man & nature # 3 ~ the f***ing scumbags never quit

After the sun goes down • click to embiggenFYI for those of you linking from adirondackbasecamp.com - you may want to read today's ... what you pay for entry as well.

On my recent entry, living large in the Adirondacks, Sean wrote : "Our last economic development officer kept suggesting that I should "donate" images to her very well funded (using my tax dollars) office ... I told her I would be thrilled to just as soon as my much anticipated "donation" of a 1Ds MkIII arrived from Canon. I'm still waiting for it."

It's hard to criticize too severely (but not without some vigor) someone for trying to get something for nothing while stating so in a forthright manner - that seems to be part of human nature - but when they do it with a slight-of-hand photo-rights grab photo contest they have stepped over the line. At that point they are nothing more or less than scam artists.

Copyright and use-right issues can be an expensive and tricky business when dealing with most professional photographers and with a substantial number of informed amateurs. Corporations and professional organizations, to include tourism organizations, are acutely aware of this. Rights-grab photo contests are their way of avoiding the issue.

What easier way to get pictures for nothing than to prey on and take advantage of the uniformed.

Although, greater legal minds than mine will have to grapple with the legality of this practice. What I do know is that copyright law states that:

§ 204. Execution of transfers of copyright ownership

(a) A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent.

Whether a mouse click check mark on an online Terms & Agreement statement qualifies as "in writing" and "signed by the owner of the rights conveyed", is probably open to question. Maybe it's legal, maybe not. I don't know, but, there's "legal" and then there's "ethical".

Some major corporations - HP and Adobe amongst them - have been caught with their hand in this cookie jar and been roundly castigated for it. For the most part, their response has been to issue a 'humble' mea coupa, then blame the lawyers, and then to promise to never do it again. There is little doubt that they didn't know exactly what they were doing. The only thing they didn't know was the amount of outrage that they would encounter.

That said, the practice is not about to go away any time soon. Sad to say, a tourism organization in the Adirondacks - The Adirondack Regional Tourism Council - has been conducting an ongoing photo contest with exactly the same MO. In order to merely submit a picture to the "contest", a person must agree to terms and conditions that state (in part):

... I agree that all photographs submitted shall become the property of The Adirondack Regional Tourism Council (ARTC). ARTC reserves the non-exclusive right to use any photograph(s) in publications or for promotional purposes...

In the pre-rights grab past, no such blanket conditions existed just to enter a photo contest. Winners were often required to grant use rights to the contest sponsor for promotional use relative to the contest but rarely, if ever, to the sponsor for use in their business advertising. It should also be noted that, even in the era of the rights-grab, there are still many photo contest sponsors who do not practice such scam-artist grabs. More power to them.

As an example, from the T&C of a photo contest sponsored by Nikon:

The organizer reserves the permanent nonexclusive right to publish, reproduce, display, distribute, and show on screen any winning photograph on Web sites, photo exhibitions, tradeshows, or any other media which is under the management of the organizer for the purpose of promoting the contest .... A separate agreement will need to be reached should the organizer, its subsidiaries or affiliates wish to publish a submitted photograph for purposes other than the promotion of the contest (my emphasis).

As for the people at the ARTC and those who convinced them to engage in rights-grab activities under the guise of a photo contest, I hope they all lose their jobs and have to beg on street corners. And, as long as I'm hoping for the best, I hope they all lose their jobs and have to beg on street corners for rest of their lives. Seriously. Hell, while I'm at it, I hope they're all young so that the rest of their lives is a really, really long time.

Any questions about where I stand on this issue?

Update on Monday, March 31, 2008 at 05:12PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: TourPro wrote: "I will be the first to admit that the boilerplate agreement that folks are forced to 'agree' to is lame ... I'm all for rewarding people for their work, but with the changing technological landscape, new business models are a must."

TourPro also asked: "How would you counsel a business when it comes to User Generated Content?"

my response: before I answer TourPro's question, I want to address this notion - that, under the guise of a "changing technological landscape", the "lame" practice of forcing folks to "agree" to "boilerplate agreement"(s) that negates "rewarding people for their work", constitutes a "new business model"?

Bullshit. You can put any kind of spin you want on the age-old practice of getting something for nothing, but one thing it is not is a "new business model". Scam artists, operating under all manner of guises, and outright thieves have been doing that for centuries. Calling it a "new business model" is simply consummate huckser-ism at its best.

As for stretching the definition of UGC to include the self-serving mining of sites that have UGC content - discussion boards, blogs, social networking sites, experience or photo sharing sites - for out-of-site and uncompensated commercial gain, I don't buy it.

