. Who's going to see the album cover anyway?
Now that they are mostly out of work, they need a way to sustain their hooker needs !
If there were a picture of you under a word closely resembling "Dildo" you'd be upset, too.
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
Dido knows sign language??
By suing, everyone will know it's him, regardless of how tiny he is in the picture, thus giving him grounds to sue. So if he doesn't sue, he has no grounds to sue, therefore he must sue!
I can see my house in the Earth image. First Google Earth and now this bloody album cover. What ever happened to privacy rights!!!!
That being said, the entire area of Right of Privacy law is fascinating. I was reading through this website and there's some really good meat there for discussion.
Wow, I had completely forgotten about the existence of Techdirt.
Fortunately, samzenpus and an anonymous reader are here to let us know about this "science" story.
If you want detailed info on the previous story about Mexico and ACTA, you won't find that at the linked site either.
Posted from different "dept."s on each site though. Editors in full effect!
"There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing evil about Bill Gates." - Chuck Peddle
By suing, everyone will know it's him, regardless of how tiny he is in the picture, thus giving him grounds to sue. So if he doesn't sue, he has no grounds to sue, therefore he must sue!
I am familiar with the picture but I didn't know it was McCandless. Given that he actually got paid to do something which I will never be able to pay to be able to do, I don't have a lot of sympathy for him.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Traditionally trolls have lived under bridges, but it appears that they've infiltrated NASA and are now making their way into outer space!!!
BE....WARE.....OF....SPACE....TROLLS
(especially if you're a recording artist)
You have been warned. We will now return you to your regularly scheduled IP rights battle.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
By suing, everyone will know it's him, regardless of how tiny he is in the picture, thus giving him grounds to sue. So if he doesn't sue, he has no grounds to sue, therefore he must sue!
And what we can't see in the photo is that under the space suit, it's really Chewbacca. Which makes no sense.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
If there were a picture of you under a word closely resembling "Dildo" you'd be upset, too.
Not as much as if my name closely resembled it. Her full name is "Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong". It doesn't even fit in the subject line for this post, and it's not a stage name. Her parents should be shot.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I'm assuming the picture was taken with NASA equipment on a NASA spacecraft. In other words, it's the US Government's picture. I don't really see how he has grounds to sue, particularly as nothing in the picture at all can be said to show his identity.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If there were a picture of you under a word closely resembling "Dildo" you'd be upset, too.
Not as much as if my name closely resembled it. Her full name is "Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong". It doesn't even fit in the subject line for this post, and it's not a stage name. Her parents should be shot.
That would certainly be the most decisive event in their lives to date.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
This calls for the smiling cigar guy. Somebody get busy with photoshop.
We know the submitter of this post is from a marketing agency by the blatant attempts made (several times in a short amount of text) to lead the reader to a conclusion.
We also know Slashdot has utterly sold out, as the said marking drone somehow circumvented the tradition of being called an anonymous coward: "An anonymous reader writes".
It was labeled "Pilot's space suit" and Chewbacca happened to be the pilot for that trip. That was why he was wearing it.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Someone please correct me if I have this wrong. I thought that as a public figure/celebrity in the US you effectively lose your right to avoid publicity? I would think that an astronaut would count as a public figure and thereby lose this right.
They should have the astronaut's face blurred on future cover releases.
God spoke to me.
I suspect that Dido has cut a check to McCandless. This is great, and probably cheap publicity.
Bruce McCandless can suck my cock, how do you like them apples dickhead?
I could have sworn that was Buzz Aldrin....
I want to thank you
For giving me the best day of my life.
Sincerely,
Dido
so why shouldn't he get paid too? You'd think he has a better claim than some stock photo outfit, eh?
Nice try, but I bet if he looks real hard NASA is going to produce something that says they own all images and likeness and all sorts of other mumbo jumbo that he signed on the dotted line when he was an astronaut. This would probably include publicity, etc. so as long as whoever legally paid for that image, this is going to be fruitless attempt in the courts.
Sounds like someone's bitter to not be getting as many endorsements as he'd like. Probably spent all his money on coke and pros. Now that he's skint he's doing what every good litigious American does - sue somebody who hasn't done anything wrong for something you don't deserve.
Zero. He'll lose his claim.
I'm in this picture as well, on the blue sphere directly below McCandless. I'm very very small, but I am there.
Both Dido and McCandless will be getting a call from my attorney at the start of business hours tomorrow.
Dammit where is my like button.. oh wait....
Actually that's my photo. I bank-rolled that trip to space. As taxpayer and owner of this photo I hereby give permission to DIDO to use it.
