UK.Gov passes Instagram Act: All your pics belong to everyone now

I think we are looking at this issue through myopic lenses of the older generation. I talked with my daughter (a Millennial) about sharing her photography (at 13, she is an avid photographer, and uploads her stuff to Instagram and Flickr regularly.) She doesn't care if it gets used beyond her control. To her, a photograph is ephemeral, and if one gets appropriated, she'll take another.

I'm finding that the idea of the photographer as a business person or creative artist is largely lost on the youngest photographers. They are just taking - and sharing - pictures.


Very much my impression also.
Taking and sharing is what they do .
The image has no other value to the youngsters today.
 
Roger:

I agree with what you are saying, but government seems to progressively remove hard earned money from the pockets of those that work hard and place that money, or services in the pockets of those that might see the income as 'free' money from the government. Over time, this income becomes the expectation. This governmental disrespecting of individual rights and the basic individual right to benefit from your own work has many facets. This is just one small example.
 
Of course, copyright is meaningless if you are not willing to defend it assiduously. Disney goes after ANY unauthorized use of Mickey's image. If a defendant can prove that they didn't defend it in the past, the court would throw the case out. (that's my understanding, anyway.)
 
Roger:

I agree with what you are saying, but government seems to progressively remove hard earned money from the pockets of those that work hard and place that money, or services in the pockets of those that might see the income as 'free' money from the government. Over time, this income becomes the expectation. This governmental disrespecting of individual rights and the basic individual right to benefit from your own work has many facets. This is just one small example.
Not sure.

There are two separate issues here:

1 A right to profit from what we create

2 A duty to share (via taxes) a PART of our income, for the common good (roads, police...) and to help those less fortunate than ourselves. Note: not those lazier than ourselves, but those who suffer misfortune.

What we're talking about here is an absolute removal of the profits deriving from what we create, not a payment of a portion of it. For a brilliant analysis of this, see Jaron Lanier's Who Owns the Future, http://www.amazon.com/Who-Owns-Future-Jaron-Lanier/dp/1451654960

Those whose income comes from manipulating the actual productive work of others will obviously find it useful to pretend that this is part of the same trend. But it isn't. Those who produce things that others are willing to pay for, whether short stories or motor cars, are the founders and true creators of wealth. Others (such as bankers) are more or less useful parasites.

Government is a separate class, dedicated (again, more or less successfully) to the equitable redistribution of wealth. Equitable redistribution is no concern of (for example) a private equity company

Cheers,

R.
 
But how does this apply to content created and stored outside the UK ? As long as it's viewed in the UK, it's free for all ?
 
Hard little truth

Hard little truth

It is time for anyone who owns a camera to face a hard little truth:
Social network sites like Facebook flagrantly EXPLOIT photographers, ABUSE their rights and STEAL their work.

If you are serious about photography and place any kind of value - monetary, artistic, personal or otherwise - on your images, BOYCOTT these websites that steal, exploit and abuse your work.

Don't legitimize the obnoxious, unethical behavior of these amoral billionaire thieves by volunteering to be exploited by their onerous and abusive user agreements.

JMHO.
 
I hope this helps your understanding of the "WORLD WIDE WEB"

Thanks for that friendly reminder !
My point is legislation is local to a country, how can you enforce that rule for content created and stored outside the UK ? This is one reason torrent trackers host their domains in more favourable climates, or why the same content is considered public domain (and hence free to download) in one country but not another
 
...
My point is legislation is local to a country, how can you enforce that rule for content created and stored outside the UK ? This is one reason torrent trackers host their domains in more favourable climates, or why the same content is considered public domain (and hence free to download) in one country but not another
Sounds to me that, in any complaint raised before a court on this matter, you'd want to choose (if possible) to bring it in a jurisdiction where the law is friendly to your side of the issue. :)
 
But how does this apply to content created and stored outside the UK ? As long as it's viewed in the UK, it's free for all ?

As long as a unattributed version is accessible from the UK (which will be hard to disprove), UK based corporations may grab and use it free of charge.
 
