Obvious from the fact that I even mentioned the spec system? UO, AO, AC for a little bit, EQ1 and 2, WoW. . . what else. . . Skipped Eve, waiting for Jumpgate.
WoW is not a classless game. The talent system is not even comparable, as a rogue in WoW could never choose from a warrior's talent tree. You may say 'Why would they want to' but that is completely missing the point. As you said yourself, you respec to 'min-max specific encounters' and that is what results in all of the difficulty in balancing classes. You know, in WoW, that if you are fighting a priest PVP or a fire mob PVE there are probably a few certain specs that will be the most useful. PVP balance could be fixed with a skill-based system because you would never know what skill the opponent may have. Priest who happens to have blade skills matching a warrior, wizard who knows a few potent heal spells?
Yes, you can min-max a classless system. In tabletop games, it happened all the time. One creative encounter tuned to target specific min-max combos was enough to discourage that. Same would work in an MMO; watch the popular combinations of skills and tune new events to decimate them.
Because keeping the second test secret is a great way to convince a judge and jury. "We tested the suspects DNA and found that it matched at the main 13 loci. After that, we performed the magic secret test that we can not ever tell you about, and found those loci matched as well. And no, before you object Mr Defense Lawyer, we will not tell you what those second set of loci are."
I take that back, that would still convince a jury. I can only pray that it doesn't fly with any judge.
Back when I was in 2nd grade, I think it was, the police had a 'fingerprint day' at the elementary school. They brought in a 5 print card and offered to fingerprint every child 'just in case'. I asked my parents about it a few years back, they said the only reason they signed any form was that they got to keep the card, not the police. I think the police did offer to store all of the cards, again, 'just in case'. I mean, "what would happen if your child was kidnapped from the house and the kidnapper set fire to the house to get rid of the fingerprint card? I mean, think of the children!"
That's where tabletop games and older MUDs offer a little extra help. There was a MUD based on the Rolemaster system, that started all skills with costs that were roughly comparable, and as you gained skills in, say a melee weapon, costs in other skills increased, say learning magic. If you wanted to play a hybrid, focusing on both spells and weapons each level, you would find that, while those two skill would increase slower than if you picked just one, other skills increased costs at an even faster rate. End game, if there was such a thing, you had a very specialized class of your own making that would have to spend an entire level to gain one point in any outside skill.
This would never fly in a modern MMO, as it requires that player to plan ahead from the very beginning or to re-roll once they learned how the system worked. A 'spec' system, where those points could be re-spent late in the game to allow players to shift their skills to match their play style would be interesting, but could result in players being able to shift from a tank style class to a healer or magic dps depending on the day and the needs of their group/guild. Starting from a basic school system, melee/damage caster/healing caster with different starting skill costs would allow for varied classes for each player, and not much more lock in than any other MMO out right now.
For obvious reasons a computer made of 'n' atoms cannot simulate a brain made of 'n' atoms as fast as that brain can work.
In real-time. It can simulate a brain, or the computer could be made of n^x atoms and approach real-time simulations. At that point, it is just turning an software Big-O problem into a hardware one.
Currently, I think (as a CS geek with a bit of chem and bio on the side) that a good model for neurons would be as individual processors with very, very high speed interconnects. Luckily, that parallels the way that supercomputers are currently designed, lots of processors with lots of high speed connections. Now, a brain simulation would not require that any one neuron be able to connect directly with any other neuron, so we wouldn't need a full mesh topology. Even if current investigations into such a simulation do not work, they may still offer some new neat tricks involving sparse maps for neuron interconnects, or faster supercomputers from very simple chips.
And entropy; well, we have a target minimum for the entropy of a computer simulating a brain. We should be aiming for the energy usage and entropy equivalent of one human brain. And that is one topic that it is just too early for me to google.
It seems to me that there is an implied comparison between young hackers and CS undergrads. That the two require completely different languages makes this two different questions. The first question that I read is "should young hackers start with the same languages as CS undergrades?" To which I can only answer "maybe." If the hacker is smart enough, has the resources and the desire to learn at a pace like that, and wants to learn the inner details of varying search algos, sure, throw them in the deep end. Scheme, C, assembly, give 'em the tools and let them work. Being a CS graduate student, or worse, is not about programing but research into ways to program for 10 years into the future. So, if that's what they want, let them learn the details they will need later.
If the young hacker-to-be doesn't want that, why throw them into the same muck? Give them a language that does what they want it to do: Processing, Squeek, Pascal, Prolog; Lua, Lisp, Scheme, whatever. If they don't care which search algorithm is best because they plan to use which ever one is built into the libraries they have, there is no overwhelming need to teach that detail. Let them program in ways that are fun to them, and see how different that can be compared to forcing all the young hackers to learn the same way.
Magnitude 0 star, Vega, has a visible flux density of around 2*10^6 photons / second cm^2 in certain visible ranges. Google turned that up, so did an old BadAstronomy forum post; here. Magnitude 6 stars are visible, flux difference between a 0 and 6 star is defined as 1/(2.512^6). Working downward, of course; as a 0 is 2.512^6 more bright that a 6. So, a human looking up at a magnitude 6 star is seeing a flux density of (2*10^6)/(2.512^6) or around 7,960 photons / second cm^2.
