Around our office, I maintain the "Visitor's Doc", a two-page list of places to eat and things to do for people who are assigned to our office for a week or two. We have a constant stream of these folks from all over the country. Their stays are usually short and they appreciate a guide that tells them where to get lunch.
For the ones staying over the weekend, there's a section on things to do that includes the following:
#1 fun thing that's perfectly normal in Texas but might seem out of the ordinary to visitors from less civilized parts of the world? Rent some guns and blow stuff up (well, perforate some targets) at any of the shooting ranges in town.
For some reason I can't figure, some people don't find that amusing. I simply can't figure out why. In the past, I've taken trainees out to rent machine guns, fer goodness sake. (I'll never forget the look of unalloyed joy that came over the face of a young lady from Chicago who'd never fired a gun in her life as she loosed an entire magazine of 9mm from an H&K MP5. Fun stuff, that.) Just because somebody likes to shoot is no reason to accuse them of waving their penis. Shooting is fun. You ought to try it.
Where I work had, in the early days of the web, a policy that only the chosen few could journey via http outside our firewall. We could get email from anywhere, though.
I used to make much use of email-to-web servers. You sent an email to a particular address. You included the URL you wanted on the subject line. The receiving server would fetch the web page and email it back to you. I don't remember the server that I used the most but I do remember that it was in the.jp domain.
When the censorship in Iran popped up, I went looking for those servers. They don't seem to exist anymore.
Maybe they're no big loss. They're really only useful for static html or really simple pages, anyway. But I can't help think that they might have some limited utility in routing around censorship, even today.
Aren't some U.S. authorities taking action against online gambling sites?
So we have a fairly short list of things that can get you in trouble in the U.S. - kiddie porn can get you prosecuted, gambling can result in forfeitures, and downloading copyrighted material can get you sued. Only the first two are directly caused by government action; in the last case, the government is merely complicit.
Can anybody think of any more?
I'd say we have it pretty good in the U.S. It could be better, though.
Funny. But there's unlikely to be an address. Maybe a rural route number, but that's about it. These are the sorts of places where mail is still sent to "General Delivery". Besides, during the times of year when you could get in, you couldn't get to these types of locations by any normal transportation method.
Just because I leave my car unlocked with the keys in them doesn't mean you have been given permission to drive the car away.
Not always. Rural residents of the Dakotas will often winter in town. When they leave the country place, they may leave their house and cars unlocked and leave the keys in the car. The thought process is: Anybody who knocks on the door of this place in the middle of winter is in mortal danger. They certainly need shelter. They may need transportation.
Of course, over the last couple of decades with the rise of the cell phone, this sort of behavior has become far more rare. But back in the day, it was pretty common.
"And that concludes your trivia moment for today. Join us tomorrow for..."
Please be mindful that injecting your own views on a completely different issue helps no-one.
Exactly my point. Thanks for backing me up on that. The GP wrote a mighty good post; it's too bad he weakened it by injecting his view that all gun owners and anti-abortionists are bonkers. As I said, bad examples make bad arguments.
...if the authorities have a search-warrant,... When they ask, you're supposed to open the doors, lockers, safes, etc...
No. By opening anything, you've demonstrated to the police that you are capable of opening that door, locker, etc. You've now thrown away any defense that relies on the idea that you don't have access (or easy access) to that space. Just by helping the search, you've implicitly provided self-incriminating testimony.
If a search warrant is being served at your location, you cannot know that you are not under suspicion. In that case, you do not talk to the police and you do not help the police in any way. Period.
The correct response when they ask is to not respond at all. You've already (if you're smart) advised the police that you will not be answering questions or assisting in the search. Now go sit in the corner, shut up, and don't move except to shake your attorney's hand when (s)he arrives.
Bad examples make for bad arguments. You broadly characterize "anti-gun-control activists" as "bonkers and dangerous".
That's not a good analogy. There are lots of folks on slashdot who understand that "pro-personal freedom" == "pro-owning the means to engage in justifiable violence". We're as rational and peaceful a bunch as you're ever likely to encounter.
Please be mindful that using bad analogies tends to render less impactful your otherwise insightful statements.
