| SlowTony |
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| UK |
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| Thursday, October 04, 2007 |
| Sunday, November 22, 2009 6:39:47 PM |
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Amateur wrote:
Over the years the government have allowed and make excuses for tens of thousands of UK jobs to be lsot to outsourcing, losing billions in tax revenue, added probably several time more in job loses and tax revenue in casacde collateral damages. Do they care?
NOPE. So why should they care about photographers?
Michael Howard wrote:
but am confident that Mandelson will take as much notice of it as his mates took of public opinion before joining in the Iraq crusade.
Michael Howard
Don't bring politics into this that is not directly related to copyright law.
Alamy have already told us not to do this.
Slowtony
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Bob Croxford wrote:
Dear Tony
Perhaps you would care to give me your interpretation of this section of the Bill.
116A Licensing of orphan works
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide for authorising a licensing body or other person to do, or to grant licences to do, acts in relation to an orphan work which would otherwise require the consent of the copyright owner.
(2) An authorisation or licence under the regulations in favour of any person must not preclude any authorisation or licence in favour of another person.
(3) The regulations may provide for the treatment of royalties or other sums paid in respect of an authorisation or licence, including
(a) the deduction of administrative costs;
(b) the period for which sums must be held for the copyright owner;
(c) the treatment of sums after that period (as bona vacantia or otherwise)
I take this to mean that someone like Mandelson will decide what fees I should get if someone 'steals' my images under OW provisions. It then decides that if I do not find out about that infringement after a certain period of time the government can pocket the money.
It specifically does not say that these matters will be decided by open consultation or reference to parliament.
Bob
I dont need to interpret anything. I just need to read and understand the literature. It's all there in black and white......
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide for authorising a licensing body or other person to do, or to grant licences to do, acts in relation to an orphan work which would otherwise require the consent of the copyright owner.
The secretary of state won't be making decisions in the way that you suggest. he/she will be bound by the regulations. The regulations haven't been finalised yet. the consultation period is still ongoing.
But the government is saying the following......
http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/digitalbritain-finalreport-jun09.pdf
Part of point 44 (page 116)
"anybody wishing to use orphan works will be expected to secure an appropriate permission
from the Government first, and permission will only be granted where the
proposed operator can satisfy the Government that the business methods
and procedures involved satisfy key minimum requirements, including
making appropriate searches for the true owners and making provision for
the reimbursement of rights holders who are subsequently found and claim
for the use of their work."
'The regulations' as stated in 116a (I), at the moment will be in part defined by the statement above.
Under such regulation it will be illegal for someone to use orphan works by 'harvesting' images without metadata from the internet. This is because deception would have to be used in order to convince a government body that all appropriate searches were carried out for the true owners.
The secretary of state will have no direct influence over fees etc (not on a day to day basis). That would be impossible logistically and it is utter nonsense to suggest that any secretary of state has the time to price up individual photos that someone has found on the internet and has subsequently applied for it to be designated an orphan work.
What is being suggested is that organisations answerable to the government will be set up to investigate the application of a piece of copyrighted material to become an orphan work.
The language of the bill makes the secretary of state ultimately responsible, but it will be separate organisations with the appropriate skills and knowledge that will have the power to declare material 'orphan works' and subsequently issue a license which will include a clause for reimbursment of apprpriate fees to the copyright holder, should the copyright holder be found.
But remember, nothing becomes an orphan work automatically, or by default. Orphan works status has to be applied for, and if the proposed user doesn't make appropriate checks to find the copyright holder then they may be breaking the law. If someone takes my images from my website, strips the metadata and applies for the material to become orphan works, then this becomes an illegal act, just like using images my images without my permission today is an illegal act.
No piece of legislation can stop someone from committing an illegal act. Not in the past, not now and not in the future.
SlowTony
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cjoiner wrote:There's an expression that I won't fully repeat here, but it starts "assumption is the mother of all...."
Now to me a lot of what has been published around the internet in recent weeks is probably worst case scenario, but there is nothing to say that it won't happen. To assume everything will turn out smelling of roses, remain silent and leave it to an unelected Minister to flesh this out seems to be a very dangerous course to take. We could discover all too late that we have lost the rights that many worked hard to secure in the 1980s.
If people don't want to sign the petition that's fine, but it would be dangerous to sit back and do nothing. If you care and want to help shape our future then stand up and be counted - write to your MP and voice your concerns. It's clearly a complex issue for MPs to understand given the number of stakeholders and unless we make our position clear who else will?
Craig.
"Now to me a lot of what has been published around the internet in recent weeks is probably worst case scenario, but there is nothing to say that it won't happen."