I know, not good astronomy to say the star is putting all that out, the magnitude 6 object might be reflecting, emiting, what ever. Point is, 3*10^3 is only slightly dimmer than an object that the human eye can already detect, and in fact a magnitude 7 object would be the source of (2*10^6)/(2.512^7) or just 3,168.78337 photons/second cm^2. Just barely brighter than the light they say they have detected from a human.
Granted, the article says a 'red glow' which could just be the writer looking at the picture, which is using color to represent density and not color. All they mention about the spectrum of the light is that it is not infrared. Could be visible spectrum, could not be. Either way, it looks to be bright enough to detect should it be in visible spectrum. It would be the very bottom of the visible range, and possibly discarded by the brain as noise in normal photon saturation we call daylight. The brain does filter a lot of noise, but I am not going to count it out just yet.
Oh, you are a dense one. Contracts are why the compromise won't be between the publishers and the photographers. If you inferred that I meant Wikipedia would compromise, that is your problem. That you are still stuck on thinking I mean Wiki after I explicitly explained the chain of people involved tells me you are either trolling me, or just bloody well don't get it.
I will spell it out for you in coding terms, since your sig suggests you like the GPL. HR drone hires Contractor to come into a company and write some code to fix, oh, anything. The contract the Contractor brings with him says that he owns the copyright on the code, but the company gets exclusive and non-sub-licensable rights to use it until some later time, say 3 years, at which point he can do what ever he wants with it. The HR drone accepts the contract, the Company signs off on it, and the contractor gets paid. Six months later, the HR Drone is working for another company, and wants to use the same patch, so calls up the Contractor and asks them to release the code under the GPL right then, so they can use it at the new job. Sure, the HRD might have been the person to put a stamp on the contract before, but they are not the one represented by it. Contractor may even want to oblige, but can not. Same works with these pictures, with the Publicist signing off on the picture contract, and the photographer being the contractor. Neither party actually has a say in how the picture gets used once the ink is dry. That's where the courts come in, because if the new contract isn't up to snuff any party involved could wreck havok on the rest for breaking the original contract.
The publicists in TFA are just whining that they signed off on something and want to change the terms later. They all just need to suck it up and deal with it.
Yes, that would be the best compromise. But try to make it stick in court after the ink is dry on the contract. Or try to convince the studio executives, whom the star is under a likely work-for-hire contract, that the celeb should sign a release that allows a CC picture, or that the publicist should allow it. There is a whole chain of people involved other than celebrity, publicist, and photographer.
Aside, if you were not including me in the photographers can either deal with it or fuck off! then I am sorry for the snark directed at you in this and the other post. I don't respond well to certain insults, and tend to see them as a challenge to out-do the other person.
And what I expect to get paid depends on what the celebrity and their company want to do with the picture. Most of the time, they want exclusive control of the image, and I charge them for that.
You know, the sentence right before what you quoted; the one that put it in context?
I can be snarky too. Want to keep up the banter?;-)
There are photographers, I would do the same deal for friends and family for no cost. I would do it for someone else for a different fee than normal, 10 or 20% maybe, more if I couldn't use the pictures for a portfolio or even to show other clients what their pictures might look like. But yeah, the fact that they want to change the terms after the contract is done is silly, then it would be easy to just do another photo shoot. Unlike a wedding, that is an option.
And I'm happy that you took the time to read the terms your photographer used. I hope the pictures turned out great and wish you and the spouse the best.
If the publicists and managers and so-forth would let the celebrity sign a contract to that extent, great. Chances are, they can't because the celeb is under contract to a studio.
My post was not about after-the-fact contract changes, though. If I shot a picture that someone else wants full rights to, I would charge more in most cases. How much more depends, from $0.02 cents* to 15x the base cost. They would still be bound by the terms of the model release they got their model to sign, but that is their problem. After the fact changes are a whole other ball-game, and get much more messy since the actual legal wording of contracts is involved. Both parties end up breaking their contracts and having to resign new ones. One party wants it done, the other is going to pay a lawyer to check the contract a second time. Cash will be traded in that case, from the party that wants the change to the other.
The photographer can't re-license it if the model release the celebrity signed does not allow them to. The publicist can not re-license it if the contract they signed with the photographer does not allow them to. Both parties understand this, and the article picked a few publicists who want to lay the blame off on photographers not being willing to change the rules after the fact.
You lost me.*
You say most of the time, the publicist wants exclusive control of the image. Isn't that to say that you sign over the copyright to them as well, for all intents and purposes? I understand why the photographer can't do anything with the photos, but what's wrong with the publicist now?
Nope, it's not the same. Exclusivity licenses say they are the only people who can use the photograph, but the photographer keeps copyright. That alone does not give them the right to use it for what ever they want. And in some cases, exclusivity does not mean they have the right to sub-license the photograph.
I'm assuming that you don't ever get paid for that photo session again. You don't get a cut of what the publicist does with it, as you have them pay for everything up front, from what I understand of your post. Despite that, you say "If the publicist wants the picture under the CC, I am going to charge more for it." To me, that says your contract with the publicist would state "While I sign over all rights to this image to you, I forbid you from putting the image into the CC, public domain, etc."
Yup, that's what exclusive and non-sub-licensable would mean. As for not getting paid a second time, that's tricky. If the contract is exclusive, and the photographer can not use the photo commercially, then the photographer can not always use the picture in their portfolio. Certain courts have found that, since a portfolio is a form of advertising, that it counts as commercial gain.