Oh, and nobody goes on holiday without contact for over 24 hours, do they? I bring a laptop and a smartphone with me wherever I go. Even when I visited Northern Africa, I made sure to get online at least once a day to check, act on, and reply to my email.
Seriously?
The whole point of "getting away from it all" is GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL. I haven't taken a formal two-week vacation in way too long but the last time I did, as well as every other time I've gotten away for a long weekend or so, my laptop is turned off and left behind, the cell phone is with me but turned off, and I'm *completely* out of reach. I have no idea what's happening at my job, with my friends, or with my family. They have no idea what's up with me. And that's the way I like it.
Why on earth would someone go to the trouble of scheduling time off and, say, taking a trip, all theoretically for the purposes of clearing and refreshing the mind...and then ruin it by keeping in touch so that the mind can never fully disengage and recharge?
Um 6 appendages with 4 legs and 2 arms would work just as well if not better.
No. Haven't you ever wondered about those old Ripley's cartoons that showed a man outrunning a horse? Haven't you ever thought through the old tales of Native Americans running down pronghorns? A creature with four legs can accelerate more quickly and run faster for a while but if you've ever seen a four-legged animal collapsed and near death in a foamy sweat from running for too long and too hard, then you'd know that four legs burns fuel faster. At a given (fairly high) percentage of max speed, four-legged animals hit the wall sooner and harder. If a horse and a good marathon runner both start a marathon, the horse will quickly sprint far ahead but the human will catch up and pass long before the race is over, especially if the horse is pushed a bit too hard in the beginning.
A biped may be slower in the short term (and also less able to bear weight, incidentally) but has huge endurance advantages.
But is four legs merely different or actually better? More specifically, which is the better mode for an *intelligent* creature?
If you're only capable of running on instinct and responding to danger by running away at max speed, then four legs is just peachy keen. But if you're intelligent, capable of planning ahead and avoiding life-or-death fight or flight problems, capable of using tools to move loads or defend against attack, and capable of harnessing four-legged creatures to do the grunt work, then being a biped is distinctly advantageous.
The tendency of SF writers to envision aliens as bipeds has never bothered me. It seems reasonably logical, certainly reasonable enough to use in works of fiction.
Dumbest reason ever? I agree. However, on the flip side...
How often do some FOSS advocates set out to prove that they have marketing savvy by pointing to the dumb, weird names of FOSS apps as a barrier to adoption by "normal" organizations?
We can't have it both ways. The name of a piece of software either does or does not influence people. I think it's clear that it does and if some office, somewhere made Opera the standard for that reason, then such an outcome should not be unexpected. Rare, perhaps, but not unexpected.
Of course I'm making stuff up. No one would actually do such a thing. At least, I don't think so. But the point is still valid.
The people that Diaz has hired to watch out for her image have to imagine all sorts of unsavory uses for her image. That's part of their job. They are going to envision something undesirable happening if they lose control of the HQ image on WP. Thus, the goal of having an HQ image on WP is something most such groups would find at odds with their desire for image control.
I think it's unlikely that any big star would ever pay for a perfect, current head shot and then release it in the way WP requires. I hope some of them are forward-thinking enough to prove me wrong.
You could find a photographer who would be willing to do work-for-hire, selling all rights to Diaz' people.
Wikipedia would be happy to accept it under their licensing terms.
Diaz' people, however, wouldn't go along with this. If they give the hi quality picture to WP, it goes out into the world where anyone can do anything with it. Some enterprising geek would adapt the pose so that it looks like she's getting humped from behind. Said geek would start a business where you send in your photo of yourself in a specified pose, that photo is combined with the Diaz photo, and the enterprising geek sends you back a poster that realistically shows you porking Diaz.
Diaz and her people would not be happy. But if they put a high quality picture on WP, under WP's terms, then something like this *will* happen.
Short of waiting to be blessed by some rich benefactor, how do YOU suggest a photographer make money at their trade?
As a former photographer, I'll take a stab at that. I'll use wedding photography in most of my examples because that's the only time most people ever hire a photographer.