I think at this point in my life and career in photography, I have actually come to fully *HATE* what digital and the Internet has done to what was once something that was a noble pursuit, a well respected profession and an often life shaping medium that took hard work, dedication and talent to rise above the norm.

Amazingly, I am still doing well and even have a bright outlook in fully ridding my self of digital and shooting film only for my work....but my god has photography turned into a bunch of garbage that is overrun with photoshop fantasy and a is an outright free for all.

I think this new development is a sign that everyone's beloved Internet is about to reveal just how damaging it will eventually show itself to be. We have bought into a technological promise land that is actually a corporate monster and it is going to consume much, much more than photography...
 
Not sure.

There are two separate issues here:

1 A right to profit from what we create

2 A duty to share (via taxes) a PART of our income, for the common good (roads, police...) and to help those less fortunate than ourselves. Note: not those lazier than ourselves, but those who suffer misfortune.

What we're talking about here is an absolute removal of the profits deriving from what we create, not a payment of a portion of it. For a brilliant analysis of this, see Jaron Lanier's Who Owns the Future, http://www.amazon.com/Who-Owns-Future-Jaron-Lanier/dp/1451654960

Those whose income comes from manipulating the actual productive work of others will obviously find it useful to pretend that this is part of the same trend. But it isn't. Those who produce things that others are willing to pay for, whether short stories or motor cars, are the founders and true creators of wealth. Others (such as bankers) are more or less useful parasites.

Government is a separate class, dedicated (again, more or less successfully) to the equitable redistribution of wealth. Equitable redistribution is no concern of (for example) a private equity company

Cheers,

R.

Here we have been reminded again that IP rights are a two tier system: if you are big corporate entity the rights are nearly absolute, and the Government will look after them, employing all the taxpayer paid apparatus of police/courts/prisons/legislature. If on the other hand you are a small individual you are left mostly on your own devices, and in practice you may actually be stripped of your IP rights (the for profit registration system clearly place an economic divide between those who have the means, and those who have not).
 
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it only matters if someone else makes money from your creativity. other wise you put it on the web to share.
 
This is why I hate instagram. But honestly, it's just meant for 12 year olds posting pictures of their pineapple sundae's, nothing more. The joke is on legitimate/respected companies like the one (times/new yorker?) who told their staff photojournalists to cover the NY hurricane damage with instagram. What a joke.
 
The not-so fine print at Facebook says nothing of the sort. There is nothing to be gained from ownership when they have rights to unlimited use of all content on their platform. Unlimited use, rather than ownership, is the model. Declaring copyright over content posted to Facebook is irrelevant.

RFF, BTW, claims ownership over all content posted here, something which is a very different matter.
I'm not sure how I should read the highlighted statement.
Just in the bottom of the home page of this forum, there is an obvious statement: All content on this site is Copyright Protected and owned by its respective owner
Same for the publishing platform I use: All images are copyright of their owners

What does this mean for a UK user, say of RFF? Does this act mean all the copyright and intellectual property statements on this site are obsolete and of no importance?
 
Isn't the article from the overtly sensationalist Register?
I'm having trouble parsing quite a lot of what is written, like this:

All your pics belong to everyone now...
With

"The Act contains changes to UK copyright law which permit the commercial exploitation of images where information identifying the owner is missing, so-called "orphan works", by placing the work into what's known as extended collective licensing schemes".

Apart from the false assertion that owning content creation is a 'basic human right' I'm not sure how if if its true that the UK Government have given the right to ALL you works to anyone who wishes to use it.
Surely some sort of assertion of ownership should give some protection? Possibly I'm confused and not a lawyer, certainly I wouldn't post any work online...
Certainly I can't take this very seriously.


Lets say if someone is aspiring to steal photos online, how could one make money from those photos?
Its a valid question.

Pretty easily. For instance a photographer friend of mine takes images of food for his living. Images were taken from his web site in order for a catering company to show their prowess in food preparation.
That company didn't make that food, ask permission or make payment. Yet their glossy brochure was filled with his and others images probably culled from Google images, a very impressive looking brochure sure to impress wedding and business clients, certainly helping them to earn money...
 
