Given that the net and particularly the blogsphere is essentially free... (ok you can make money our of adsense and links to others, if you really want to)... I am puzzled why there is so much theft... identity thief, pinching ideas, text and the thing that is really bugging me is image theft
Things are getting so bad on flickr their is now a new stolen pics group... specifically to out people who pinch photos and post them as their own... thats fine and I won't hesitate to post people who pinch my stuff.... but it does require that i find out about it. The other trend on flickr if to pinch stuff off pornsites and post it... usually in inappropriate groups... in the groups i moderate i simply delete them but it is becoming a chore... still I think i own it to the other group members.
For instance flickr do have the issues of copyright and image sharing well thought out and they use creative commons, which i have also used to register this blog and the images in it (read the copyright or wrong section down a bit of the right hand side). Trouble is it seems a lot of folk ignore this
So what to do about it... actually I don't know... shaming the guilty is a nice civilized way, but it does require finding the culprit... i worry that things may just get so bad that is not wise to post on the net at all! Is you expect others to respect your ownership of images... or anything!
Saturday, September 16, 2006
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My thoughts on Flickr.
I see Flickr as a community...a large one for sure but a community none the less. Take a look at the definition at "dictionary.com":
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=community&x=35&y=17
Work can be considered a community or a clubhouse in your neighborhood, even your home is a type of community. Now, I acknowledge that we live in an electronic age but there are usually bulletin boards at work or at your clubhouse...hell,even the fridge at home...all these places are where we post tidbits of information. At work we may tear out a comic from a magazine...a
recipe or even an interesting photo that caught our eye. We may post an entire article torn from the paper and leave it for others to read and comment on. These items surely have copyrights, yet we freely share these bits with others...at home this may be a few people and at work it could be several hundred people.
Now, having posted this comic or photo of something you think is worth noting, or tacking a syndicated column from the newspaper to the BB at work...have we not violated the creators copyright??
Now living in the electronic age we kind of do the same thing with our email in much the same way. Have you ever, EVER forwarded something you thought was interesting...or something that was mailed to you by another person??? Have you violated that persons copyright??
Remember, when that email leaves your computer it is just as probable to be seen by as many people in the end as it would if it were posted on Flickr!!
Now along the same line of thinking, instead of corkboards to tack things on we have electronic bulletin boards. Is a persons intellectual or artistic rights any less valuable because we tacked his photo or column on a corkboard or sent it along attached to an email, or is it all of a sudden any more valuable just because it has been shared on Flickr?
Unless you can say that you have never taped something on a wall to share with others or forwarded an email containing a photo or comic created by some hard working artist...you are being hypocritical to chastise those who share their interests on the community bulletin board that is Flickr!!
Now forwarding something in an email, posting a cartoon to a bulletin board or submitting a photo to Flickr that is the work of someone else and claiming the work as your own...that is indeedd stealing and that person deserves whatever wrath is showered down upon him!!
This is just a commentary...not pointed at any one person...I have made this same point several times on Flickr since joining in August of 2005.
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