If this is correct, I don't understand why you, or any photographer, would care especially what the publicist does with the photographs past their intended purpose? Publicist sells photos to magazine for untold thousands or millions of dollars, obviously the photographer needs to be compensated accordingly. But one of the unused photos or a photo that has already served it's indented purpose is put into the CC or public domain, why is additional compensation and restriction needed for what equates out to a donation in the photographer (as a bonus) and publisher's names?
Bankruptcy and news. Or any other act that invalidates the contract. On those conditions, the photographer could regain complete rights to the picture. Remember, the contract that grants someone else rights to use something does not grant them your copyright. It is arguable if you can turn over copyright, after the work is created, via a contract signed at a later date. As for unused photographs and who can turn those over to CC licenses, that would depend on the model release signed by the celebrity. Chances are, they did not sign a standard release like I would use, where for what ever fee the model releases all future rights to the picture to the photographer.
It works out like this. A photographer on the street, or even one shooting amateur head-shots is probably getting a full release from the model. In return, the model gets some rights to the picture and cash or equivalent. A celebrity probably signed a release that says the photo can only be used in a certain manner. Even if that photographer never licensed the photo, they are still hampered by the release. If the publicist licenses the photo, they are still bound by the model release they pushed in the first place. It's a fluster cluck, and neither party can straighten it out alone. If the publicist wants out of their contract and model release, the photographer is going to want to trade something. Either release to do what they want with the picture, or commercial rights to it again, something. Yes, there are CC-friendly photographers who would just let the picture go if the publicist asked nicely, but it a court might not recognize a friendly agreement as binding. So the publicist needs the photograph to sign a new contract, and vice versa. That new contract, to be valid, needs an exchange of financial value. And it's back to monetary exchange again.
It would be different in later derivative use. And it would be different from the normal contract, so publicists want to pay less. They would see it as a 'more free' picture in the free beer way, and not value it as much. When the photograph sees it on about the same terms as an exclusive license, and wants the same amount for it.
In this case It's the publicist that wants the picture on Wikipedia
From TFA:
"Representatives or publicists will contact us" horrified at the photographs on the site, said Jay Walsh, a spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates the Wikipedia encyclopedias in more than 200 languages. "They will say: 'I have this image. I want you to use this image.' But it is not as simple as uploading a picture that is e-mailed to us."
"In general," he added, "we need them to know that giving us a photograph from Annie Leibovitz wonâ(TM)t work unless Annie Leibovitz is O.K. with it."
Right, the publicist wants the non-CC picture on Wikipedia. No where did I see them wanting to get the picture released under a CC license. A few stars did, and got pictures licensed as such.
It seems to me that this is a simple case of needing two parties (photographer and publicist) to talk to each other, and for some money to change hands. That is, call Annie Leibovitz and ask her how much she wants to be paid, to make the photo CC. Simple market forces will decide whether it happens, it doesn't happen, or a cheaper photograph is found.
Yup, that's what needs to happen. See previous.
I get the feeling that everyone on/. hasn't a clue about photography laws in their country, and just wants someone to blame for not liking Creative Commons. It's never going to be that bloody simple.
Photographs are no different from any other IP, and you'll find that/. has a LOT of IP law geeks (for which you can thank Richard Stallman).
Yes, except that code does not have model rights, right of publicity, etc. If you have time to straighten out right of publicity, and how it differs between each state in the USA, since there is no federal law covering it, go for it. Same for standard photographer contracts that publicists want signed, versus what newspapers want, vs. what other media wants. And while you are at it, find a simple definition for what pictures need a model release, and which do not. Simple being single step of identifying the key points, not the usual four which still result in vague decisions.
So, other than those points, it is exactly like other IP law that Richard Stallman has taught/. about.
By my licensing the picture under the CC, I would be giving the publicist, and the rest of the world, more rights than a normal photo contract provides, provided the photo shoot wasn't done as work for hire (15x base cost, minimum since I can never use those pics in a portfolio).
As a professional programmer, I face pretty much the exact same situation. My solution: I got a job so that all of my work is for hire and my boss gets to deal with the business aspects.
As a photographer, I wouldn't mind a gig like that if I could keep enough rights to use the pictures in a professional portfolio later. But I'm not a professional photograph, just a geek with a camera and too much free time. And no coding job because the economy sucks.
BTW, this sounds like a great opportunity for an enterprising photographer. Offer to sell good pictures at reasonable rates to the celebrities themselves so they they (and their agents) can make sure they're represented well on places like Wikipedia. If the best photographers don't find that acceptable, I'm sure there are plenty of up-and-comers who'd love the publicity and the professional connections.
Don't doubt it. Find a publicist who wants to pay anything for a CC image, or even wants a CC picture out there on the internet, and we can make some industry connections. I'll cut ya in for an even share of the profit if you work the gig as a two legged light stand. *grins*
I agree with that. I was mentioning the two extremes figuring people would get the middle ground would be a compromise. But I was replying to a post that focused solely on the copyright issue. I have also explained, in replies to other posts, why the publicists won't pay extra for that.
And there are lots of other scales for price of a picture. Client gets exclusive rights for X years, after which photographer gets rights to re-license it. Client gets non-exclusive license. Client gets exclusive license and allows photographer to keep picture in portfolio, which is not the same as Client getting exclusive license and the photographer keeping copyright. Usually exclusive licenses prevent any other use for commercial gain, and portfolios count.
