Ask Anyone (Or Why Lauren lost control of her internet content)
So I posted some pictures of the WordCamp women and ended up in a discusion which turned ugly.
I’ve been called an idiot. A moron. And other bad stuff. I was expecting that because the post was a bit sexist and obnoxious.
But that’s not why I’m a moron and an idiot.
No, I’m a moron because of my views on copyright, respect, and who ultimately controls content on the net.
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the death of plagiarism. My work was stolen and I was pissed but then I thought about it. Few agreed with my conclusion but it’s the right one.
Do you think you really control your content once it’s on the net?
Ask anyone in the music business.
Ask anyone in the movie business.
Ask anyone in the newspaper business.
Ask anyone.
You may not like it but you only gain control by letting go.
The internet is built on stealing content. Except we call it links.
So how do we give the author credit?
In Lauren’s case I do it by linking back to the pictures source. But some are not happy with that. They want other things. Names and other stuff.
But here’s the problem with that reasoning.
You don’t get to decide how people dissiminate your content and credit you. Sorry.
The people decide.
Ask the music business.
Ask the movie business.
Ask the newspaper business.
Ask anyone.
Explore posts in the same categories: blog, bloggers, blogging, idiot, moron, Wordcamp
chartreuse 
August 8, 2006 at 6:43 pm
No, I can’t stop you, Prince. But I can say how I feel about it. And I do. I could get lawyers and such involved. But I don’t because that would be inane.
Also, I’d just like to point out that I don’t think that I contributed to the conversation turning ugly. I hope you agree. I didn’t call you or anyone else involved names either. Just wanted to point that out since people reading this might get the impression that I did.
August 8, 2006 at 6:47 pm
Char —
Are you familiar with the copyright issue going on with Flickr right now?
It’s a little different situation, but I think lends itself to what you present here. Apparently this dude (who shall remain nameless here as far as I’m concerned) took the liberty upon himself to decide how he would dissiminate the photos that others took and placing it on both his own seperate portfolio site, and his own Flickr account page.
Some got mad, called him some bad names publicly, and he (the alleged theif) sent the one he stole from a cease and desist.
It’s a crazy story that you should read up on.
Why?
Well, everything you write here sounds great in theory. But in practice, as indicated by the whole trashy mess outlined in the link above, only turns out to be a big mess that will only result in more stringent controls on the very thing you’re trying to free.
It’s cool and all that we’re all part of this army of one in this new media revolution. But it’s a waste if we’re all just going to start gunning for each other.
August 8, 2006 at 7:01 pm
There are only two fights going on. The people clinging to the old way vs. people embracing the new way.
The music business have been fighting and losing this same war for years. Instead of listening to the way people want content, they are trying to decide.
The solution for the labels.
Lawyers and other letters.
But in the end they still are losing. Becuse ultimately the people decide.
Lauren, sorry if I insinuated you made it ugly. It was the others in the conversation.
I just won’t use your pictures. Nothing personal, but if it bothers you the way I credit you then I will use the one of the two options I have.
Ask the music business. 🙂
August 8, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Nice defense. But I don’t agree with you.
August 8, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Yep. Every war throughout the history of time has been fought on the grounds of old -v-new.
Problem is, the myriad of armies involved in these battles have all had a different agenda on how to get to the new.
Same here. You’re assuming that everyone is aligned to the same vision. We’re not though. Ask a million “armies of one” about the new media and how to get there, and you’re sure to get at least 845,224 different routes and strategies for success.
That’s a big alignment that needs to be done. Hope you’re in shape.
August 8, 2006 at 8:16 pm
Good point.
I think what people are missing is that history shows that you cannot stop progress with rules.
The law didn’t save the record business, and it won’t save Lauren.
It isn’t personal. It’s just fact.
Sorry.
August 8, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Wait, what am I not being saved from here?
August 8, 2006 at 10:16 pm
I didn’t read the other strand, I was too busy looking at all the women at Wordcamp.
