I was catching up on my blog reading briefly this morning and happened to catch a brief entry on Lawrence Lessig’s blog about an online petition he felt compelled to sign: “Against the Orphan Works Act of 2008“. As many of you may know Mr. Lessig has been vocal in his opposition to the current form of the Orphans Work Legislation now being reviewed in Washington D.C. His op-ed piece in the New York
Up until recently it’s been nearly impossible to know for certain where your online photos might end up on the Internet. As we’ve heard over the years a growing vocal minority will be the first to jump on photographers complaining about online image theft stating “Get used to it. You put it online. That’s how it is.” This argument is anything but true and frustrates the hell out of photo
As a follow up to yesterdays Copyright 2.0: Copyright In The Hyper Digital Age (Video) post… If you’re just now starting to hear about Orphan Works legislation read the link below on the Stock Artists Alliance web site to get up to speed. If you’re a photographer, even if you consider yourself an amateur, it is in your best interest to lobby your Senator or Congressperson. The second link below is t
The 16th and 17th episode of EXIF and Beyond has been released. These episodes feature an interview with Jeff Sedlik, President and CEO of the PLUS Coalition (usePLUS.org), current Professor of Photography at the Art Center College of Design and also a past president of the Advertising Photographers of America (APA). Discussed is the Picture Licensing Universal System (PLUS). Although relatively young by comparison t
Last week I discussed the Adobe Photoshop Express terms of use (ToU) and how the wording was nothing short of a rights grab (see Adobe Photoshop Express & The Mindless Photo Rights Grab). By weeks end John Nack posted an update, regarding the ToU, that “the Photoshop Express team has made some changes”. Reading the paraphrased revisions on John’s blog post alleviated what concerns I had, but whe
As you may know I’m not a big proponent of using Creative Commons licensing for my photographic work (see Creative Commons: A Great Concept, I’ll Never Employ), but I do recognize it has value in some contexts (see EXIF and Beyond: Lawrence Lessig Interview). A recent development caught my eye that highlights one of the weaknesses of the Creative Commons model. That weakness is that the system of Creative Com
This past week Adobe launched beta of Photoshop Express, a little over 1 year since Adobe announced its intention to put Photoshop online (see Photoshop In A Software As A Service (SaaS) Model?). Unfortunately for Adobe what proved to be most noteworthy about this new application is not its functionality, but the rights grab they’re making for each image that is processed in the online application. Adobe makes
Following up on the disconcerting trend of photography contests grabbing the image rights of unsuspecting photographers I found it comforting to see Pro-Imaging.org, a professional photography association based in the UK, put forward proposed standards to be adopted by photography contests. See my previous post “How The Rights To Your Photo Are Being Hijacked Through Photo Contests & Social Media†for more on