You need to give examples here...links...anything to back this statement up.....if you say this then you must have read something.....this is precisely the kind of comment that put doubts in peoples mind that something wrong is happening, but without actually saying anything. Examples please.
"write to your MP and voice your concerns."
And say what exactly? that photography is about to be nationalised??? Do you really think that?
If people start to shout false accusations at the government in the way that I feel that the author of the petition has done, then there is a possibility that real issues will be missed.
And you may say that anything is better than doing nothing. Well, actually it's not. you must have a valid reason to oppose this, and this must be articulated forcefully, but also reasonably and in a factually correct way.
SlowTony
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nick jenkins wrote:Sometimes people who repeatedly ask 'please explain' either already know the answer or would be dubious of any answers anyway. This is such a complex issue I fear a forum such as ours could only ever dance around the edges.
You can interpret my questions in any way you want.....but hese are genuine questions concerning actual quotes from the original petition.
And yes, I hold my hands up...after reading the governments literature, I think the quotes from the petition are wrong. I think they demonstate a lack of understanding of the literature by the author of the petition.
I have read most if not all of the literature (that I could find on the web) that has been written by the government and government agencies. it is written in plain english, and is relatively short and concise.
I have read nothing in the literature that indicates that the 'accusations' in the petition are in any way correct. None. Zilch. Zero. Zip....
but.....maybe I have missed something....
......and that is where my questions come in. Of course I think I know the answers. But I would like to know the authors answers too. and if you can add something to shed some light on why the proposed changes would lead to a "nationalisation of photography" then I would genuinley like to know.
It is not as complex a subject as you suggest. In fact if you discuss 'orphan works' by itself then it's quite simple. there are other aspects of copyright law that directly affect photographers, and as separate issues and with a bit of effort they become relatively simple. Copyright law extends beyond the direct concerns of photographers, and so yes, copyright law as a single piece of legislation is complex, but the bit that concerns photographers is not so difficult, the principles are simple and you and we as individuals should all take this opportunity to read and understand the literature.
SlowTony
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Bob Croxford wrote:jaybee wrote:
It's ill informed and a complete over-reaction. I wish people would read the actual proposals before blindly signing "Sun headline inspired" petitions.
Jaybee
Those who have been reading about the OW proposals for 5 years and more are very worried. That includes Bapla, NUJ, AoP and many others. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldbills/001/2010001.pdfIs the actual Bill. The Minister, Mandelson, can add bits as he feels without further debate or consultation. If you are happy with a copyright law which allows your images to be used and broadcast on the web by anyone please bury your heads in the sand. The petition is not perfect but it does describe one scenario. There are many other concerns. One idea is that exceptions will be increased. Your family photos on Flickr could be used by a BNP supporter in a far right website and they will soon have a defence for parody, caricature and pastiche.
This is how the BJP reported it
http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=871302
The bill is not meant to specify the actual mechanisms that will form new law, but this bill is just taking the discussion and consultation period one step closer to actual legislation. The whole point about the vagueness in the bill is precisely so that bits can still be added or taken away.
certain sections of the press use this ignorance of the formulation of british law to scaremonger.
If you read the BJP report (link above) the IPO have told the BJP that further discussion and consultation will be necassary when the specific mechanisms regarding Orphan Works are created.
My concern with the petition is that it seems to me to be entirely wrong.
My even bigger concern is that so many people have signed this nonsense.......and a number people here on the alamy forum are (seemingly) choosing to believe it without reading the facts.....
The consultation for changes in legislation for current copyright law has been totally open and totally on-line, there have been no secrets...it could not be more open.
If you read the literature you will realise that there are problems with existing law and that changes are necessary. 140 organisations like the BJP have taken part in the discussions and consultation period.
This period is still open.
there are some issues of genuine concern to photographers, but none of them have been addressed on this thread so far, or the previous thread. They have not been addressed by the petition.
I would like the creator of the petition to come here and explain what he meant by the things he said on the petition.
I want the term "nationalisation of photography" explained.
I also want this explained...
"raises the prospect of crippling thousands of small businesses while protecting large corporate interests" Why is this so...???? Please explain
I want this explained....
"It takes the work of photographers who have invested time and money in creating work, and gives it to people who have no relationship with that work, for free." Why is this so...???? Please explain
I want this explained....
"to allow free and unhindered reproduction of photographs without payment or credit on non-commercial websites." Why is this so...???? Please explain
SlowTony
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matt1514 wrote:I admire Alamy, they have the patience of a saint.
This really is Photography 101. Getting a file to 48Mb. It's not rocket science, its the basics. DPI is not in the frame here for a digital file size - it really isn't. Just believe those who know, don't argue the toss.