But I remember when you decided to credit your photos with links. It was a conscious decision.
It makes sense because it’s the same way you credit your links. You don’t say, “Fred wrote a great article”, you just write the gist of the article and link to it.
A photo is the gist of the article. And you link to it. I can see whose it is if I mouse over it.
The most interesting element of this copyright battle to me is that you actually aren’t publishing the photos. You are publishing a snippet of code that tells my computer to go to the source and look at them.
If my museum has a window
and there’s a billboard with your painting on it outside that window
and I put some of my prose up next to that window
am I stealing your picture or just decorating my wall?
August 8, 2006 at 10:25 pm
A photographer is an artist. The photos he takes belong to his creative impulse and the universe. The cluetrain left the station years ago, but many seem to have left their tickets in the trash bin.
You are correct Char. The old media and “protection” and DRM rootkits are dead.
Nobody owns anything anymore and nearly everything is free. Linking is not “stealing” but is a form of sharing and connecting content. The truly creative person does not cling to anything, but is always expressing the infinite creativity of the universe.
I will do anything I want with anything I create. If I take someone’s photo, they can kiss my ass if they think they can tell me what to do with it. I am moral, so I would not do anything horrible, but I can use my art materials any way I choose. And no one, least of all antiquated Pre-Cluetrain lawas, can stop me.
The best business model is the Post Secret formula: get rich by doing next to nothing. Easy raking in of dough by setting up a site that users put all the content into, and retain no rights over any of it.
A mesh and a flow of image and information. A free for all anarchy that is like a breath of fresh air.
Any Content. Any Time. Any Format. Any Amount. Any Frequency. Any Place. That is the Information Utopia we are heading into, and Chartreuse sees it clearly.
August 8, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Hi, I’m the person who originally asked Char to remove my photo. I think things have really spiralled here. I’d love it if Char did talk about women at the conference, but no, he posted a list of “chicks” that gave the wrong impression, that the conference was well attended by women. It wasn’t. It was, as we call it, a “sausage fest.” But back to photo rights. Char chased me down the street trying to take my photo, and kind of realizing at that time what he wanted to do (he had been taking photos of all the women), I allowed him to take a photo of my hand cover his lens. That photo he could post. The photo of me and my friend goofing off in front of my old house, no, that was for my family and friends. I just don’t know, or trust (and that trust is pretty much depleted) him that much. No it’s not jus ta link to antoher photo, that would be a link. He’s re-posting the photo by embedding it with an image tag. There was no ‘hey lauren can I post your photos’ wherein she could ask me. Nope. I guess I’ll write more on my blog. Your opinions of copyright and web publishing may change, Char, when your daughter has some compromising photos that get reproduced all over myspace. Think about it.
August 8, 2006 at 11:31 pm
Char, I’ll still be reading your blogs… take away the pictures and what do you get? I’m not here for the pics… =)
August 9, 2006 at 12:14 am
Ahhh – decide the outcome in wiki-court 😉
August 9, 2006 at 12:21 am
Anna, You didn’t “allow” him to take a picture of your hand covering the lens because you don’t have the right to tell him not to take your picture when you’re in public.
And your arguments have nothing to do with copyright, they’re about privacy. But your photos posted online are not private.
If you disagree with the context in which he used your public photo, then go ahead and criticize it here and on your blog, but you’re just making his case for him that his post is 100% fair use of your photo.
If he violated your copyright, then he used your photos for monetary gain without compensating you and you can sue him to redress your grievances.
The rest of this is just noise.
August 9, 2006 at 12:25 am
Let’s Get This Party Started
Welcome to NewOrleansTruth. This blog is dedicated to an experiment in citizen journalism and what such journalism can tell us about conditions in New Orleans post Katrina. We can thank our esteemed blogging colleague Chartreuse for his leadershi…
August 9, 2006 at 3:44 am
To me, the legal debate is the “noise”. The whole “ask the music industry” is, furthermore, fallacious noise.