To clarify, publicists don't actually want CC images of their client out there. They want images they control, so that someone down the road can not use a picture of the celebrity in an unflattering light. The few who may want CC images probably don't want to pay even $x for a picture, and want the photographer to license it to them under the CC. In the end, everyone gets screwed, but there isn't really anyone to drop the blame on.
It is all in the contract. Movie camera men are creating someone else's vision, usually the director's, and sign contracts stating that they do not get copyright. Directors, same deal with regard to the studio. Photographers have just maintained the ability to keep the contracts on terms that favor them.
As for kings ransom, work out the cost of a photo shoot. A photographer and several assistants, 8 to 12 hours on the day of the shoot, with several more days following for culling the bad photos and touching up the good ones. Several days after that for anything else the client wants done, air brushing, compositing multiple images. And assistants are not going to work for minimum wage. Well, some will work cheaper for a big name photographer to get artistic experience. Assuming a photographer and 4 assistants, everyone works minimum wage, and other than the photo shoot they only work 8 hour days for a week, the total cost would be $1160. But that doesn't account for skill, gear, or anything else the photographer brings, and would just get you a mediocre photographer. Who would, out of a day, get about 10 or so good shots and may be willing to sell them for $100 each.
Under certain circumstances, yes. Under others, I'll sign off all rights to a picture for a good cause. But I am not a professional photographer who is spending all day, scheduled around someone else's time, taking pictures for their use that I never expect to be able to use again.
Find a publicist willing to pay work-for-hire wages, or a photographer willing to do it, and find a publicist willing to let a picture be licensed under the CC, and then you have a story. But the publicists aren't going to want a picture of their client out there that can be used for derivative works if they can help it, and they pay a photographer to avoid that. Tell me, if someone were to offer you $5000 for a single photograph under restricted terms, or nothing for one that you can later release on what ever terms you want, and it took you all day to get that picture, which option would you choose?
It's not a matter of the photographer wanting to license a low res under the CC, it's them being able to. A publicist is not going to sign a waver to that effect, because it will mean that anyone down the line can do what ever they want with the picture. And a publicist is not going to let the photographer off without signing an exclusive license.
I get the feeling that everyone on/. hasn't a clue about photography laws in their country, and just wants someone to blame for not liking Creative Commons. It's never going to be that bloody simple.
But surely the photographers DO maintain the copyright, they just license the image freely. If they have a problem with 'freedom', they should just say that instead. "We photographers don't like freedom". There, I restated the problem, clearly.
Yes, obviously the problem is that photographers don't like freedom.
What the hell, people? Someone who wants to maintain rights to a picture hates freedom? Have we gotten so damn jaded that this gets modded as insightful? What happened to the photographers freedom to do what they want with a picture, to write the terms of their contract and set the price they want. You want a picture under the CC, get a photographer to take one! Don't blame the rest for using those copyright/copyleft freedoms as they choose. You don't have to like it, and they don't have to like the CC. But blaming it on 'hating freedom'? How about claims that you 'hate freedom' because you want to force CC on everyone else?
That is the part that neither the publicist nor Wikipedia want to do. And who can blame either of them. Wiki doesn't want to pay for every photo, and the publicist would love it if the photographer would just put the picture out there under the CC, so they and the celebrity can use it without paying the photographer any extra. Win-Win for everyone but the photographer.
Hmm, let's work this out from the photographer's perspective. I go out to a studio, with all my gear and assistants, and do a model shoot of a celebrity. It's a whole days work, with hair and makeup changes, wardrobe, setting of lights before people get there, and tearing stuff down when they all leave. Maybe I'm lucky and have a stocked stage someplace, or maybe I want to shoot them on location somewhere. End of the day, I expect to get paid for this work. And what I expect to get paid depends on what the celebrity and their company want to do with the picture. Most of the time, they want exclusive control of the image, and I charge them for that. That means, I can not turn around and re-license the picture to Wiki under the CC, as the contract we have forbids it. That's the publicists problem, not mine. If the publicist wants the picture under the CC, I am going to charge more for it.
Counter-intuitive, I know, but hear me out. By my licensing the picture under the CC, I would be giving the publicist, and the rest of the world, more rights than a normal photo contract provides, provided the photo shoot wasn't done as work for hire (15x base cost, minimum since I can never use those pics in a portfolio). Because I would lose future rights on the photo, for now and forever, I would charge accordingly. It's not greed, it's pragmatism. You say that a photographer retains their copyright, but if the picture is out there under the CC who needs to license it from the photographer under anything more restrictive? Since that is lost future potential revenue, it's going to cost more, period.
I know this opinion won't fly well with the/. crowd. All data and stuff should be free unless it's the work I do for the company on their time and then I should be paid like a king for it. Funny that photographers think the same way about the pictures they take on someone else's time.
Oh, I suspect the publicists do get it. However, the photographers get it too, and the photographers don't give a rats arse about what the publicists want. If a A-list celebrity wants their picture for something; book, movie poster, whatever; the photographer is going to license the picture to them and charge accordingly. They want control over the picture, that has a set rate. They want exclusive control of the picture, somewhat higher. They want copyright of the picture, even higher still. Publicists are not going to be willing to pay that, and just want Wikipedia to play by their rules.
There really should be a compromise here. But I don't think it will be between the photographers and the publicists, and I can't say I blame the guys behind the camera.
