Picture Perfect
May. 16th, 2019 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqFirst of all, thanks Hotmail for tossing all of my Dreamwidth notifications into the spam folder. I'd have figured it out eventually when I noticed my "unread" notification on the site ticking up, but it's a bit irksome. The reason I caught it this time was because I had a notification show up briefly on my phone and then disappear again.
I guess the obvious solution is to point my notifications to a different email server, but Hotmail is my oldest account, and I like to give it something to do. If I had any confidence that its mail server would still exist from one moment to the next, I'd try directing them to my venerable Yahoo account. I'll flag Hotmail that these are not spam and see if that works. Worst case I just point them to Gmail.
[Update] I dragged them all out of the spam folder, and when another notification showed up a few minutes later, Hotmail did not flip it into the junk folder. Maybe dragging them out of that folder was enough to make it change its internal rules.
There is a photographer suing a pop singer for posting one of his photos on her Instagram. On its surface, this seems to be a pretty cut-and-dried case where even an amateur hack like me would instinctively side with the photographer. Below its surface, it is a bit more nuanced and ugly.
This pop star recently changed the contract terms for her concerts, giving her all rights to any picture taken during the show. I'm sure web developers are familiar with "You should be happy to do this for free. Think of the exposure you'll get from it!" I think it's kind of a vile process, but at the same time it's not like photographers are blindly signing the contracts without knowing they are signing away the rights to their own pictures.
On the other hand, the photographer in question was paparazzi, whom I consider to be the bottom feeders of photographers.
The photo in question was of the singer emerging from a building, and was snapped by one of the pack of camera-wielding jackals who will camp outside of buildings hoping for a scrap.
To the photographer's defence, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when one ventures into a public place. The singer was aware of that, or reasonably should have been aware of that when she emerged from that building into a public place. She knew the paparazzi would be there, and that they would be taking pictures of her for profit. There is also the matter of ownership. I am very firmly in the camp where a photographer owns all rights to every picture they take until such time as they modify the terms of that ownership, either through a contract, or through releasing them under a creative commons licence like I do.
But...
I think there is a strong case here for the singer to claim some measure of ownership over her own likeness. This is not a case where she went to a studio and signed a contract with a photographer, giving the latter rights to any pictures. There is no contract between these two parties, signed or implied. While the photographer is entirely in the right to claim sole ownership of the photograph, the singer is also right to claim that it only has inherent value because she is in it. I do not see this as being entirely different from standing outside of a concert hall with a tape recorder and then selling copies of the tape.
We need some balance between personal and public rights. If I spit my gum in the street, I think it is perfectly within somebody's rights to pick it up and extract my DNA from it. On the other hand, I don't think that doing so should give them the rights to my DNA. I believe that there is a case to be made here where both parties should be able to claim some measure of ownership on the picture.
I don't think this should be a general case, because that would completely stifle photography. I think our laws need to be updated with some rules for paparazzi, since that is a specific discipline of photography. If somebody is taking photos of another person in the street specifically because that person's likeness has inherent value, the subject of the photo should have the opportunity to exact value from it as well.
I guess the obvious solution is to point my notifications to a different email server, but Hotmail is my oldest account, and I like to give it something to do. If I had any confidence that its mail server would still exist from one moment to the next, I'd try directing them to my venerable Yahoo account. I'll flag Hotmail that these are not spam and see if that works. Worst case I just point them to Gmail.
[Update] I dragged them all out of the spam folder, and when another notification showed up a few minutes later, Hotmail did not flip it into the junk folder. Maybe dragging them out of that folder was enough to make it change its internal rules.
There is a photographer suing a pop singer for posting one of his photos on her Instagram. On its surface, this seems to be a pretty cut-and-dried case where even an amateur hack like me would instinctively side with the photographer. Below its surface, it is a bit more nuanced and ugly.
This pop star recently changed the contract terms for her concerts, giving her all rights to any picture taken during the show. I'm sure web developers are familiar with "You should be happy to do this for free. Think of the exposure you'll get from it!" I think it's kind of a vile process, but at the same time it's not like photographers are blindly signing the contracts without knowing they are signing away the rights to their own pictures.
On the other hand, the photographer in question was paparazzi, whom I consider to be the bottom feeders of photographers.
The photo in question was of the singer emerging from a building, and was snapped by one of the pack of camera-wielding jackals who will camp outside of buildings hoping for a scrap.
To the photographer's defence, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when one ventures into a public place. The singer was aware of that, or reasonably should have been aware of that when she emerged from that building into a public place. She knew the paparazzi would be there, and that they would be taking pictures of her for profit. There is also the matter of ownership. I am very firmly in the camp where a photographer owns all rights to every picture they take until such time as they modify the terms of that ownership, either through a contract, or through releasing them under a creative commons licence like I do.
But...
I think there is a strong case here for the singer to claim some measure of ownership over her own likeness. This is not a case where she went to a studio and signed a contract with a photographer, giving the latter rights to any pictures. There is no contract between these two parties, signed or implied. While the photographer is entirely in the right to claim sole ownership of the photograph, the singer is also right to claim that it only has inherent value because she is in it. I do not see this as being entirely different from standing outside of a concert hall with a tape recorder and then selling copies of the tape.
We need some balance between personal and public rights. If I spit my gum in the street, I think it is perfectly within somebody's rights to pick it up and extract my DNA from it. On the other hand, I don't think that doing so should give them the rights to my DNA. I believe that there is a case to be made here where both parties should be able to claim some measure of ownership on the picture.
I don't think this should be a general case, because that would completely stifle photography. I think our laws need to be updated with some rules for paparazzi, since that is a specific discipline of photography. If somebody is taking photos of another person in the street specifically because that person's likeness has inherent value, the subject of the photo should have the opportunity to exact value from it as well.
