"Orphan Works" poll

[felipe]

Pherdi, Robert, Kevin and John, Chris thanks a bunch for signing the petition, I hope we can make a point, with 474 people and counting!


But time to cut the crap!

I posted the first thread on april 29th, 600+ views so far, and thirteen! days later we have FIVE signatures, and whew, a whooping 17 people taking the poll, utterly impressive.
Is my wording incoherent brabble or aren't the facts clear enough? This ain't no fuckin rocket science!


I may not be the only one thinking this but I'll say it out loud anyways; I am appaled by the apathic, narrow minded naivete the remaining 99.95% of the members of this board bring to this issue.

Don't get me wrong, I realize some people might come here to relax from work, have fun and whatnot. But you guys are so full of yourselves with the fancy gear, and so focussed on playing nice there is no synapse left for talking problems?!

Nobody will give a f*** if I don't post here anymore and frankly I won't miss it, but you should be fuckin ashamed of yourselves. The "esprit du corps" on this board is 99.95% pure original bullshit a la carte.

You can just ignore this, or send some of the ususal "family values" zealots forward, do what you want, I hope I made my point.

Hope I didn't spoil the party!

Cheers,
Phil

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

It is indeed extremely sad Phil. FWIW i'm surprised and disappointed at the low response too.
Strange 'cos many people signed it over at Lightstalkers.

 

[Rich Silfver]

What happened to "There won't be any calling names and pointing fingers"?

 

[f/stopblues]

I participated because of the issue, and I can appreciate your intensity towards it, but I'm not sure that last post is an effective way to open the ears of our members. I wouldn't want something silly to turn people off of this thread.

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

Rich
no one's pointing any fingers per se - just making a very clear statistical point.

 

[felipe]

What happened to "There won't be any calling names and pointing fingers"?

Rich, if you bitch about this, I hope you're bitchin about OW too. :angel:

I may be the DEVIOUS, arrogant prick, but sitting it out and playing nice is not one of my qualities.

Chris,
I hear ya! But statistically with 5 votes in two weeks, we'll be sitting here playing nice until the next ice age.
I'll gladly revert to playing happy kiddo all over again if more people take awareness of the issue at hand here.

That doesn't necessarily include signing the LS petition which you can do over here btw.:
http://www.lightstalkers.org/final-draft-copyright-petition-for-those-who-have-not-signed-yet
but spreading the word and freaking out uncontrollably alone would be a start.

Cheers,
Phil

 

[erikhaugsby]

Question: what is there that I can do? Put blatant copyrights on every one of my photos with all of my contact info?

What are some of you people doing to really secure your photos?

 

[felipe]

Question: what is there that I can do? Put blatant copyrights on every one of my photos with all of my contact info?

What are some of you people doing to really secure your photos?

Erik,
Since you asked, you could sign our petition, or any other for that matter!
Speak up while you still can, you don't have to make a living in this industry to oppose the bill or give voice to a protest! Tell other people, make them aware, be angry about it!

The LS petition is 489 people strong and counting, why not make that 490!

Just pm me and I'll forward your sig to Gayle or sign up directly over here:
http://www.lightstalkers.org/final-draft-copyright-petition-for-those-who-have-not-signed-yet


To answer your question more specifically:
There are several ways to "secure" your photos, check the other OW thread for more posts on this matter, Bill posted some good advice.

basically, it burns down to this:
a) Put a visible Watermark style credit line over the whole picture so people can't crop it out
b) Attach a credit line as metadata. (can be stripped with one click though)
c) Showcase your images in a secure flash .swf file.

ALL of those "solutions" have at least one or two caveats, and basic credit lines, metadata and flash files can be stripped or ripped even by an amateur.

d) Don't showcase large Hires images on the web.
e) Keep the images in context to your name (i.e. your site)
f) Register them with the copyright office (US)

There is nothing you can do to *really* prevent your images to be ripped in at least some way, but you can hamper the effort necessary to do so.

And the only thing you could do to prevent your work from becoming "orphaned" if it's ripped out of the context of your name, is a big fat centered watermark.
I don't know a single photographer whose client would put up with this, even if they got the image for free, and I suppose even a 3 year old would bitch about it.

Cheers,
Phil

 

[Pherdinand]

Felipe, may I speak freely and clearly to you? Just trying to answer your question about why so few.

Two points I wish to make:
1. The post you wrote and the links, are very long and tiring, and difficult to get to the point. People will have to spend quite some time (actively!) if they want to find out where they sign their names. People comning here usually spend much less time on one thread, in my experience. People are busy, or lazy maybe, or too ignorant, you have to accept this if you want to reach something.
2. As Rich wrote... You are way too aggressive in your approach. Aggressive against the reader i mean. "Nobody will give a f*** if I don't post here anymore and frankly I won't miss it, but you should be fuckin ashamed of yourselves. The "esprit du corps" on this board is 99.95% pure original bullshit a la carte." Etcetera. These words will not make any good to your reputation here, and even worse, they will not do any good to the reputation of the cause you are fighting for.