Number of people who now know Bruce McCandless is an asshole: everyone who reads this story. If he wins the lawsuit, he'll still be an asshole.
last week Google "first untethered space walk" -29,500 results
tonight Google "bruce mccandless is an asshole" - 67,600 results
Someone needs a new lawyer, a new agent, or a new life.
IANAL, but the way this was explained to me:
I work for a government agency and the pictures we take on taxpayer's time are public property. I've seen photos we've shot being used in magazines, web sites, screen savers and in industry publications (which were actually photoshopped to promote their products). It's the reason NASA releases all sorts of neat images because it's a publicly funded entity.
I wish the guy the best of luck but I doubt he's going to get any compensation.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
If you look down at the Earth just below and right of McCandless, you can see me looking up shouting at him to get out of my sky.
That's even worse than Leeloo Minai Lekarariba-Laminai-Tchai Ekbat De Sebat.
I won't speculate about the legality, although I can only imagine that being utterly unidentifiable in a public domain photo isn't going to get you too far in court. What I will say though, is that if a photo of me in space made it onto an album cover, the music would have to be pretty horrendous and offensive for me to object. In fact, it would probably only end with me feeling pretty darned awesome and my mom buying a few copies to frame and hang on the wall.
...is here.
he doesn't own the rights to that photo, "we the people" do
"...except that he's so tiny in the photo, it's not like anyone's going to recognize him."
Uh.. yeah, it's an iconic photo of a man doing something that precious few people on this planet have managed to do of a completely anonymous person.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I'd be worried about suing Dido: I hear she's pretty persistent. She'll go down with the ship, won't raise her hands up in surrender.
Some of the early astronauts haven't done too well in later life. They were big heroes briefly, and then has-beens for decades.
Being an astronaut today must really suck. There are about 100 "active astronauts", most of whom will never get into space again. There has to be a layoff coming. Meanwhile, they get assigned to "lunch with an astronaut" duty.
ass i say ASS!
I thought you was dead...
No "L" in the artist name!
And who is Astronaut Sue? Was she the one who put her training to use with a very long distance drive in a nappy?
Oh, it's "Dido" the singer not something very personal belonging to Astronaut Sue.
No, you're right on the money. I was looking for one earlier when I read this comment.
I think adding something along the lines of FB's "Like" button could salvage Slashdot's next-to-useless moderation system. You could tie it in with the existing relationship system. Maybe I see comments my friends or (optionally) friends of friends "liked" highlighted, while comments they disliked are buried. Failing that, let me choose to not see moderations by particular users. That could be done without necessarily identifying the moderator.
Of course it would be optional, and I would probably still browse at a low threshold, but it would offer a more refined experience for those who want it without the abuse the current system suffers.
I don't care why you're posting AC
the american justice system... score: 5 "funny because it's true"
The picture is taken while doing work for the public, government department, thus, the picture becomes part of the public domain.
Public domain means you can use it for things like this.
As for the astronaut, he's an employee photographed on the job, which the public also have a right to see.
If he appears small in the picture and cannot specifically be identified, then in what way is it 'publishing him' anyways, and not just a generic 'picture of an astronaut'... how can you tell who the person is in the photo if you don't already know before seeing the picture?
In what way is all this legally actionable, again?
... except that he's so tiny in the photo, it's not like anyone's going to recognize him.
Maybe I wouldn't recognize him by name but I damn sure know that photo, and could easily look up who it was if you had shown it to me and asked. (I recognize it as the first untethered spacewalk with the MMU, type "MMU" into wikipedia, and the captioned picture is right there on top). Thus, he's easily identifiable, if at least not easily recognizable.
Incidentally, I'd say that that picture is one of the top 4 most famous space pictures, the others being the Blue Marble, Earthrise and the one with Aldrin and the US flag on the moon.
No kidding. Let's see...if I'm guessing right here:
;-)
Dido - Carthaginian (~Tunisia, so North African)
Florian - makes me think Florence, which is in Italy
de Bounevialle - definitely sounds French
O'Malley - Irish
Armstrong - pretty stereotypically a U.S. English name
Maybe all her friends call her "Cablinasian" for short
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Isn't "space cadet" another term for "astronaut"?
Well, at least I can guess how to correctly pronounce all except "de Bounevialle" on the first try...okay, that and "Dido" (50-50 chance).
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Seriously, I've never heard of Dido.
I saw her in concert when she first came out and she's one of the prettiest singers I've seen in person. She's prettier in person than on her album cover. Unfortunately, I didn't even know she had a new album in 2008 until a few weeks ago. That's the problem with the record industry, spending a lot of money promoting new singers and not spending a little to promote those singers with an existing fanbase.
