The Pursuit of a Life

I find myself scratching my head a lot and saying “Hmmmm….” Here’s a summary of the latest issue boiling over at TechCrunch that has me scratching again:

A parody video was released by a group called The Richter Scales. It poked fun at the current Web 2.0 bubble (you know, Facebook worth $15 billion). The video, posted on YouTube, got like a million visits. Unfortunately, there was included therein a picture by a photographer named Wicked Witch Lane Hartwell, copied from Flickr and used without attribution. You know the rest already: Hartwell’s attorney sends a letter, Richter Scales backs off and reups the video with a parody of a credits list at the end that basically says “DON’T FUCKING SUE US”, and the whole series of tubes goes off in a blast of orgasmic firecrackers, either for or against Miss Litigious Lane Hartwell.

Here’s the thing: those businesses (like photography) that retain a grasping, shrewish approach to commerce in an attempt to squeeze a few more shiny coppers from ignorant consumers or middlemen buyers are doomed to either adapt or die. Just because “you’ve always done it that way” doesn’t mean you’ll always do it THAT WAY. Whether it’s photography, accounting, shipping, furniture, or goddamned novelty eyeballs, the rule is the same. Businesses whose practices, when exposed to the light of day, reveal a rats’ nest of self-dealing “gotchas” must adapt.

In this case, the photographers skulk around in the shadows, don’t fully inform subjects of their rights, implicitly establish copyright, then sue on the backend when someone makes new creative uses of their work. This situation is - pardon the French — fucking bullshit. I don’t care what the copyright law says, or what you think it says. Copyright law, like patent law, exists basically to screw one group at the expense of another, better connected and more litigious, group.

Don’t post your photos on Flickr with no watermark and then pretend to be shocked when someone mashes them up with other materials. Unless you’re Sally Suehappy Lane Hartwell.

Sheesh!

UPDATE: Excellent summary by Mathew Ingram here.

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Tags: LaneHartwell, The Richter Scales