Slashdot Mirror
Obvious from the fact that I even mentioned the spec system? UO, AO, AC for a little bit, EQ1 and 2, WoW. . . what else. . . Skipped Eve, waiting for Jumpgate.
WoW is not a classless game. The talent system is not even comparable, as a rogue in WoW could never choose from a warrior's talent tree. You may say 'Why would they want to' but that is completely missing the point. As you said yourself, you respec to 'min-max specific encounters' and that is what results in all of the difficulty in balancing classes. You know, in WoW, that if you are fighting a priest PVP or a fire mob PVE there are probably a few certain specs that will be the most useful. PVP balance could be fixed with a skill-based system because you would never know what skill the opponent may have. Priest who happens to have blade skills matching a warrior, wizard who knows a few potent heal spells?
Yes, you can min-max a classless system. In tabletop games, it happened all the time. One creative encounter tuned to target specific min-max combos was enough to discourage that. Same would work in an MMO; watch the popular combinations of skills and tune new events to decimate them.
Because keeping the second test secret is a great way to convince a judge and jury. "We tested the suspects DNA and found that it matched at the main 13 loci. After that, we performed the magic secret test that we can not ever tell you about, and found those loci matched as well. And no, before you object Mr Defense Lawyer, we will not tell you what those second set of loci are."
I take that back, that would still convince a jury. I can only pray that it doesn't fly with any judge.
Back when I was in 2nd grade, I think it was, the police had a 'fingerprint day' at the elementary school. They brought in a 5 print card and offered to fingerprint every child 'just in case'. I asked my parents about it a few years back, they said the only reason they signed any form was that they got to keep the card, not the police. I think the police did offer to store all of the cards, again, 'just in case'. I mean, "what would happen if your child was kidnapped from the house and the kidnapper set fire to the house to get rid of the fingerprint card? I mean, think of the children!"
That's where tabletop games and older MUDs offer a little extra help. There was a MUD based on the Rolemaster system, that started all skills with costs that were roughly comparable, and as you gained skills in, say a melee weapon, costs in other skills increased, say learning magic. If you wanted to play a hybrid, focusing on both spells and weapons each level, you would find that, while those two skill would increase slower than if you picked just one, other skills increased costs at an even faster rate. End game, if there was such a thing, you had a very specialized class of your own making that would have to spend an entire level to gain one point in any outside skill.
This would never fly in a modern MMO, as it requires that player to plan ahead from the very beginning or to re-roll once they learned how the system worked. A 'spec' system, where those points could be re-spent late in the game to allow players to shift their skills to match their play style would be interesting, but could result in players being able to shift from a tank style class to a healer or magic dps depending on the day and the needs of their group/guild. Starting from a basic school system, melee/damage caster/healing caster with different starting skill costs would allow for varied classes for each player, and not much more lock in than any other MMO out right now.
For obvious reasons a computer made of 'n' atoms cannot simulate a brain made of 'n' atoms as fast as that brain can work.
In real-time. It can simulate a brain, or the computer could be made of n^x atoms and approach real-time simulations. At that point, it is just turning an software Big-O problem into a hardware one.
Currently, I think (as a CS geek with a bit of chem and bio on the side) that a good model for neurons would be as individual processors with very, very high speed interconnects. Luckily, that parallels the way that supercomputers are currently designed, lots of processors with lots of high speed connections. Now, a brain simulation would not require that any one neuron be able to connect directly with any other neuron, so we wouldn't need a full mesh topology. Even if current investigations into such a simulation do not work, they may still offer some new neat tricks involving sparse maps for neuron interconnects, or faster supercomputers from very simple chips.
And entropy; well, we have a target minimum for the entropy of a computer simulating a brain. We should be aiming for the energy usage and entropy equivalent of one human brain. And that is one topic that it is just too early for me to google.
It seems to me that there is an implied comparison between young hackers and CS undergrads. That the two require completely different languages makes this two different questions. The first question that I read is "should young hackers start with the same languages as CS undergrades?" To which I can only answer "maybe." If the hacker is smart enough, has the resources and the desire to learn at a pace like that, and wants to learn the inner details of varying search algos, sure, throw them in the deep end. Scheme, C, assembly, give 'em the tools and let them work. Being a CS graduate student, or worse, is not about programing but research into ways to program for 10 years into the future. So, if that's what they want, let them learn the details they will need later.
If the young hacker-to-be doesn't want that, why throw them into the same muck? Give them a language that does what they want it to do: Processing, Squeek, Pascal, Prolog; Lua, Lisp, Scheme, whatever. If they don't care which search algorithm is best because they plan to use which ever one is built into the libraries they have, there is no overwhelming need to teach that detail. Let them program in ways that are fun to them, and see how different that can be compared to forcing all the young hackers to learn the same way.
To back you up, let's run some numbers.
Magnitude 0 star, Vega, has a visible flux density of around 2*10^6 photons / second cm^2 in certain visible ranges. Google turned that up, so did an old BadAstronomy forum post; here.
Magnitude 6 stars are visible, flux difference between a 0 and 6 star is defined as 1/(2.512^6). Working downward, of course; as a 0 is 2.512^6 more bright that a 6.
So, a human looking up at a magnitude 6 star is seeing a flux density of (2*10^6)/(2.512^6) or around 7,960 photons / second cm^2.