Richest astronaut to ever win the Superbowl
Keep Doing Good.
One of my favorite documentaries Discovery has done is called "When We Left Earth". They go through the entire NASA space program over three 2-hour episodes... really in depth, and extremely well produced. I've probably watched it a dozen times in the last two years.
They interviewed McCandless, and in particular this spacewalk with him in the photo, so I know exactly who Bruce McCandless is. On a somewhat unrelated note, if you've ever seen or read "Into the Wild", the main "character" (it's non-fiction), Chris McCandless, has/had a father who worked at NASA. So maybe Bruce is related in some way?
Anywho, I digress. But the only reason I clicked on this story was because I knew who McCandless is, and without even reading the summary in full (who does that anyways?!), I knew exactly which photo it was going to be.
Alright, I'll shutup now.
...that Dido was a rather strange name to go by, until I found out her birth name... Florian Cloud de Bounevaille Armstrong. That being mentioned, well... Dido is quite reasonable.
Woosh. It's a South Park reference. Look up "Chewbacca Defense" on the Googles.
The CB App. What's your 20?
They could pretty easily recreate it in photoshop, do that and tell him to stfu, maybe put the astronaut upside down or something.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Perhaps it is a plot from the record industry to get people to download the cover, so they can sue everybody who saw it and not only the bittorrent people. That way they can eliminate this pesky thing called Internet that screw over their business plan.
You might think it would be legal to see the picture and have it in your cache, but you also might think it is legal to have a copy of work you bought. They have the money, they make the rules.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It's a bit hard to see and I'm hardly recognizable, but I'm somewhere down in the ocean on the deck of a ship.
Armstrong - pretty stereotypically a U.S. English name
It is actually a Reiver name. Reivers were warrior clans who occupied the lawless English/Scottish border lands in the early 16th century.
7up is suing on infringement of trademark "Fido Dido"... Seriously, publicity rights apply if you can recognize the person. The makers of the suit have more "rights" than the obscure astronaut in this case. If she have acquired the rights from Nasa, who probably holds the right to the picture... Move along nothing to see here.
Tomorrow is another day...
Between frivolous law suits and driving across the country in diapers it's fair to say NASA may have problems with its recruiting program.
Where everybody sues everyone else for whatever reason!
2019 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
Maybe he should pay back all the US tax dollars it cost to get him there in the first place? Then we can talk about publicity rights ...
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
If it delays the release of another of her albums full of coma-inducing, obnoxious whining shit, then that's GOT to be worth it.
For the good of music and of mankind as a whole, let's hope he succeeds!
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Great picture. Seriously. Was he tethered to anything or was he roaming completely free? Anyway... Whoah...
NASA's own copyright notice states you can't claim any other rights on NASA copyright material.
So as its NASA's picture, then McCandless is unable to main any additional claims to the picture or its content.
I'd like to know the name of his lawyer so I can avoid using them - ever.
I am not 100 % on this but I think we the people own this photo ?
Hah, I read that "Astronaut does Sudo for ...". I must miss Linux :))
--- :/
Sent from my Windows 7 Ultimate
Actually, it appears that Barbara Streisand was wearing the suit...
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
mod parent up! .. spot on!
Turns out they are just money grabbing A$$0hles not much better than average.
NASA should sue Bruce McCandless as this is generating bad publicity for them.
If not under Idle, surely this should be under YRO, but Science? Really?
i manage to pronounce dido wrong two different ways, and get the gender wrong, before getting it correct. are you sure you got it right this time?
Initially I miss-read the title as :
Astronaut Sues Dilo [Maker] Over Aluminum Cover
Boy was I disappointed!
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
"it's not like anyone's going to recognize him"
now everyone is going to recognize him
Once upon a time, we looked to our astronauts as heroes - bigger than life - people who we greatly admired and respected for their bravery, courage and dedication to duty.
We remember Neil Armstrong, Alan Sheppard, John Glenn and Cmd Jim Lovell, Apollo 1, the Challenger and Columbia crews (just to name a few). To be an astronaut meant you above such trivial things as lawsuits over "publicity" rights.
Sad.
Next in headlines: Major Tom sues David Bowie for defamation: He was never lost and had his GPS with him to show the way.
Not everyone follows the pop charts.
I had to Google her to find out what she has done. The only song I recognized was the Eminem song she was mixed into. That said, she is a decent singer who's 'Thank You' reminds me of BoA's Duvet.
For some reason I know that Dido was a literary agent in a previous career.
That job with deal with rights issues quite a lot I'd think.
Star Trek TOS, cultural contamination??????
Harumph, harumph..... oh, harumph! Get me my broom: I'm calling shenanigans!