In my opinion, it’s not about whether or not it was legal for Chartreuse to take photos of women at Wordcamp or legal to use photos of women taken by other people or post them on this site or whether or not he gave proper attribution.
As far as I can see, the first issue at hand is not the legality of all that, but the discourteousness of it all. It was discourteous to walk around and take pictures of all the women at Wordcamp. It was discourteous to post them on this site in a collection that reduces the pictured women as “chicks at Wordcamp”. It was discourteous to expand the picture collection by snagging others’ photos from Flickr without asking for permission. It was especially discourteous to do so when at least one person already expressed discomfort at being pictured in the first place.
And, it was most discourteous to refuse to acknowledge the lack of courtesy and to throw up the red herring of this being about the porousness of copyrights on the internet. It’s not about whether or not one can reasonably expect for one’s content to not be appropriated and recontextualized. It’s not about whether or not what you did was legal. It is about whether or not you were being rude.
To go back to Anna not wanting you to take her picture, I can’t speak for her, but it seems that she did so because it was pretty apparent that you were going to do something creepy with it (e.g. use it as fodder for a “Chicks of Wordcamp” post). She didn’t feel the same sort of reservations when it came to Lauren taking a picture of her because she knew Lauren wasn’t going to do something creepy with the photos. The fact that she let Lauren take her picture doesn’t give you the ethical right to use Lauren/Anna’s photo. Not because your doing so is necessarily illegal but because it’s just plain rude and creepy.
Just because someone made their content publicly accessible doesn’t mean it’s ethically okay to appropriate it and recontextualize it. Even if it’s legally “fair use”, it’s not ethically fair use.
This all seems pretty straightforward in my mind: You don’t go to public events where women might already feel out of place because they’re in the minority, gender-wise, and act all creepy by specifically taking pictures of them because they’re women. You especially don’t do that when you’re asked not to. You don’t post pictures of people within a context that would make them feel uncomfortable. But if you do and get a complaint from that person, you take the picture down and quietly apologize. You don’t react with a tone that suggests that person is being oversensitive and you don’t defend your rudeness based upon the ostensible legality of your rudeness.
To me, the first topic at hand is about basic courtesy. Talk about the legal/copyright issues if you like, but I think it’s far more elemental than that. Laws, after all, are just official constructs designed to force us to act like decent human beings.
August 9, 2006 at 6:57 am
1. discourteousness and lack of ethics are two different things.
2. it’s discourteous for you to waste so much space in your comment on the point you made in the first paragraph.
3. the laws are there, in part, to protect discourteous speech. Laws are not just artificial constructs – the legal system is the most elegant way to resolve disputes in this country, that’s why it exists, unless you have a better one to offer.
4. I can’t speak for Prince, but this is not a social blog. It’s an entertainment blog. If no one was ever offended then no one would ever read.
Like I said. All noise.
August 9, 2006 at 6:58 am
discourtesy – not discourteousness. I shouldn’t make up words.
August 9, 2006 at 9:17 am
Chester.
I think you are saying I was rude
I disagree. But that’s what makes the world spin.
I told 90% of the people I took pictures of that I was going to do a post about the women.
But don’t act like I changed the argument to one about copyright.
In the comments of my blog I only respond.
I see nothing wrong with the post.
It’s women all at a certain event. No editorial.
I think it was a great way to show the diverse types of women who use wordpress.
I think it was compelling.
And I think it was entertaining to my audience.
August 9, 2006 at 9:30 am
Anna is a rude ass person and I am deeply offended at her skanky attacks and vulgar ass language. To call a meeting of mostly males, a “sausage fest” or “hot dog jamboree” or “prickly pear appearance” or whatever she maliciously with great Man Hate said.
I now have entered the blogocombat and I will show no mercy. Char is right and he is a blog artist. He can do whatever he wants with photos that are posted to the universal web. This is true and it is happening and no one can stop it or sue it into not happening.