I know, not good astronomy to say the star is putting all that out, the magnitude 6 object might be reflecting, emiting, what ever. Point is, 3*10^3 is only slightly dimmer than an object that the human eye can already detect, and in fact a magnitude 7 object would be the source of (2*10^6)/(2.512^7) or just 3,168.78337 photons /second cm^2. Just barely brighter than the light they say they have detected from a human.
Granted, the article says a 'red glow' which could just be the writer looking at the picture, which is using color to represent density and not color. All they mention about the spectrum of the light is that it is not infrared. Could be visible spectrum, could not be. Either way, it looks to be bright enough to detect should it be in visible spectrum. It would be the very bottom of the visible range, and possibly discarded by the brain as noise in normal photon saturation we call daylight. The brain does filter a lot of noise, but I am not going to count it out just yet.
Oh, you are a dense one. Contracts are why the compromise won't be between the publishers and the photographers. If you inferred that I meant Wikipedia would compromise, that is your problem. That you are still stuck on thinking I mean Wiki after I explicitly explained the chain of people involved tells me you are either trolling me, or just bloody well don't get it.
I will spell it out for you in coding terms, since your sig suggests you like the GPL. HR drone hires Contractor to come into a company and write some code to fix, oh, anything. The contract the Contractor brings with him says that he owns the copyright on the code, but the company gets exclusive and non-sub-licensable rights to use it until some later time, say 3 years, at which point he can do what ever he wants with it. The HR drone accepts the contract, the Company signs off on it, and the contractor gets paid. Six months later, the HR Drone is working for another company, and wants to use the same patch, so calls up the Contractor and asks them to release the code under the GPL right then, so they can use it at the new job. Sure, the HRD might have been the person to put a stamp on the contract before, but they are not the one represented by it. Contractor may even want to oblige, but can not.
Same works with these pictures, with the Publicist signing off on the picture contract, and the photographer being the contractor. Neither party actually has a say in how the picture gets used once the ink is dry. That's where the courts come in, because if the new contract isn't up to snuff any party involved could wreck havok on the rest for breaking the original contract.
The publicists in TFA are just whining that they signed off on something and want to change the terms later. They all just need to suck it up and deal with it.
Yes, that would be the best compromise. But try to make it stick in court after the ink is dry on the contract. Or try to convince the studio executives, whom the star is under a likely work-for-hire contract, that the celeb should sign a release that allows a CC picture, or that the publicist should allow it. There is a whole chain of people involved other than celebrity, publicist, and photographer.
Aside, if you were not including me in the photographers can either deal with it or fuck off! then I am sorry for the snark directed at you in this and the other post. I don't respond well to certain insults, and tend to see them as a challenge to out-do the other person.
Miss the point where I said:
And what I expect to get paid depends on what the celebrity and their company want to do with the picture. Most of the time, they want exclusive control of the image, and I charge them for that.
You know, the sentence right before what you quoted; the one that put it in context?
I can be snarky too. Want to keep up the banter? ;-)
There are photographers, I would do the same deal for friends and family for no cost. I would do it for someone else for a different fee than normal, 10 or 20% maybe, more if I couldn't use the pictures for a portfolio or even to show other clients what their pictures might look like. But yeah, the fact that they want to change the terms after the contract is done is silly, then it would be easy to just do another photo shoot. Unlike a wedding, that is an option.
And I'm happy that you took the time to read the terms your photographer used. I hope the pictures turned out great and wish you and the spouse the best.
If the publicists and managers and so-forth would let the celebrity sign a contract to that extent, great. Chances are, they can't because the celeb is under contract to a studio.
My post was not about after-the-fact contract changes, though. If I shot a picture that someone else wants full rights to, I would charge more in most cases. How much more depends, from $0.02 cents* to 15x the base cost. They would still be bound by the terms of the model release they got their model to sign, but that is their problem. After the fact changes are a whole other ball-game, and get much more messy since the actual legal wording of contracts is involved. Both parties end up breaking their contracts and having to resign new ones. One party wants it done, the other is going to pay a lawyer to check the contract a second time. Cash will be traded in that case, from the party that wants the change to the other.
The photographer can't re-license it if the model release the celebrity signed does not allow them to. The publicist can not re-license it if the contract they signed with the photographer does not allow them to. Both parties understand this, and the article picked a few publicists who want to lay the blame off on photographers not being willing to change the rules after the fact.
You lost me.* You say most of the time, the publicist wants exclusive control of the image. Isn't that to say that you sign over the copyright to them as well, for all intents and purposes? I understand why the photographer can't do anything with the photos, but what's wrong with the publicist now?
Nope, it's not the same. Exclusivity licenses say they are the only people who can use the photograph, but the photographer keeps copyright. That alone does not give them the right to use it for what ever they want. And in some cases, exclusivity does not mean they have the right to sub-license the photograph.
I'm assuming that you don't ever get paid for that photo session again. You don't get a cut of what the publicist does with it, as you have them pay for everything up front, from what I understand of your post. Despite that, you say "If the publicist wants the picture under the CC, I am going to charge more for it." To me, that says your contract with the publicist would state "While I sign over all rights to this image to you, I forbid you from putting the image into the CC, public domain, etc."
Yup, that's what exclusive and non-sub-licensable would mean. As for not getting paid a second time, that's tricky. If the contract is exclusive, and the photographer can not use the photo commercially, then the photographer can not always use the picture in their portfolio. Certain courts have found that, since a portfolio is a form of advertising, that it counts as commercial gain.