They can get a rich benefactor. This isn't as crazy as it sounds. Customized porn, for example, can bring in a bundle. (And, no, I guess my first example doesn't have anything to do with weddings.)
They can employ a modified rights management strategy. Lots of wedding photographers are drifting this way. They charge more for their work and then sell substantial or all rights to the happy couple. Full-res digital files are sold for a premium. Full rights are sold for a premium. They also make money off of web services, providing a web site to display the photos and make it easy for anyone to order prints for a nominal but mildly profitable cost. Some photographers even abandon all rights after a set period, usually a year.
They can toss all idea of control. Some wedding photographers have begun seeking out digital-ready couples who want to handle all their own post-production work. In those cases, the photographer charges a reasonable rate for a days work and, at the end of the festivities, burns a DVD with all the pics and hands it to the couple or their rep. This sort of "shoot, burn, and run" business model is definitely low-rent and is metaphorically spat on by traditional wedding photographers, but it's profitable for folks who view the job with as much romance as a plumber views lead pipe. It also makes "better-than-your-shutterbug-uncle" wedding photography available to lots of people who couldn't otherwise afford it.
They can cling to the old model. There will always be high-end jobs to be done for rich clients who don't want to get their hands dirty. These are the people who will pay $500 per 8x10 print for an album with 100 prints in it, then turn around and pay $800-$3000 for additional, single prints to hang on the wall or give to family. These are the people who expect to sit down in a studio business office where they're served champagne, make nice talk, write a check, and not have to think about it again.
They can sell prints. Lots of people make money in the fine-art print business. By doing so, they can retain all the traditional rights because their target audience would never conceive of pulling a 20x24 print out of the frame to get it scanned so they can email it to friends or pirate it to a commercial buyer.
They can shoot for stock. This is nowhere near the money-maker it once was but for a talented and prolific shooter, it can make money.
They can ridiculously specialize. Some businesses have photo needs so specialized that there's no secondary market for the work. Thus, it doesn't matter if the photographer retains rights or not because he will definitely be charging significant money up front.
They can graduate beyond weddings and portraits to commercial work that pays big. Few will succeed, but for some it's worth a shot.
They can negotiate rights with the buyer. Whether it's your wedding, portrait, your dog's portait, or whatever, nearly everyone is open to the concept of buying rights that stipulate the buyer can use the photos for any non-commercial purpose with attribution. This allows the photographer to maintain control enough to make money (sell the photos if their subject ever becomes famous, show them in a portfolio, etc.) while allowing the buyer to do virtually everything they can conceive with the photos without interference (give to friends, publish in the newspaper, put on their web site, etc.)
This list is poorly organized because I typed it stream-of-consciousness style in just a few minutes. Given a few days to mull it over, I could probably get a good start on writing a book on the subject. The bottom line is that, yes, the world is changing and it's getting to be harder for photographers. But the talented, hardworking, adaptable ones will always be able to make a living.
As a *former* photographer, I no longer have a commercial account with a lab. If I need to get just a few photos printed and they aren't anything where the content forces me to drive across town to my preferred commercial lab (ie, all nudes always go to the commercial lab because there are always weird hassles from clerks anywhere else; I wouldn't dare take a nude of a younger-looking model to any place that doesn't have experience seeing lots of bare skin), I'll drive to one of the local spots with fairly new equipment. Literally, a high-quality mini-lab as newly installed in a Walmart or some pharmacies is good enough.
Last time I was in one (this was a new pharmacy with good equipment), the guy behind the counter looked at my screen as I was loading up the images. "That looks like professional work." I thanked him profusely; the pics were semi-nude portraits of a particularly fetching co-worker. He looked annoyed and handed me a flyer that purported to explain copyright issues, saying "We can't print professional photos." I read the flyer and saw that it mentioned a waiver form that could be signed by the photographer. I asked for the form, filled it out, signed it, and handed it to the clerk, along with a rather too-haughty "I *am* the photographer."
Clerk disappears. Clerk returns with manager in tow. Manager asks me to leave the store.
Full stop. If I stay, I'm guilty of trespass and I can go to jail. The request to leave forecloses all possibility of negotiation or explanation. I leave and then proceed to tell everyone I know what idiots work at the new pharmacy. That was a number of years ago and they're now out of business.