How can anyone be such deep psychologist that they can tell us what Char’s “real intentions” were? I see projecting.
I skip over the photos in this blog because I see them as irrelevant most of the time, and boring even if relevant. However, I am a writer, so I am naturally inclined more to words and less to pictures.
But I was shocked.
These “women of word camp” are…are…MODEST. This is no Penthouse or Playboy spread here. This is…boring. This is…bland. This is…not the content I”m seeking or needing, but it is FUNNY to see a slew of modest female photos here.
That is what is WEIRD.
Char, you continue to be Cluetrain and Gonzo. Ignore the sissypants and broom riders.
August 9, 2006 at 9:39 am
Not to accidentally sling mud at Char as I ravage his wanker debate opponents, let me clarify that I do like the layout and use of photography on this blog, and as a writer I must also say it is one of the best written and formatted blogs in existence.
The rampant use of short, sometimes one sentence paragraphs…I thought I was the only one who did that. And Seth Godin. Guess more is going on than one mind node can realize.
Actually most of the photos are RELEVANT, to the topic, just not relevant to my interests, which are words and typed facts and prose and poetry, rarely numbers.
August 9, 2006 at 9:45 am
Adam: don’t tell Char to shut down comments on his own blog, nor complain about how the comment thread continues beyond your comfort zone.
How can you suddenly proclaim in all your wisdom that this is “not a social blog”, and it’s an “entertainment blog”???
I always thought it was a Marketing, more specifically, an Emerging Social Media Network Marketing Analysis Blog. I think that’s what the blog author stated.
Why do blogocombat debaters think they “own” the discussion and can “direct” it or even shut it down by whining for Daddy to turn off comments? I never have been able to figure that out, but what do I know? I am just an anarchist.
August 9, 2006 at 9:55 am
Well Vaspers, according to “daddy”,
Why shouldn’t or wouldn’t that apply to comments according to the logic presented here that you seem to be demonstrating support for?
August 9, 2006 at 10:45 am
[…] Chartreuse gets some grief of Women of WordCamp. […]
August 9, 2006 at 11:36 am
I agree with Jessica, go to wiki-court and decide on the issue. I read Char for the insightful links and comments, as well as the discussions. Closing the comments would not be right.
August 9, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Again, to me, it boils down to:
– Anna only consented to being pictured as a hand covering the lens.
– Chartreuse circumvented her wishes by snagging a “real” photo of her taken by Lauren.
– In so doing, he probably used Lauren’s photo in a way she doesn’t appreciate, but the point is that Chartreuse wouldn’t know because he didn’t see fit to ask her.
– So what we have is Chartreuse posting up a picture of someone he knows didn’t want to be pictured on his site. And he did so by snagging a picture taken by a third party who was not asked if the intended usage was kosher with her or even informed that her photo would be used.
To me, that’s unethical or, at the least, just plain rude. Whether or not it was legal to do so is academic (to me) because, before clearing a standard of legality I think folks should clear a standard of basic courtesy.
On the other aspects of the discussion:
– I agree you were following the line of conversation, which was leading to legal arguments, Chartreuse. I shouldn’t have focused on you with regard to that.
– The original post is still something I see as kind of creepy-feeling. And uncompelling because of the lack of editorial. It would have been much more interesting if it had something much more substantial, such as a discussion of why there weren’t many women there. At the next Wordcamp, one might ask the women if they were hesitant about returning because they didn’t feel like having pictures posted of or by them on particular websites without their consent.
– That said, if you truly think it was compelling content, generally “newsworthy”, and honestly feel that the women pictured are public figures, then I guess I could see why you didn’t think it rude in your mind. But I disagree on all those counts.
And, Adam:
1. “discourteousness and lack of ethics are two different things.”
– Yes, they are two separate things. I thought Chartreuse was discourteous and unethical. And your statement does nothing to contest that.