If the ARTC were interested in building an online site devoted to the sharing of Adirondack pictures, UGC, from which they gained a significant amount of PR value, I have no problem at all with that. IMO, that's a smart and ethical business practice. Then, "the masses of folks that just like to share the pictures they take" can, in fact, share them with their peers.

But, to cynically grab reproduction rights, without any compensation whatsoever, from those who are motivated to connect with peers, achieve a certain level of notoriety, fame, or recognition ("nice photo, dude"), or to simply express themselves, is, IMO, preying upon the desires of others.

To my knowledge, I have never heard one of those "folks" state that one of their life-desires was to take pictures, without being rewarded for their work, that others could use, BTW - for ever and ever, for commercial gain. Really. I've never heard anyone say that. Have you?

man & nature ku # 1/2 ~ one day to the next

24 hours • click to embiggenFYI, I have decided to drop the 'urban' from my Adirondack landscapes with signs of man. After scanning many of my earlier 8×10 negatives, many of which are truly urban landscapes, it made me realize how totally un-appropriate the word is for pictures of things here in the mountains. Not that I'm thrilled with the phrase "man & nature" but, in any event, there it is anyways.

As you know, I rarely talk about anything technical, photography-wise, especially about gear. Nevertheless, I have been thinking about a relatively generic gear issue related to digital cameras vs. film cameras. And, in fact, the issue is really only part of the bigger picture about techno babble. By "babble', I don't mean "yakking", rather, I am referring to the tower of babble of competing proprietary technologies.

You know the kind of babble I mean. As an example, consider web browsers. Each of the various browsers sees content differently and, not uncommonly, to the point where some content is either mangled or completely missing or unavailable. There is no commonly shared standard. It's as if, when you are reading the morning paper, you need a different set of eyewear to see the type properly, depending on what kind of press it was printed on. Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid.

That said, let's get on to cameras. Back in the good ole days of film cameras, the standard for photographs print result-wise, was film. For instance, no matter which camera you loaded your Kodachrome into, you got a 'Kodachrome' picture. The difference in lens quality aside, it did not matter whether you loaded your Kodachrome into a disposable camera or a flagship Nikon SLR, you always ended up with a Kodachrome picture.

In the digital camera world, that is simply not the case. The is no standard. Every camera manufacturer has a different standard regarding how their products 'see' color, tone, contrast, sharpness, etc. And, just to make matters even more babble-ish, there are none too subtle differences in how different camera models within the same manufacturer's line up 'see'. Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid.

I can understand (up to a point) differences, from manufacturer to manufacturer, in the way cameras 'see' relative to color, tone, and contrast, but not relative to sharpness. Isn't that suppose to be the domain of optics? Apparently not. Not when, in the case of the 4/3rds domain as an example, I can put a Leica lens on a variety of different manufacturer's cameras - Olympus, Panasonic, Leica - and get different results sharpness-wise. Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid.

I also understand the relentless 'advances' in sensor technology. Although, the cynic in me suspects a certain amount of incremental release of such advances in order to keep us buying. That not withstanding, I don't understand why manufacturers, let's consider Olympus DSLRs, can not, once they have introduced a new and improved sensor together with its companion color engine, put that sensor in all of their current production models. Why? So that all Olympus DSLRs have identical Olympus color, contrast, tone, and sharpness.

If I were to buy the Olympus flagship E-3, the only Olympus I could have a a legitimate backup is another E-3. If I were to use any other Olympus DSLR as a backup, I would have to sacrifice all the sensor / color engine advances of the E-3. This is true of every other camera manufacturer. Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid.

In the good ole days, I had my flagship Nikon and I could choose any Nikon SLR as a backup because, no matter what backup I chose, the image quality would be exactly the same from camera to camera. And, it didn't matter if my Nikon flagship was not the latest and greatest flagship because image quality-wise, they produced exactly the same results. For that matter, I could use any manufacturer's camera as a backup and, guess what, the results would still be exactly the same - a Kodachrome picture would still be a Kodachrome picture.

If film and, more importantly, the means to get it processed weren't disappearing into the sunset, I'd chuck the whole digital camera thing, the whole kit and kaboodle, into the trash. That said, you'd have to pry my mouse out of my cold dead hands when it comes to getting me out of the digital darkroom.

PS - it should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway - all of my Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid statements are plain and simple, just flat out stupid for the consumer. Because, on the other hand, camera manufacturers are, plain and simple, just flat out laughing all the way to the bank.