This amateur copyright lawyer business has truly gotten out of hand.
Now, nobody actually does this. The practical consideration of stopping and selling a few photos so you can eat gets in the way.
That doesn't change the mindset. DaVinci didn't doodle on the ceilings of churches. He may have doodled lots of crappy ideas beforehand, but the actual release of his work to the public was the best he could muster.
Yes, everybody knows that all photographers produce lots of crap. (Well, nearly all photographers. There are daguerrotypists and ultra-large-format guys and a few others who meticulously plan everything and then take only one perfect shot.) There's a big difference between me knowing you know and me shoving proof in your face that you can then turn around and use against me in the future. We both know I make plenty of crap along the way to a good result but don't ask me to advertise it; I just won't.
I sincerely doubt DaVinci secured patrons by showing them discardable doodles. He showed them the good stuff or, at worst, the doodles that proved he had good ideas and could produce good stuff if he was given enough money. All artists, including photographers, do the same. For a variety of reasons, enough of our garbage is going to escape along the way; don't ask us to deliberately shovel out more for public perusal without getting anything useful in return.
Is it possible to make an anonymous donation of a photograph to Wikipedia? The assignment of a license under CC must be done by the copyright holder, so Wikipedia has to know who that person is.
It's a nice sentiment you have there, but if I understand the nuts and bolts of how the process works, what you propose is impossible.
In photographic terms, it's impossible, too. Photo shoots tend to be unique (in their overall look, the look of the subject, the styling of everything) so an outtake can easily be associated with whatever pictures were actually sold and published previously.
Why can't they release THOSE pictures under CC, instead of just throwing them in the trash?
Having once made my living as a photographer, I'm severely disinclined to wade fully into this discussion. I can see both sides and I get really irritated at the way both sides, both through innocent ignorance and wilfull intent, so frequently misunderstand each other.
About this one point, though, I'd like to say something. Good photographers are manic about making sure that every single piece of work they produce is as close to perfect as possible. You, the general public, my potential future clients, may only see one picture I've taken in your whole life. In that case, it had better be perfect if I'm going to stand any chance of getting any of your future business. That one photo is my representative to the world. The same thing is true of every photo I release.
Thus, releasing anything that's substandard is self-defeating. Losing control of subsequent re-use, too, is self-defeating if it allows someone to put my work into some crappy collage or print it incompetently. (That last one really drives traditional wedding photographers crazy.)
So no top-echelon photographer of the sort who is normally contracted to shoot celebrity portraits is ever going to say "Well, this photo is junk that I can't sell - so I'll just let it be published where millions of people will see it and come to associate my name with crappy work." It just ain't gonna happen.
There's an old saying among photographers about how to properly assemble a portfolio. Divide your work into 4 piles. Pile 1 is the stuff that's not good enough. Pile 2 is the stuff that's almost good enough and you might put it in your portfolio if you have a particular hole you need to fill. Pile 3 is good enough to include in your portfolio. Pile 4 is those few, rare photos among the "good enough" that are something transcendant, that make you draw a sharp breath and say a little "Wow!" to yourself every time you see them. Then:
Throw away piles 1, 2 and 3.
Start over, repeating the process with pile 4. Continue periodically for 10 years. If you're lucky, you may actually have a good portfolio at the end of that process.
Now, nobody actually does this. The practical consideration of stopping and selling a few photos so you can eat gets in the way. But the mindset is there. Releasing suboptimal work, no matter what public good it may do on the pages of Wikipedia, just goes against the grain of any good photographer.
You just plain shouldn't be hanging out in a parking lot where you don't have a car...
You assume too much.
The Galveston arrests were for looking into cars along the seawall. There's a single row of on-street parking at meters along the street that runs next to the seawall. In other words, parked right next to the most popular tourist walkway on the island. And we're not even talking about nose-in parking that would require you to step off the curb to look into the cars. This parking is strictly parallel. You'd have to deliberately look seaward at all times to avoid seeing into cars.
Of course, the Galveston cops have a rep for being total pricks, so this story had some reasonable legs in the local press.