2. “it’s discourteous for you to waste so much space in your comment on the point you made in the first paragraph.”
– Maybe so. I’m longwinded. A longstanding fault of mine and one I’ll freely cop to. And whether or not I’m longwinded — even discourteously so — is in no way related to whether or not Chartreuse was discourteous.
3. “the laws are there, in part, to protect discourteous speech. Laws are not just artificial constructs – the legal system is the most elegant way to resolve disputes in this country, that’s why it exists, unless you have a better one to offer.”
– Again, as I said in my longwinded way, whether or not his actions were legal, I thought Chartreuse was being rude. Legal arguments have nothing to do with whether or not Chartreuse was plain and simply rude.
4. “I can’t speak for Prince, but this is not a social blog. It’s an entertainment blog. If no one was ever offended then no one would ever read.”
– So it’s okay to be rude to a particular person if the rudeness takes place on an “entertainment blog” and/or is entertaining to a third party? Pretty low standard of conduct, in my opinion.
P.S. “Discourteousness” in a couple dictionaries: 1, 2. That said, “discourtesy” is way less ungainly. So thanks for the pointer.
August 9, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Lauren,
I was just saying that the law won’t protect your content.
Adam,
Thanks for the spirited defense. I agree with everything you said.
Vaspers,
Comments are the most important part of this blog and I enjoy a good debate. I never censor any comments.
range and jessica,
I think wiki-court is a great idea. I’ll tell Brian to get ready!
and finally Chester,
Does this mean our wedding is off? 🙂
August 9, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Using Chartreuse’s argument, I think I will:
Go to playboy.com, get the source for all of their pictures and put them onto my blog. Then I can sell ads next to the pictures and make money, all the while creating absolutely nothing. This will result in playboy losing revenue and me gaining revenue, but what’s the difference…free pics of naked hot chicks is “what the people want”, right?
You can’t stop what the people want with rules, right? And yet the defense is how you abided by your own rules…..
August 9, 2006 at 4:58 pm
I wasn’t going to say any more about this debate as it has gone on way too long, but Anna told me that Chester had chimed in, so I had to come back and see what he had to say. As usual, Chester is the best commentor ever. Even though he writes long comments, they are so well-written that I really enjoy reading them. I have nothing more to add to the debate that Chester hasn’t already said better than I could.
August 9, 2006 at 6:54 pm
Again, why would Lauren or any other comment contributor think they can decide when a debate “has gone on way too long”.
Odd. I only see this type of remark from those who seem to be losing and cannot think of any new arguments in their favor.
Lauren wastes everyone’s time by doing nothing but praising and exalting what some other comment poster, Chester, has typed up and discharged into this pickle of a hot dog debate amongst prickly pears in a sausage convention. Lovely tarts.
Telling Char how to run his own blog is a bit much, don’t you think? Telling him to add editorial and be a historian, chronicling WordCamp. Such cheek on the part of some readers. Hope they get over it and return to democracy sometime.
August 9, 2006 at 8:42 pm
If Anna didn’t want her picture posted on this blog, that’s her right. But she shouldn’t have let Lauren post her picture on Lauren’s Flickr site if she didn’t want her likeness passed around. Lauren could have easily killed abilities to “blog” and “post” her pictures elsewhere using Flickr’s admin capabilities (not to mention watermarking her work). And Lauren should have made it clear on ALL of her sites (including her Flickr one) how she wishes to be credited, since her CC license states the following:
And not put up her one and only example of “doing the right thing” on her blog AFTER her argument with Prince.
And frankly lot of this could have been resolved via email. 🙂
So much more ladylike than making a scene on a public blog.