Let me tell you what would I think if I read this thread right now as a newcomer:
"What the f*** is this guy's problem? Who is he to bash 99.95% of the forum members. I shall nbot read further and I will ignore him coz i don't need to take such crap from noone, not in real life nor on a photo forum."
IS this the reaction you were looking for?

Regards
pherdinand

 

[felipe]

Pherdinand, thanks, critisism very much appreciated!

I know I am not a rethoric wunderkind and I edited the initial post to bring some more structure to it FWIW. If anyone else has anything to add to it, please step forward!

You are certainly right and I alrady mentioned I am aware of the fact most people don't come here for this kind of posts.
But being apologetic about at least some hundreds of people not giving a shit because they aren't used to reading into more than 10 word of a post is hardly acceptable, which leads me to your second point.

I already said this, but I'll say it again.
There have been six (Thanks Richard!) people giving their voice to the LS petition, with 649 views on the original thread and 300+ on this one, and I can only guess, 7000+ members on RFF? Anything less than 70 people is less than 0.05% people giving a shit, which is a number I don't really have to comment on do I?

The OW issue is so blatantly WRONG it's almost laughable, and even if I would've posted the initial info as incoherrent brabble (which hopefully is not the case), "cut copyright" "severe" "attorney" "oppose" and "government" should've rung a bell.

I keep repeating myself over and over, but to see that less than 0.05% of us here decide to read up on this, take action or just snap and spam the word in my opinion is every reason to start barking.

You notice your description of the offended newcomer is absolutely in line with my general perception of the 99.95% I mentioned in my rant btw.?

Cheers,
Phil

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

SNIP
1. The post you wrote and the links, are very long and tiring, and difficult to get to the point. People will have to spend quite some time (actively!) if they want to find out where they sign their names. People comning here usually spend much less time on one thread, in my experience. People are busy, or lazy maybe, or too ignorant, you have to accept this if you want to reach something.
pherdinand

I'm sure this thread is going to get closed soon but really Pherdinand if this is the main reason why no one will step forward it's very sad. If i may suggest in the politest way possible way ( :angel: ) - rather than directing your frustration towards Phil's efforts (and i don't really see why he should apologise) why not direct it at those who haven't signed for whatever reason?

FWIW i've posted Phil's thread on the RPS and Leica Customer Forums to see if there is a better response.

 

[Pherdinand]

Simon, there was no frustration directed anywhere, neither took he offense, i think. I also did not say anything about apologize. Just gave him my oppinion about why people might not react. I could be completely wrong with that.

Additionally, i would not direct anything to anyone who did not sign for whatever reason. If you are an angel, a revolutioner, a saint, that does not give you the right to say everyone else not agreeing with your ideas is a devil (or an "apathic, narrow minded naivete" for that matter).

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

Ok Pherdinand but that's how i read your post but now you've put me right. Thank you.
Both Phil and I are very frustrated with the lack of response - guess it shows on my part.
There is a saying which i think is relevant here -that goes something along the lines of "you can take a horse to water you can't make it drink".

 

[Pherdinand]

that's right as well, Simon, but you have to be careful with such sayings cos some people might take it as you call them a horse. 🙂)

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

that's right as well, Simon, but you have to be careful with such sayings cos some people might take it as you call them a horse. 🙂)

LOL Pherdinand 😀 😀 😀 but the sad thing is you may be right.
Ok well i got leave this particular sandpit and to go back to wet printing...........

 

[felipe]

Simon, there was no frustration directed anywhere, neither took he offense, i think. I also did not say anything about apologize. Just gave him my oppinion about why people might not react. I could be completely wrong with that.

Additionally, i would not direct anything to anyone who did not sign for whatever reason. If you are an angel, a revolutioner, a saint, that does not give you the right to say everyone else not agreeing with your ideas is a devil (or an "apathic, narrow minded naivete" for that matter).

I didn't take offence, I didn't take it as a cue to apologise, and I think you are quite right in your assumptions. Infact I can't think up any other reason but yours (on why the folks don't care).

What you're saying on the lurkers IMHO misses the point though.
Of course you're not supposed to bedevil them for not agreeing with you, but you should at least be righteously indignant when they're sitting it out while it concerns "yourself and thy neighbor".

Now let me saddle my horse.. 😀

Cheers,
Phil

 

[Al Kaplan]

It's possible that people who already signed a petition elsewhere won't "double vote" by signing the petition here also.