If this is correct, I don't understand why you, or any photographer, would care especially what the publicist does with the photographs past their intended purpose? Publicist sells photos to magazine for untold thousands or millions of dollars, obviously the photographer needs to be compensated accordingly. But one of the unused photos or a photo that has already served it's indented purpose is put into the CC or public domain, why is additional compensation and restriction needed for what equates out to a donation in the photographer (as a bonus) and publisher's names?
Bankruptcy and news. Or any other act that invalidates the contract. On those conditions, the photographer could regain complete rights to the picture. Remember, the contract that grants someone else rights to use something does not grant them your copyright. It is arguable if you can turn over copyright, after the work is created, via a contract signed at a later date. As for unused photographs and who can turn those over to CC licenses, that would depend on the model release signed by the celebrity. Chances are, they did not sign a standard release like I would use, where for what ever fee the model releases all future rights to the picture to the photographer.
It works out like this. A photographer on the street, or even one shooting amateur head-shots is probably getting a full release from the model. In return, the model gets some rights to the picture and cash or equivalent. A celebrity probably signed a release that says the photo can only be used in a certain manner. Even if that photographer never licensed the photo, they are still hampered by the release. If the publicist licenses the photo, they are still bound by the model release they pushed in the first place. It's a fluster cluck, and neither party can straighten it out alone. If the publicist wants out of their contract and model release, the photographer is going to want to trade something. Either release to do what they want with the picture, or commercial rights to it again, something. Yes, there are CC-friendly photographers who would just let the picture go if the publicist asked nicely, but it a court might not recognize a friendly agreement as binding. So the publicist needs the photograph to sign a new contract, and vice versa. That new contract, to be valid, needs an exchange of financial value. And it's back to monetary exchange again.
The monetary value of the exchange is impor
It would be different in later derivative use. And it would be different from the normal contract, so publicists want to pay less. They would see it as a 'more free' picture in the free beer way, and not value it as much. When the photograph sees it on about the same terms as an exclusive license, and wants the same amount for it.
In this case It's the publicist that wants the picture on Wikipedia
From TFA:
"Representatives or publicists will contact us" horrified at the photographs on the site, said Jay Walsh, a spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates the Wikipedia encyclopedias in more than 200 languages. "They will say: 'I have this image. I want you to use this image.' But it is not as simple as uploading a picture that is e-mailed to us."
"In general," he added, "we need them to know that giving us a photograph from Annie Leibovitz wonâ(TM)t work unless Annie Leibovitz is O.K. with it."
Right, the publicist wants the non-CC picture on Wikipedia. No where did I see them wanting to get the picture released under a CC license. A few stars did, and got pictures licensed as such.
It seems to me that this is a simple case of needing two parties (photographer and publicist) to talk to each other, and for some money to change hands. That is, call Annie Leibovitz and ask her how much she wants to be paid, to make the photo CC. Simple market forces will decide whether it happens, it doesn't happen, or a cheaper photograph is found.
Yup, that's what needs to happen. See previous.
I get the feeling that everyone on /. hasn't a clue about photography laws in their country, and just wants someone to blame for not liking Creative Commons. It's never going to be that bloody simple.
Photographs are no different from any other IP, and you'll find that /. has a LOT of IP law geeks (for which you can thank Richard Stallman).
Yes, except that code does not have model rights, right of publicity, etc. If you have time to straighten out right of publicity, and how it differs between each state in the USA, since there is no federal law covering it, go for it. Same for standard photographer contracts that publicists want signed, versus what newspapers want, vs. what other media wants. And while you are at it, find a simple definition for what pictures need a model release, and which do not. Simple being single step of identifying the key points, not the usual four which still result in vague decisions.
So, other than those points, it is exactly like other IP law that Richard Stallman has taught /. about.
By my licensing the picture under the CC, I would be giving the publicist, and the rest of the world, more rights than a normal photo contract provides, provided the photo shoot wasn't done as work for hire (15x base cost, minimum since I can never use those pics in a portfolio).
As a professional programmer, I face pretty much the exact same situation. My solution: I got a job so that all of my work is for hire and my boss gets to deal with the business aspects.
As a photographer, I wouldn't mind a gig like that if I could keep enough rights to use the pictures in a professional portfolio later. But I'm not a professional photograph, just a geek with a camera and too much free time. And no coding job because the economy sucks.
BTW, this sounds like a great opportunity for an enterprising photographer. Offer to sell good pictures at reasonable rates to the celebrities themselves so they they (and their agents) can make sure they're represented well on places like Wikipedia. If the best photographers don't find that acceptable, I'm sure there are plenty of up-and-comers who'd love the publicity and the professional connections.
Don't doubt it. Find a publicist who wants to pay anything for a CC image, or even wants a CC picture out there on the internet, and we can make some industry connections. I'll cut ya in for an even share of the profit if you work the gig as a two legged light stand. *grins*
I agree with that. I was mentioning the two extremes figuring people would get the middle ground would be a compromise. But I was replying to a post that focused solely on the copyright issue. I have also explained, in replies to other posts, why the publicists won't pay extra for that.
And there are lots of other scales for price of a picture. Client gets exclusive rights for X years, after which photographer gets rights to re-license it. Client gets non-exclusive license. Client gets exclusive license and allows photographer to keep picture in portfolio, which is not the same as Client getting exclusive license and the photographer keeping copyright. Usually exclusive licenses prevent any other use for commercial gain, and portfolios count.