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
Really? I thought it was a douche. Or maybe a turd.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Wait, you guys are siding with a RECORD COMPANY over an ASTRONAUT?
And the record company is SONY?
Is this opposite day?
We have a Ms. Streisand for you on line 2.
Gods above, please no Like button. I come to Slashdot more than ever exactly *because* it's a refuge from things like the ubiquitous Like buttons of the web. I don't think Slashdot's moderation system is next-to-useless at all. It's imperfect, sure, it misses some rather good comments, and mods up some serious bullshit on occasion, and of course there are some groupthink effects going on, but the aggregate intelligence of the community moderating here is quite high and I love reading the high rated comments in a story when I don't have time to read every comment, which is fairly often.
One would think that being shot would be the most decisive event in most people's live...
Absolutely. The picture is in the public domain and he has no case. Period. Why? He was an employee if the Federal Government and on the job. The government owns the pic and they released it via their website.
This is why Linux distros had Nasa pics in them for wallpapers until there were enough artists out there.
Gorkman
Who is the astronaut MTV uses? Have they ever been paid for their image?
I actually bought her debut album BECAUSE of hearing her on Eminem. And then her next two albums. Pre-ordered the third, in fact.
It worked. I paid money.
First reading the title, I read it as Dildo and thought why is an astronaut suing a sex toy.
Second time I read it as Dio and thought why is an astronaut suing a dead person.
What the hell, I can't function this early in the morning
I don't know if the particular image is copyrighted, but clearly the person in photo is not recognizable. You could put any person in that space suit for that photo and not tell the difference.
Whoosh yourself, look up Han's outfit and Lando on the Googles.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Her memorable vocals on many albums by "Faithless," hardly an obscure band (and she has appeared in their music videos, I believe).
you had me at #!
Especially when people never even read the second line of it before posting a four line reply trying to take it seriously.
A like button could eliminate a lot of the "metoo" comments, though, like one I just cancelled after I wrote it. (But before I hit submit... the post delay filter does nothing to improve the quality of slashdot, and much to harm it.)
Also moderation is very heavily gamed. If you don't have a posse the trolls can just rape your karma. Crowdsourcing comment scores might be more meaningful. However, Slashdot isn't even clever enough to ignore votes from known mod trolls, or to stop giving them votes, so there is little hope they could get such a feature right given the demonstrated incompetence.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I though everyone in the world had heard of Dodo's recent 8 year stint as the President of the United States?
compared to the apparent size of his ego and greed.
She is what she is. She'll do what she wants.
A "like" button on Slashdot will turn the moderation system into exactly what's used on Digg. Without randomly selected moderators chosen from those who make positive contributions, you'll get the bury (or like) brigades.
K5 used to have a system like that (and probably still does, but I haven't been there in years). It was just too easy to game the system and too hard to bury troll comments.
The system slashdot has now seems to work better than any other site I've seen, but IMO it was better when metamoderation meant you moderated the moderators. If you got too many "unfair" moderations, you no longer got mod points. I'm not sure what the new metamoderation system does, but I have noticed that a lot more bad moderations slip through than before.
Free Martian Whores!
Um, but, uh, what if we don't have any friends?
[sniff]
I'm in the photo too. If you look down on Earth in the bottom left of the photo and "enhance" 300x you can clearly see me washing my car.
You don't see me suing though.
Eschew Obfuscation
What's really funny is that it's basically a picture of a spacesuit. There's nothing really personally identifiable about that. It would be like if you took a picture of a cardboard box and then later found out someone was inside it at the time and they're suing you for displaying a pictures of "them in a box" - it makes no sense.
On the other hand, if it was a picture of him out in deep space without a spacesuit then I suppose the lawsuit would've been the least of his worries.
That's(TM) One(TM) Small(TM) Step(TM) For(TM) Man(TM)....
Table-ized A.I.
That's exactly the problem I have with the current system. When they abandoned the meta-moderation system, the number of "I don't agree with this post so I'm going to mark it Troll" type moderations went through the roof. And why not - there no longer seem to be any consequences to abusing mod points.
Thanks for mentioning K5. I also haven't visited the site in a long time, and I probably *was* thinking of them in the back of my mind. I wouldn't want to see a system that makes it easier to bury worthwhile comments, but that's where I think tying it in to the relationship system could help. Or at least give me the option of saying "I don't agree with the way this comment was moderated, and I don't want to see this user's moderations in the future."
I know, now I'm being delusional.
I don't care why you're posting AC
Solid Snake, is that you?
One that hath name thou can not otter
Leaving those pics might have been better in many cases...
One that hath name thou can not otter
?
Have to make the stinkin' filter happy.