Where I'm from, any action that appears to be preparation for breaking into a car is illegal. It's illegal to try the doors. In fact, a while back the police in Galveston made the news because they were arresting people for *looking into* parked cars. Not even touching, just looking.
I understand the intent but I still think that goes too far.
Slashdot Mirror
I love people with no sense of humor.
Around our office, I maintain the "Visitor's Doc", a two-page list of places to eat and things to do for people who are assigned to our office for a week or two. We have a constant stream of these folks from all over the country. Their stays are usually short and they appreciate a guide that tells them where to get lunch.
For the ones staying over the weekend, there's a section on things to do that includes the following:
For some reason I can't figure, some people don't find that amusing. I simply can't figure out why. In the past, I've taken trainees out to rent machine guns, fer goodness sake. (I'll never forget the look of unalloyed joy that came over the face of a young lady from Chicago who'd never fired a gun in her life as she loosed an entire magazine of 9mm from an H&K MP5. Fun stuff, that.) Just because somebody likes to shoot is no reason to accuse them of waving their penis. Shooting is fun. You ought to try it.
Where I work had, in the early days of the web, a policy that only the chosen few could journey via http outside our firewall. We could get email from anywhere, though.
I used to make much use of email-to-web servers. You sent an email to a particular address. You included the URL you wanted on the subject line. The receiving server would fetch the web page and email it back to you. I don't remember the server that I used the most but I do remember that it was in the .jp domain.
When the censorship in Iran popped up, I went looking for those servers. They don't seem to exist anymore.
Maybe they're no big loss. They're really only useful for static html or really simple pages, anyway. But I can't help think that they might have some limited utility in routing around censorship, even today.
Aren't some U.S. authorities taking action against online gambling sites?
So we have a fairly short list of things that can get you in trouble in the U.S. - kiddie porn can get you prosecuted, gambling can result in forfeitures, and downloading copyrighted material can get you sued. Only the first two are directly caused by government action; in the last case, the government is merely complicit.
Can anybody think of any more?
I'd say we have it pretty good in the U.S. It could be better, though.
Funny. But there's unlikely to be an address. Maybe a rural route number, but that's about it. These are the sorts of places where mail is still sent to "General Delivery". Besides, during the times of year when you could get in, you couldn't get to these types of locations by any normal transportation method.
Did I just hear a loud "whoosh" sound?
Not always. Rural residents of the Dakotas will often winter in town. When they leave the country place, they may leave their house and cars unlocked and leave the keys in the car. The thought process is: Anybody who knocks on the door of this place in the middle of winter is in mortal danger. They certainly need shelter. They may need transportation.
Of course, over the last couple of decades with the rise of the cell phone, this sort of behavior has become far more rare. But back in the day, it was pretty common.
"And that concludes your trivia moment for today. Join us tomorrow for..."
Exactly my point. Thanks for backing me up on that. The GP wrote a mighty good post; it's too bad he weakened it by injecting his view that all gun owners and anti-abortionists are bonkers. As I said, bad examples make bad arguments.
No. By opening anything, you've demonstrated to the police that you are capable of opening that door, locker, etc. You've now thrown away any defense that relies on the idea that you don't have access (or easy access) to that space. Just by helping the search, you've implicitly provided self-incriminating testimony.
If a search warrant is being served at your location, you cannot know that you are not under suspicion. In that case, you do not talk to the police and you do not help the police in any way. Period.
The correct response when they ask is to not respond at all. You've already (if you're smart) advised the police that you will not be answering questions or assisting in the search. Now go sit in the corner, shut up, and don't move except to shake your attorney's hand when (s)he arrives.
IANAL, etc.
Bad examples make for bad arguments. You broadly characterize "anti-gun-control activists" as "bonkers and dangerous".
That's not a good analogy. There are lots of folks on slashdot who understand that "pro-personal freedom" == "pro-owning the means to engage in justifiable violence". We're as rational and peaceful a bunch as you're ever likely to encounter.
Please be mindful that using bad analogies tends to render less impactful your otherwise insightful statements.
MOAR!
Sauce?
Sets, please.
ToGTFO.