Any photographer worth their salt has Photoshop. Open the image and click IMAGE/IMAGE SIZE and read the figures under "PIXEL DIMENSIONS". If it's not 48Mb then upsize it. It really is THAT simple.
Jesus guys, what sort of impression does this give a client that might come surfing by?
Matt ~ wishing Alamy would take this car-crash of a forum that drags the professionalism of their company and contributors who know what they are doing, in house once and for all
Everyone has to learn at some point. Not everyone is a full time stock photographer, and the requirements may seem a little strange at first.
I think it's ignorance on your part that you cannot understand how anyone could not understand Alamy file requirements immediately.
Only Ian was right with the DPI issue (in the context of alamy), as it is now apparant that alamy re-jig the files when they get them......so as far as that point is concerned we were (nearly) all ignorant.
As for clients reading the forum....they only care about the images they receive from alamy. who took them and how professional we are is irrelevant. Alamy's professionalism as a picture library is far more important. As long as the clients are happy with the images they receive from alamy then that is all that matters.
If you think the forum is bad now....you should have been here two years ago.....and it was the self-confessed full time professionals that caused most of the problems...
SlowTony
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lightscapes wrote:I am trying to learn us all something. Conclusion: Do not mix submissions. The digital abstracts from the beach were over processed for effect. They are artsy. I believe they failed the entire 5 folders of pictures.
Is this the way some of you really talk to your friends? Some of the behavior here borders on disrespect. Good luck fello photographers. We are stronger together helping one another. I thank those who were helpful
"The digital abstracts from the beach were over processed for effect. They are artsy."
show the image 100% otherwise people cant see what you are talking about.....as far as I am aware if someone wants to turn the sky green and the grass blue, then this is ok, as long as there are no artefactcs.....artsy or not, everything is allowed. But not artefacts that are as a result of 'over processing'. Or artefacts full stop.
The problem is that you are putting doubts into peoples mind by saying this isnt allowed, and that isn't allowed....but there has never been any evidence that strange/different/original processing isn't allowed. Until now. But how do we know? How can we tell....? You really need to show us (the pictures at 100%), or sort it out privately with alamy.
"Some of the behavior here borders on disrespect"
Well, that applies to you in your original post. 'Have these new kids really seen Velvia slide film before? Am I supposed to desaturate the stuff so it looks digital? Very frustrating'
The kids have seen a lot more than you and I. And some people will read this as you being dismissive of Alamy's QC process maybe due to ignorance or anger or both, and therefore disrespectful.
You seem to have 1300 or so images uploaded, I presume that some are velvia...? so you may already know the answer to your question above??
SlowTony
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lightscapes wrote:Velvia slide film has failed QC. I get a 55 MB scan from a Nikon scanner. Five of the images were 200 MB Heidelberg drum scans. Colors are brillant compared to digital. Reason for failure is over manipulation. The images were from my book on the California wine country. Have these new kids really seen Velvia slide film before? Am I supposed to desaturate the stuff so it looks digital? Very frustrating
Brilliant colours will not fail your images. Even over-saturation will not fail your images. But turning the colour up in Photoshop will eventually create artifacts of some kind in the image (like posterisation), and that will fail your image.
And you will say that the colour in the failed image is totally natural straight off the slide, no photoshopping.....and that's fine. If that's the case then your image failed for other reasons.
Alamy only fail an image if they see something physically in the image that shouldn't be there...like stairsteps that appear sometimes through interpolation, or posterisation, or sharpening artifacts.
If the image has been sharpened and there are some halo effects, or other artifacts (stairsteps), then the image will fail.
Most people get a bit annoyed when an image fails, but you need to count to ten, calm down.....and then re assess your failed image more objectively.
Always start from a position of assuming that alamy are right (even if, emotionally you think (know) they are wrong) . Then if you still genuinely can't find anything wrong, stick a 100% crop here and forum members will find the problem for you. If they can't then maybe check with alamy.
Never assume that alamy are wrong.
The way that alamy look for errors in images mean that QC are (almost) always right (I would guess about 99.99 recurring percent of the time they are right).
Alamy need such accuracy because they don't know who the final customer(s) will be.
SlowTony
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geogphotos wrote:Well, for one thing I don't suppose many people will be paying $50 for image placement under Photographers Choice - certainly not for RF.
Another thing might be more people trying Getty rather than/as well as Alamy, especially as the entry level at Getty Flickr is lower ( 3mp camera I think).
Ian Murray
When I last looked at the Flickr collection on Getty, the photography was distinctly different to other collections on getty, so I doubt if all PC submissions would be suitable for the Flickr collection.