To clarify, publicists don't actually want CC images of their client out there. They want images they control, so that someone down the road can not use a picture of the celebrity in an unflattering light. The few who may want CC images probably don't want to pay even $x for a picture, and want the photographer to license it to them under the CC. In the end, everyone gets screwed, but there isn't really anyone to drop the blame on.
It is all in the contract. Movie camera men are creating someone else's vision, usually the director's, and sign contracts stating that they do not get copyright. Directors, same deal with regard to the studio. Photographers have just maintained the ability to keep the contracts on terms that favor them.
As for kings ransom, work out the cost of a photo shoot. A photographer and several assistants, 8 to 12 hours on the day of the shoot, with several more days following for culling the bad photos and touching up the good ones. Several days after that for anything else the client wants done, air brushing, compositing multiple images. And assistants are not going to work for minimum wage. Well, some will work cheaper for a big name photographer to get artistic experience. Assuming a photographer and 4 assistants, everyone works minimum wage, and other than the photo shoot they only work 8 hour days for a week, the total cost would be $1160. But that doesn't account for skill, gear, or anything else the photographer brings, and would just get you a mediocre photographer. Who would, out of a day, get about 10 or so good shots and may be willing to sell them for $100 each.
Under certain circumstances, yes. Under others, I'll sign off all rights to a picture for a good cause. But I am not a professional photographer who is spending all day, scheduled around someone else's time, taking pictures for their use that I never expect to be able to use again.
Find a publicist willing to pay work-for-hire wages, or a photographer willing to do it, and find a publicist willing to let a picture be licensed under the CC, and then you have a story. But the publicists aren't going to want a picture of their client out there that can be used for derivative works if they can help it, and they pay a photographer to avoid that. Tell me, if someone were to offer you $5000 for a single photograph under restricted terms, or nothing for one that you can later release on what ever terms you want, and it took you all day to get that picture, which option would you choose?
It's not a matter of the photographer wanting to license a low res under the CC, it's them being able to. A publicist is not going to sign a waver to that effect, because it will mean that anyone down the line can do what ever they want with the picture. And a publicist is not going to let the photographer off without signing an exclusive license.
I get the feeling that everyone on /. hasn't a clue about photography laws in their country, and just wants someone to blame for not liking Creative Commons. It's never going to be that bloody simple.
But surely the photographers DO maintain the copyright, they just license the image freely. If they have a problem with 'freedom', they should just say that instead. "We photographers don't like freedom". There, I restated the problem, clearly.
Yes, obviously the problem is that photographers don't like freedom.
What the hell, people? Someone who wants to maintain rights to a picture hates freedom? Have we gotten so damn jaded that this gets modded as insightful? What happened to the photographers freedom to do what they want with a picture, to write the terms of their contract and set the price they want. You want a picture under the CC, get a photographer to take one! Don't blame the rest for using those copyright/copyleft freedoms as they choose. You don't have to like it, and they don't have to like the CC. But blaming it on 'hating freedom'? How about claims that you 'hate freedom' because you want to force CC on everyone else?
pay me an extra $100.00
That is the part that neither the publicist nor Wikipedia want to do. And who can blame either of them. Wiki doesn't want to pay for every photo, and the publicist would love it if the photographer would just put the picture out there under the CC, so they and the celebrity can use it without paying the photographer any extra. Win-Win for everyone but the photographer.
Hmm, let's work this out from the photographer's perspective. I go out to a studio, with all my gear and assistants, and do a model shoot of a celebrity. It's a whole days work, with hair and makeup changes, wardrobe, setting of lights before people get there, and tearing stuff down when they all leave. Maybe I'm lucky and have a stocked stage someplace, or maybe I want to shoot them on location somewhere. End of the day, I expect to get paid for this work. And what I expect to get paid depends on what the celebrity and their company want to do with the picture. Most of the time, they want exclusive control of the image, and I charge them for that. That means, I can not turn around and re-license the picture to Wiki under the CC, as the contract we have forbids it. That's the publicists problem, not mine. If the publicist wants the picture under the CC, I am going to charge more for it.
Counter-intuitive, I know, but hear me out. By my licensing the picture under the CC, I would be giving the publicist, and the rest of the world, more rights than a normal photo contract provides, provided the photo shoot wasn't done as work for hire (15x base cost, minimum since I can never use those pics in a portfolio). Because I would lose future rights on the photo, for now and forever, I would charge accordingly. It's not greed, it's pragmatism. You say that a photographer retains their copyright, but if the picture is out there under the CC who needs to license it from the photographer under anything more restrictive? Since that is lost future potential revenue, it's going to cost more, period.
I know this opinion won't fly well with the /. crowd. All data and stuff should be free unless it's the work I do for the company on their time and then I should be paid like a king for it. Funny that photographers think the same way about the pictures they take on someone else's time.
Oh, I suspect the publicists do get it. However, the photographers get it too, and the photographers don't give a rats arse about what the publicists want. If a A-list celebrity wants their picture for something; book, movie poster, whatever; the photographer is going to license the picture to them and charge accordingly. They want control over the picture, that has a set rate. They want exclusive control of the picture, somewhat higher. They want copyright of the picture, even higher still. Publicists are not going to be willing to pay that, and just want Wikipedia to play by their rules.
There really should be a compromise here. But I don't think it will be between the photographers and the publicists, and I can't say I blame the guys behind the camera.