So, I think both Anna and Lauren were the discourteous ones, here. IMHO, that is. 🙂
August 9, 2006 at 11:00 pm
[…] I read so much about “compelling content” these days. How to create it. How to protect it. How to profit from it. Prince Campbell wonders if maybe we aren’t missing the point: You may not like it but you only gain control by letting go. […]
August 9, 2006 at 11:23 pm
Char, good to meet you at the WordCamp post-party. My only complaint about your original post was that I wasn’t on it. 🙂
I won’t comment on the Great Copyright Debate, but as for privacy — darlin,’ your picture was posted on FLICKR, for pete’s sake.
August 9, 2006 at 11:33 pm
Sorry! I was “self-medicated”!
August 9, 2006 at 11:38 pm
Lauren’s flickr pages are not displaying a Creative Commons license.
They are displaying this:
© All rights reserved
There is a big difference.
As an example, see here:
We can argue copyright until we’re blue in the face – I doubt any of us are lawyers here. But I’ll stand by my stance that to use content in violation of the copyright holder’s license is wrong, disrespects the creator, and places yourself in a situation of liability.
Matt
August 9, 2006 at 11:42 pm
To Char’s earlier point – there’s nothing wrong with his post. He has a unique posting style and I love the integration of photography with thought provoking commentary. I wouldn’t want him to change it.
And if his takeaway from WordCamp was hot geeky women – so be it.
I happen to love hot geeky women.
Matt
August 10, 2006 at 12:17 am
They are displaying this:
© All rights reserved
There is a big difference.
That’s not what it said yesterday when I went there, a fact she copes to in her own blog entry about the WordCamp experience:
Finally, all of these photos are either mine or are being shown under Creative Commons licenses.
but whatever. She’s learned her lesson. 🙂
August 10, 2006 at 12:21 am
Besides… she missed one…
August 10, 2006 at 12:34 am
I guess there’s at least several different threads of contention going on here.
For me, it’s simply Anna asking Chartreuse to not take a picture of them, which to me strongly implies asking Chartreuse to not use pictures of them, period. So, regardless of the source, the public-ness of the source, or the copyright status of the source, it’s rude to use it, period.
But this is a really specific situation and it would be hard to codify it into a set of “usage rules” given that there are so many factors that would need to be delineated.
In the overall scheme of things, I don’t have a problem with Chartreuse’s “style” of attribution. And now that I’ve thought about it, I actually, in general, don’t really have a problem with using an image from someone else without first asking so long as attribution is fairly clear. I’ve used other people’s work in ways that I considered to be fair use and with attribution but without first asking permission.
But I’ve also only done so when I don’t think they’d have a problem with it. So to go back to my original objection, I feel like it should have been natural to assume that Lauren would not want pictures she’s taken to be used in a way that would make the people in the pictures feel uncomfortable. In this situation, the fact that discomfort would be caused does not need to be assumed as it was expressed and known. And so Chartreuse’s use of the image was, to me, an act of rudeness. I’d go further in saying that even if Lauren gave consent for the image to be used, it would still be rude for Chartreuse to do so because he knew that Anna would have been uncomfortable with it.
The question of whether or not it is reasonable for someone to object to an image on Flickr to be appropriated is a related, but separate matter. I agree it’s unrealistic to assume that nobody will ever use an image on Flickr in a way that one finds undesirable, but that does not in any way diminish the rudeness of someone using that image in an undesirable way.
I’ll use an analogy that I hope isn’t reductio ad absurdum: one cannot leave one’s purse unattended in a public place and realistically expect for it to not be stolen. But, despite this, the person who takes that purse is still a thief. (I’m not carrying the analogy so far as to say that Chartreuse is a “thief”, by the way.)
So when Bigstarlet places burdens upon Anna and Lauren to protect their respective images while giving Chartreuse carte blanche to use unprotected images, that feels like something that diverts blame and responsibility to the victim instead of the, uh, perpetrator [1]. Instead of focusing on whether or not the perpetrator did something wrong, it first focuses on whether or not the victim could have protected themself better. And that just simply doesn’t taste right to me.
[1] I don’t mean to use such loaded terms but I’m at a loss for substitutes.