Holy smoke, I'm a middle-aged man. I shouldn't know this crap...
How fat can I be and still be able to fly?
>>Cue jokes about Americans.
Seriously?
The whole point of "getting away from it all" is GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL. I haven't taken a formal two-week vacation in way too long but the last time I did, as well as every other time I've gotten away for a long weekend or so, my laptop is turned off and left behind, the cell phone is with me but turned off, and I'm *completely* out of reach. I have no idea what's happening at my job, with my friends, or with my family. They have no idea what's up with me. And that's the way I like it.
Why on earth would someone go to the trouble of scheduling time off and, say, taking a trip, all theoretically for the purposes of clearing and refreshing the mind...and then ruin it by keeping in touch so that the mind can never fully disengage and recharge?
I just don't get it.
No. Haven't you ever wondered about those old Ripley's cartoons that showed a man outrunning a horse? Haven't you ever thought through the old tales of Native Americans running down pronghorns? A creature with four legs can accelerate more quickly and run faster for a while but if you've ever seen a four-legged animal collapsed and near death in a foamy sweat from running for too long and too hard, then you'd know that four legs burns fuel faster. At a given (fairly high) percentage of max speed, four-legged animals hit the wall sooner and harder. If a horse and a good marathon runner both start a marathon, the horse will quickly sprint far ahead but the human will catch up and pass long before the race is over, especially if the horse is pushed a bit too hard in the beginning.
A biped may be slower in the short term (and also less able to bear weight, incidentally) but has huge endurance advantages.
But is four legs merely different or actually better? More specifically, which is the better mode for an *intelligent* creature?
If you're only capable of running on instinct and responding to danger by running away at max speed, then four legs is just peachy keen. But if you're intelligent, capable of planning ahead and avoiding life-or-death fight or flight problems, capable of using tools to move loads or defend against attack, and capable of harnessing four-legged creatures to do the grunt work, then being a biped is distinctly advantageous.
The tendency of SF writers to envision aliens as bipeds has never bothered me. It seems reasonably logical, certainly reasonable enough to use in works of fiction.
Dumbest reason ever? I agree. However, on the flip side...
How often do some FOSS advocates set out to prove that they have marketing savvy by pointing to the dumb, weird names of FOSS apps as a barrier to adoption by "normal" organizations?
We can't have it both ways. The name of a piece of software either does or does not influence people. I think it's clear that it does and if some office, somewhere made Opera the standard for that reason, then such an outcome should not be unexpected. Rare, perhaps, but not unexpected.
Of course I'm making stuff up. No one would actually do such a thing. At least, I don't think so. But the point is still valid.
The people that Diaz has hired to watch out for her image have to imagine all sorts of unsavory uses for her image. That's part of their job. They are going to envision something undesirable happening if they lose control of the HQ image on WP. Thus, the goal of having an HQ image on WP is something most such groups would find at odds with their desire for image control.
I think it's unlikely that any big star would ever pay for a perfect, current head shot and then release it in the way WP requires. I hope some of them are forward-thinking enough to prove me wrong.
Yes, you're missing something.
You could find a photographer who would be willing to do work-for-hire, selling all rights to Diaz' people.
Wikipedia would be happy to accept it under their licensing terms.
Diaz' people, however, wouldn't go along with this. If they give the hi quality picture to WP, it goes out into the world where anyone can do anything with it. Some enterprising geek would adapt the pose so that it looks like she's getting humped from behind. Said geek would start a business where you send in your photo of yourself in a specified pose, that photo is combined with the Diaz photo, and the enterprising geek sends you back a poster that realistically shows you porking Diaz.
Diaz and her people would not be happy. But if they put a high quality picture on WP, under WP's terms, then something like this *will* happen.
A photographer who thinks rather than clinging to outmoded business practices deserves to have a few mod points thrown his way.
As a former photographer, I'll take a stab at that. I'll use wedding photography in most of my examples because that's the only time most people ever hire a photographer.
They can get a rich benefactor. This isn't as crazy as it sounds. Customized porn, for example, can bring in a bundle. (And, no, I guess my first example doesn't have anything to do with weddings.)