I can't see that it would be in Getty's interest to make the flickr and PC collections too similar precisely because of the loss of revenue it may bring (due to loss of PC placement fees). Also these two distinct collections are unique and can be marketed in different ways....
I don't think that GettyFlickr will be a viable alternative to alamy because so far Getty have only creamed off 60000 images from 4 billion(?) images. alamy accept 200000 images a month (the last figure I am aware of). The flickr collection therefore seems like a very tightly edited one, unless they only have a tiny team of editors.
It's a no brainer that someone somewhere should tap into such a huge resource at Flickr and I am surprised it took so long. But I am glad that it is Getty. whatever anyone says about them...they have always had an honest submission system for contributers. i.e. they have a (slightly) open door to new contributers, and they reply back if you have failed. Which is a lot more than a number of travel related picture libraries do.
As for lowering prices...the Flickr collection is not so important.....Getty will make low priced products with or without Flickr....and it's not just because of microstock. On the other side of microstock is the other 50% of the macrostock business that getty doesn't own, and one way to out compete your direct competitors is to beat them on price. It's not rocket science.
But overall, I think this is a good thing. This isn't open season for untalented lazy amateurs.
and as for that Melcher bloke...he is often quite wrong in what he says...a lot of the 'this aint walmark' article is nonsense. whenever I follow someone elses link to his site, the corresponding article is wrong in a lot of what it says, and this article is no different.
SlowTony
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brummie wrote:hi there slow tony, my understanding from discussions over at other lists that "'due diligence" will be severely reduced, so where the bar is no one is quite sure, if its like a search for 5 mins of a data base, then that would be bad, the problem with these proposals is that there are too many grey areas far more than there are at present. i suggest if you haven't already listen to photolegal website for the their lastest podcast as well. http://www.photolegal.com/cheers brummie
In the literature due 'diligence' is only mentioned in the current definitions of 'orphan work'. The current definition being a 'photo with no metadata', with no legislative protection.
Your concern about grey areas is correct, but less relevant if you extend your argument to other areas of the 'orphan work' discussion as laid out in the literature.......which I will cover here in this post.....
I think the OP is getting muddled with the existing definition of 'orphan works' (as applied to photography), and a legal definition of 'orphan works' as will exist after it is written into new (as yet non-existent) legislation.
The current definition of 'orphan works' in a photographic context has probably been supplied by the photographic industry and is defined as a 'photograph with no metadata'.
In reality this is obviously not the case. why? because a photographer can have photographs without metadata on his or her website but there can be copyright notices and contact information on the website, images can also be watermarked, therefore making ownership very easily identifiable.
But for the purposes of creating legislation it is wise to accept an orphaned photo to be one without metadata, as this will cover all bases when drawing up legislation that must be inclusive of all (online?) photographic work.
I get this information from the literature. The excerpts in italics come from the following document.....
http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/digitalbritain-finalreport-jun09.pdf
Here is the definition of an 'orphan work' as it is today....This is stated in point 41 on page 116.
"Photographers are concerned that photographs posted on websites frequently lack identifying
metadata, and hence the evidence of ownership is lost"
But remember this is a description of the situation today, and the report is saying that the above situation is unsatisfactory because people may be/are using such images illegally. It also states that users want to use the 'orphan works' but don't because they don't know who to pay, and commercial use of an 'orphan work' (as it stands today) can lead to criminal prosecution.
To reduce the ability of copyright infringement in the future, the following is stated......
Part of point 44 (page 116)
"anybody wishing to use orphan works will be expected to secure an appropriate permission
from the Government first, and permission will only be granted where the
proposed operator can satisfy the Government that the business methods
and procedures involved satisfy key minimum requirements, including
making appropriate searches for the true owners and making provision for
the reimbursement of rights holders who are subsequently found and claim
for the use of their work."
What this means is that after new legislation, an 'orphan work' will no longer just be an image with no metadata. there will be a number of hoops to jump through to assign the label of 'orphan works' to an image. There will be a formal procedure in the form of an application to define an image as an 'orphan work'.
However, all this is just talk at the moment.....but there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever (from the literature) that the OP comment is in any way true.
All the evidence (from the literature) suggests that the OP comment is absolutely not the case.
My prediction for the future would be that digitised 'orphan works' will be searchable by copyright holders and in the case of images something like tineye would be implemented to facilitate the reuniting of the copyright holder and the 'orphan'.
It should be noted that the literature is the only place where the information is. Photographic organisations are taking this information and putting their own spin on it. Individuals then take the words of journalists and put their own spin on it again. In the end it becomes a game of Chinese whispers.....and what a game this particular issue has become.
SlowTony
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