I do believe Sweden has an extradition agreement with the UK, so them copyright infringers better watch out :D


One a more serious note, I'm all for that people should share each others images, I don't mind at all actually; as long as it's non commercial. When somebody starts making money of my work without me getting paid on the other hand, then I'm not happy.
 
Isn't the article from the overtly sensationalist Register?
I'm having trouble parsing quite a lot of what is written, like this:

All your pics belong to everyone now...
With

"The Act contains changes to UK copyright law which permit the commercial exploitation of images where information identifying the owner is missing, so-called "orphan works", by placing the work into what's known as extended collective licensing schemes".

Apart from the false assertion that owning content creation is a 'basic human right' I'm not sure how if if its true that the UK Government have given the right to ALL you works to anyone who wishes to use it.
Surely some sort of assertion of ownership should give some protection? Possibly I'm confused and not a lawyer, certainly I wouldn't post any work online...
Certainly I can't take this very seriously.
Yes, it does, but the 'some' is the sticking point. You've always been faced with the simple truth that obtaining redress for stolen pictures was expensive -- "The law, like the saloon bar of the Ritz, is open to all" -- but now there's the additional weasel excuse, "We didn't think it belonged to anyone." Once it's been through a few unscrupulous hands -- "picture laundering" -- a photograph can be very hard to trace. It's quicker and easier to hope that no-one catches you than it is to make an effort to license a picture, and if you're caught, you plead that it's an 'orphan work'.

Jaron Lanier in Who Owns the Future is the only person I know to have thought hard about what what noisycheerse describes: Social network sites like Facebook flagrantly EXPLOIT photographers, ABUSE their rights and STEAL their work.

Cheers,

R.
 
Yes but some protection isn't the same as NO protection as implied in the article. Honestly the Register is one of the worst of the sensationalist press on the internet.

The 'weasel' excuse is easily mitigated by embedding exif as well as making the image less than 600 pixels wide, add a © symbol on a layer over the image. It will be very hard to claim 'orphan work' if the image is copyrighted elsewhere (that's my understanding)

Photographs are pretty easy to trace with current tools like TinEye
http://tineye.com/
The offline use is harder to detect though, I find I can't get that exited about this, especially considering the errors in the 'opinion driven article' cited.
People have always stolen images, even before the internet. The internet has made it easier in some cases. Putting up images that have monetary value on Flickr isn't a clever move.
 
Yes but some protection isn't the same as NO protection as implied in the article. Honestly the Register is one of the worst of the sensationalist press on the internet.

The 'weasel' excuse is easily mitigated by embedding exif as well as making the image less than 600 pixels wide, add a © symbol on a layer over the image. It will be very hard to claim 'orphan work' if the image is copyrighted elsewhere (that's my understanding)

Photographs are pretty easy to trace with current tools like TinEye
http://tineye.com/

The offline use is harder to detect though, I find I can't get that exited about this, especially considering the errors in the 'opinion driven article' cited.
Para 1: True.

Para 2: Copyright is automatic. You're right that if a copyrighted version of the image appears elsewhere, it would be hard to say it was not copyrighted. But a lot of people are quite happy claiming false copyrights (look at reprints of out-of-copyright books) and where's the incentive for a thief to check? Exemplary damages should be built into the system.

Para 3: Again true, but why would someone who wanted to steal the image be bothered to try?

Para 4: Theft is theft, whether on-line or off-line.

Cheers,

R.
 
I understand your point Roger theft is indeed theft. It's just very hard for me to see if you've copyrighted the image anyone could claim 'orphaned work'.
Under the proposed legislation I think the onus would be on them to prove that they have found the work in an orphaned state, that is they will need to supply the link or the site where they found the work to assert that.

Para 3? I think you misunderstand; the TinEye tool is for photographers to trace their stolen images, not for end user verification.

Give it a try, you can download plug ins for most browsers...

149943157.jpg


Checking to see if your images have been stolen is just a right click away.
 
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