They can employ a modified rights management strategy. Lots of wedding photographers are drifting this way. They charge more for their work and then sell substantial or all rights to the happy couple. Full-res digital files are sold for a premium. Full rights are sold for a premium. They also make money off of web services, providing a web site to display the photos and make it easy for anyone to order prints for a nominal but mildly profitable cost. Some photographers even abandon all rights after a set period, usually a year.
They can toss all idea of control. Some wedding photographers have begun seeking out digital-ready couples who want to handle all their own post-production work. In those cases, the photographer charges a reasonable rate for a days work and, at the end of the festivities, burns a DVD with all the pics and hands it to the couple or their rep. This sort of "shoot, burn, and run" business model is definitely low-rent and is metaphorically spat on by traditional wedding photographers, but it's profitable for folks who view the job with as much romance as a plumber views lead pipe. It also makes "better-than-your-shutterbug-uncle" wedding photography available to lots of people who couldn't otherwise afford it.
They can cling to the old model. There will always be high-end jobs to be done for rich clients who don't want to get their hands dirty. These are the people who will pay $500 per 8x10 print for an album with 100 prints in it, then turn around and pay $800-$3000 for additional, single prints to hang on the wall or give to family. These are the people who expect to sit down in a studio business office where they're served champagne, make nice talk, write a check, and not have to think about it again.
They can sell prints. Lots of people make money in the fine-art print business. By doing so, they can retain all the traditional rights because their target audience would never conceive of pulling a 20x24 print out of the frame to get it scanned so they can email it to friends or pirate it to a commercial buyer.
They can shoot for stock. This is nowhere near the money-maker it once was but for a talented and prolific shooter, it can make money.
They can ridiculously specialize. Some businesses have photo needs so specialized that there's no secondary market for the work. Thus, it doesn't matter if the photographer retains rights or not because he will definitely be charging significant money up front.
They can graduate beyond weddings and portraits to commercial work that pays big. Few will succeed, but for some it's worth a shot.
They can negotiate rights with the buyer. Whether it's your wedding, portrait, your dog's portait, or whatever, nearly everyone is open to the concept of buying rights that stipulate the buyer can use the photos for any non-commercial purpose with attribution. This allows the photographer to maintain control enough to make money (sell the photos if their subject ever becomes famous, show them in a portfolio, etc.) while allowing the buyer to do virtually everything they can conceive with the photos without interference (give to friends, publish in the newspaper, put on their web site, etc.)
This list is poorly organized because I typed it stream-of-consciousness style in just a few minutes. Given a few days to mull it over, I could probably get a good start on writing a book on the subject. The bottom line is that, yes, the world is changing and it's getting to be harder for photographers. But the talented, hardworking, adaptable ones will always be able to make a living.
I feel your pain.
As a *former* photographer, I no longer have a commercial account with a lab. If I need to get just a few photos printed and they aren't anything where the content forces me to drive across town to my preferred commercial lab (ie, all nudes always go to the commercial lab because there are always weird hassles from clerks anywhere else; I wouldn't dare take a nude of a younger-looking model to any place that doesn't have experience seeing lots of bare skin), I'll drive to one of the local spots with fairly new equipment. Literally, a high-quality mini-lab as newly installed in a Walmart or some pharmacies is good enough.
Last time I was in one (this was a new pharmacy with good equipment), the guy behind the counter looked at my screen as I was loading up the images. "That looks like professional work." I thanked him profusely; the pics were semi-nude portraits of a particularly fetching co-worker. He looked annoyed and handed me a flyer that purported to explain copyright issues, saying "We can't print professional photos." I read the flyer and saw that it mentioned a waiver form that could be signed by the photographer. I asked for the form, filled it out, signed it, and handed it to the clerk, along with a rather too-haughty "I *am* the photographer."
Clerk disappears. Clerk returns with manager in tow. Manager asks me to leave the store.
Full stop. If I stay, I'm guilty of trespass and I can go to jail. The request to leave forecloses all possibility of negotiation or explanation. I leave and then proceed to tell everyone I know what idiots work at the new pharmacy. That was a number of years ago and they're now out of business.
This amateur copyright lawyer business has truly gotten out of hand.