August 10, 2006 at 1:34 am
I’m not diverting blame. I’m just saying Lauren and Anna should have thought ahead. Way ahead. They’re hardly victims in this matter. And the use of the image was hardly undesireable. While I would agree that if I asked someone not to take my picture I would expect them to follow my wishes, to then turn around and let my best buddy post my pic for the world to see, and make it “postable” kinda defeats her argument regarding “privacy”. For her to cry about how her picture was being used now also makes her point moot.
Especially, since at the time of posting, the picture was accompanied by a CC license. Chartreuse had every right to use it based on the license provided at the time.
All my pics at Flickr have ALWAYS been accompanied by “All Rights Reserved”. They’re not works of art, but Lauren just figured out why. 🙂
August 10, 2006 at 12:28 pm
We’re still not really talking about the same thing, it seems. Whether or not it would have been more prudent for Anna and Lauren to have done something else says nothing about whether or not Chartreuse was rude for putting up that picture of Anna after he was given clear indication that she would find that undesireable. So, again, the issue of basic courtesy comes up before the issue of copyright legality (in my eyes).
Also, the issue of “privacy” is not what I have been talking about. And I don’t think it was Anna and Lauren’s complaint, either. The issue was not about a picture being public but a picture being used by a particular person in a particular context (in a public way). Basically: Anna didn’t want to be in a pictorial roll call of “the Chicks of Wordcamp”.
Is it realistic for Anna to expect that a publicly posted picture on one site won’t end up on another? Probably not. Is it realistic for Lauren to expect notification/request of use of her publicly-viewable content? Probably not. Is it realistic for Anna to expect that her likeness will only be used in ways that are not discomfitting to her? Probabably not.
But is it rude for Chartreuse to take a photo from the Flickr site of Anna’s friend as a way of getting a photo of Anna when he was given clear indication that this would make her uncomfortable? Definitely, as far as I’m concerned.
It’s pretty simple: when someone asks you not to take their picture, you don’t take their picture. And you don’t go hunt down other pictures of them to circumvent their clear request. This seems, to me, to be a basic issue of courtesy.
But I guess we all have different standards of conduct. I think it’s discourteous to make people feel unnecessarily uncomfortable simply because doing so suits your aims. I would really hope, for all of our sakes, that it is not a minority of people who feel this way.
August 10, 2006 at 12:29 pm
I came across this blog a couple weeks ago and have been checking in from time and time and this post caught my eye. The reason being that, yes, information posted on the net is just asking to be stolen. However, there is software out there that could safeguard any IP you may have that is sent through email which is actually another arena where people send information back and forth w/out realizing that the content can be stolen at any time. Check this out:
http://www.essentialsecurity.com/products.htm
It disallows forwarding, copying, editing, and printing of email content and also protects specific files on your computer so no one else can access them but you!
Although it’s not a solution to your problem specifically , it may help in future dilemma’s that may arise through copyright issues and/or IPR
August 10, 2006 at 1:58 pm
August 10, 2006 at 3:16 pm
wow, I love all of this speculating on my feelings and wishes here. If you look back to how all of this started, I didn’t even comment on the lack of attribution on the original post. My initial comment was a sacastic remark about how there really weren’t very many women at wordcamp.
But then we fell into the rabbit hole…so to clarify a few things:
All of my pictures, except for one (http://www.flickr.com/photos/hornline/208435193/) are “all rights reserved”.
I don’t have a privacy issue here. I don’t even care that my picture is on this site. Since I blog and post tons of publicly available pictures of Flickr, I obviously have exhibitionist and narcissistic tendencies, like most other bloggers.
Anna didn’t want her picture on the site, and even though Char knew that beforehand, he still posted it. That wasn’t nice, but he took it down, which was cool.
My issue was separate. I wanted him to provide attribution statements on the pictures. Why? Because honestly I didn’t want people to think that I posed for Char for that picture. That is a self-portrait I took while walking down the street that day.
I didn’t go the email route on this because I didn’t start with any specific aim.
August 10, 2006 at 3:20 pm
wow, I love all of this speculating on my feelings and wishes here. If you look back to how all of this started, I didn’t even comment on the lack of attribution on the original post. My initial comment was a sacastic remark about how there really weren’t very many women at wordcamp.
But then we fell into the rabbit hole…so to clarify a few things:
All of my pictures, except for one (http://www.flickr.com/photos/hornline/208435193/) are “all rights reserved”.
I don’t have a privacy issue here. I don’t even care that my picture is on this site. Since I blog and post tons of publicly available pictures of Flickr, I obviously have exhibitionist and narcissistic tendencies, like most other bloggers.
Anna didn’t want her picture on the site, and even though Char knew that beforehand, he still posted it. That wasn’t nice, but he took it down, which was cool.
My issue was separate. I wanted him to provide attribution statements on the pictures. Why? Because honestly I didn’t want people to think that I posed for Char for that picture. That is a self-portrait I took while walking down the street that day. But it isn’t that big of a deal. I know the risks I take by posted pictures publicly. But I also know that we don’t have to passively sit by while some does something we dont’ like.
I didn’t go the email route on this because I didn’t start with any specific aim. I honestly had no agenda here. This just grew on its own, mostly fueled by other people. It is a good discussion to have, especially since this comment thread seems to be about the issues and not full of name calling (like the other post turned into).
August 10, 2006 at 3:21 pm
oops, didn’t mean to post twice, but Char can delete the duplicate. I know that he is well-versed with that feature.
August 11, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Don’t worry Lauren about what “other posts turn into”.
Welcome to the real blogosphere, where everybody has to fight and squabble. Blogging is blogocombat. There is no other kind of blogging but blogocombat. Read your blog history. The blogosphere is NOT about digital journals and photo logs.
August 11, 2006 at 8:00 pm
[…] Wonder where today’s title comes from? There was some controversy created on Chartreuse after a post that some people had some objections too. My favorite part of all this was Jessica Doyle’s suggestion of settling the thing in the wikicourt. I agreed with her on that. This was Char’s response to all this. […]
August 13, 2006 at 4:34 pm
[…] And this battle continues to this day.. […]
August 15, 2006 at 11:56 am
Thanks to everyone- this is a great discussion- after some of the hot-headed elements got bored and wandered off. I have to say that I talked to Char about not taking my photo earlier that day, and literally, not figuratively, put my hand on his camera lens.
For what it’s worth, I am OK with having my likeness in the public, but not in the manner that Chartreuse usually does on his web site, hence I didn’t want him taking my photo, and told him at the time that he was taking my photo. I think it’s funny that me walking 1/2 block telling him not to take my photo then literally putting my hand on the lens still wasn’t a strong enough message to him.
The fact that he goes to Lauren’s flickrstream and uses those photos without attribution, with Creative Commons or All Rights Reserved is… as Chester pointed out… not OK. We called him on it, he promptly took down the photo. Voila! Thanks for the speedy response.
The question of ‘context’ and my naivete regarding the Internet is laughable to me. I knew the context, that’s why I didn’t want him to take my photo. The fact that I was at an internet software conference with tons of creative types led me to suspect that Chartreuse would also know and respect the rights of artists. I didn’t know that he had his own version that he pragmatically practices on this site.
He’s kind of ruining it for the rest of us bloggers.
In another angle, it’s great that he took the photos because I can see the names and blogs of the other women at the conference. His exploitive site has managed to help networking with women quite a bit. Sad, actually, that it took a guy looking for chicks to help us get connected.
September 29, 2006 at 6:49 pm
[…] Then I remembered reading Chartreuse’s take on “stolen content” and I got my perspective back. […]
October 28, 2006 at 10:36 am
[…] Besides anyone who throws a fit over their pictures, words, etc. being used on another website should get a clue from this guy: […]