You have a truly evil mind. I like it. :-)
I agree. After all, what did I say?
That doesn't change the mindset. DaVinci didn't doodle on the ceilings of churches. He may have doodled lots of crappy ideas beforehand, but the actual release of his work to the public was the best he could muster.
Yes, everybody knows that all photographers produce lots of crap. (Well, nearly all photographers. There are daguerrotypists and ultra-large-format guys and a few others who meticulously plan everything and then take only one perfect shot.) There's a big difference between me knowing you know and me shoving proof in your face that you can then turn around and use against me in the future. We both know I make plenty of crap along the way to a good result but don't ask me to advertise it; I just won't.
I sincerely doubt DaVinci secured patrons by showing them discardable doodles. He showed them the good stuff or, at worst, the doodles that proved he had good ideas and could produce good stuff if he was given enough money. All artists, including photographers, do the same. For a variety of reasons, enough of our garbage is going to escape along the way; don't ask us to deliberately shovel out more for public perusal without getting anything useful in return.
Is it possible to make an anonymous donation of a photograph to Wikipedia? The assignment of a license under CC must be done by the copyright holder, so Wikipedia has to know who that person is.
It's a nice sentiment you have there, but if I understand the nuts and bolts of how the process works, what you propose is impossible.
In photographic terms, it's impossible, too. Photo shoots tend to be unique (in their overall look, the look of the subject, the styling of everything) so an outtake can easily be associated with whatever pictures were actually sold and published previously.
Having once made my living as a photographer, I'm severely disinclined to wade fully into this discussion. I can see both sides and I get really irritated at the way both sides, both through innocent ignorance and wilfull intent, so frequently misunderstand each other.
About this one point, though, I'd like to say something. Good photographers are manic about making sure that every single piece of work they produce is as close to perfect as possible. You, the general public, my potential future clients, may only see one picture I've taken in your whole life. In that case, it had better be perfect if I'm going to stand any chance of getting any of your future business. That one photo is my representative to the world. The same thing is true of every photo I release.
Thus, releasing anything that's substandard is self-defeating. Losing control of subsequent re-use, too, is self-defeating if it allows someone to put my work into some crappy collage or print it incompetently. (That last one really drives traditional wedding photographers crazy.)
So no top-echelon photographer of the sort who is normally contracted to shoot celebrity portraits is ever going to say "Well, this photo is junk that I can't sell - so I'll just let it be published where millions of people will see it and come to associate my name with crappy work." It just ain't gonna happen.
There's an old saying among photographers about how to properly assemble a portfolio. Divide your work into 4 piles. Pile 1 is the stuff that's not good enough. Pile 2 is the stuff that's almost good enough and you might put it in your portfolio if you have a particular hole you need to fill. Pile 3 is good enough to include in your portfolio. Pile 4 is those few, rare photos among the "good enough" that are something transcendant, that make you draw a sharp breath and say a little "Wow!" to yourself every time you see them. Then:
Throw away piles 1, 2 and 3.
Start over, repeating the process with pile 4. Continue periodically for 10 years. If you're lucky, you may actually have a good portfolio at the end of that process.
Now, nobody actually does this. The practical consideration of stopping and selling a few photos so you can eat gets in the way. But the mindset is there. Releasing suboptimal work, no matter what public good it may do on the pages of Wikipedia, just goes against the grain of any good photographer.
You assume too much.
The Galveston arrests were for looking into cars along the seawall. There's a single row of on-street parking at meters along the street that runs next to the seawall. In other words, parked right next to the most popular tourist walkway on the island. And we're not even talking about nose-in parking that would require you to step off the curb to look into the cars. This parking is strictly parallel. You'd have to deliberately look seaward at all times to avoid seeing into cars.
Of course, the Galveston cops have a rep for being total pricks, so this story had some reasonable legs in the local press.
Where I'm from, any action that appears to be preparation for breaking into a car is illegal. It's illegal to try the doors. In fact, a while back the police in Galveston made the news because they were arresting people for *looking into* parked cars. Not even touching, just looking.
I understand the intent but I still think that goes too far.
Do we need any more?