Let's Get to the News (and Jokes)

• Carolyn Wright, who runs the website Photoattorney.com for photographers and has written a book that I've recommended in the past, has been named in this article as a party to what the article calls "copyright troll[ing]."

To insure a steady stream of "accidental infringements," "trolls" put up images on free wallpaper sites. "But if that image is used for any commercial purposes whatsoever," the lawyer "swoops in with a lawsuit."

Perhaps some of the attorneys in the audience (Cal? Adam? Laura?) can weigh in on whether this behavior is ethical.

• Three-legged dog walks into a bar. He's wearing a six-gun. Bar goes quiet. Dog says, "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw."

Bunny Yeager, Bettie Page, and two friends.

• Bunny Yeager, the pioneering pinup and nude photographer who was part of the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and the early days of Playboy magazine, died on May 25th at the age of 85. Resource Magazine has a nice article about her. (Link is not safe for work [nudity]. —Ed.)

• Dyslexic man walks into a bra.

• Stanley Roberts' People Behaving Badly. Moral of story: when you're being a jerk, don't make it worse for yourself by threatening the cameraman. (This is pretty amusing, especially if your taste runs to schadenfreude.)

• Submarine sandwich walks into a bar. Bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve food in here."

• Has Magnum taken a page from TOP's book? Its current print sale looks an awful lot like ours!

• A rabbi, a priest, and a minister walk into a bar. Bartender says, "I've heard a lot about you guys."

• The reputation of the late Saul Leiter is vaulting ahead of many of his contemporaries who were more famous in his own time because his work seems so suited to now. We've received news that the long-awaited new book Saul Leiter: Early Black and White (the companion to the now-famous Early Color) finally shipped to distributors this week. Amazon's listing as of this writing seems befuddled (the link leads to the wrong book), but it can be ordered from the Book Depository for worldwide shipment. Might sell out fast*. Mine's ordered and I can't wait.

• Horse walks into a bar. Bartender says, "hey buddy, why the long face?"

Mike
(Thanks to many readers, and Scott)

*Early Color sold out notoriously quickly but later received a much larger second printing and remains in print. No telling what will befall to this one, but demand will be fierce at least at first.

Ctein adds: Okay, I'm having a lot of trouble making sense out of the first item (about copyright trolling). There's a hell of a lot of smoke, that is, myriad complaints…but I can't find the fire—namely the "honey pot" or the "free wallpaper" websites that are enticing people into downloads. Maybe one of the other readers here can point me to the sites that are supposedly enticing people into unwitting copyright infringement?

What I do come up with is Vincent Taylor's website where he talks repeatedly (and sometimes forcefully) about offering photographs for sale, not for free. There are prominent homepage links to stock usage, about copyrights, products, and right at the top of his "about me" page there is this: "(Click HERE for information regarding Copyrights." If he's enticing anyone to download his stuff and misuse it, I'm missing it.

So I went looking for the other supposed culprit, Hawaiian Art Network. Which by itself does not have a webpage of the sort that people are getting het up about, but it does lead me to this:

http://www.hawaiipictures.com/copyright.php

Which starts off with this paragraph:

By using HawaiiPictures.com ("Website") owned and operated by Hawaiian Art Network LLC ("Owner"), you agree to abide by these terms of use. If you do not agree to these terms of use you may not use this website. The purpose of the HawaiiPictures.com website is to sell Hawaii related Media ("Media" includes pictures, photos, videos, graphics, vectors, qtvr, prints, and software). You agree to comply with any and all copyright statements on the Website regarding use rights and our Media License Agreement.

Which seems pretty clear to me. Appropriate information is even on their not-especially-cluttered homepage:

http://www.hawaiipictures.com/

The first paragraph reads:

HawaiiPictures.com hand selects the best stock photography from all of the Hawaiian Islands. Each tropical location is brilliantly represented in high-resolution detail for personal or professional use. Buy and download Hawaii photos, video footage, wallpapers, and more. Fine art prints are also available.

And at the bottom of the not very long nor cluttered page, there are links for:

NO COMMERCIAL SHARE USE ALLOWED WITHOUT A LICENSE

© 2014 HawaiiPictures.com | Commercial Use Price Quotes | Media License Agreement Hawaiian Art | About Us | Links | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Email Us

Which I think makes it pretty clear what business they're in and their policies.

Mind you, I'm not saying I have any idea what's actually going on with the alleged trolling. But, if there is real copyright trolling going on, there has to be some source for innocent (or at least plausibly ignorant) infringement or misinterpretation of the conditions of use, or there aren't any unintentional victims out there, just people complaining because they got slammed for doing something they were clearly informed not to.

I don't want to see genuine trolling going on, of people who are entrapped or at least seduced into getting themselves sued. But, I'm happy to see aggressive, even vicious enforcement, when people should genuinely know better. The whole "but you should just ask them nicely when they infringe on you, or bill them a reasonable usage rate" approach fails badly—it doesn't provide any disincentive for the thieves, and it's not cost effective for the content creators to try to chase them down.

Omer replies to Ctein: "The images shown here are stripped of any copyright info."

Chris: "For copyright trolling, you can start reading here."

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

John: "As a motorcyclist, I find the video segment 'People Behaving Badly' to be extremely funny. It's difficult to come up with a plausible reason why the rider thought that confronting the cameraman, Stanley Roberts, could possibly be a good idea. Suspended license, no insurance, flagrant traffic violation. Wearing a full-face helmet guaranteeing anonymity. I think I'll go with this: a few clowns short of a circus."

Mark Roberts: "In my humble, non-legal (but experienced—more on that later) opinion, both parties in that copyright lawsuit need to get real.

"First of all, anyone running their own web site, especially a commercial one, is obliged to do at least a little reading about copyright issues before putting someone else's images or other content on their site. It's not 1994 any more. And the claim that someone is 'copyright trolling' simply by offering images free for use as desktop backgrounds but demanding payment for commercial uses is fatuous: plenty of photographers, myself included, offer our images free for such use as a form of publicity that one hopes will lead to future sales.

"That said, the demand for $9,500 for a single use on a website looks like copyright trolling to me. As does initiating proceedings with a lawsuit rather than a simple request for payment.

"I base these opinions on my own experience: A couple of years ago I received a notice from Getty Images about unauthorized use of one of their photos on my site. Puzzled, I looked into it and found that a book I had reviewed had incorporated one of Getty's licensed images as part of its cover design and my link for readers to purchase the book used Amazon's thumbnail image of the book cover. Getty Images billed me $750 (less than 1/10 of what this unknown photographer in the story you reference is demanding). So I phoned them up, their representative looked at my web page (up to this point everything had been done by automatic image recognition software) and instantly determined there wasn't any issue with my use. No bill. No problem. All handled quickly and professionally.

"Both parties in that lawsuit need to take chill pills and settle this for a couple of hundred dollars.

"The book I recommend to my students on using other people's materials (and licensing their own) is Getting Permission: How to License & Clear Copyrighted Materials Online & Off. [There's a Kindle version too. —Ed.] The information in it is fundamental enough that it's unlikely to get significantly outdated. The author, Richard Stim, has a great blog on the subject of IP matters."

Comments

[James]

Did you hear about the dyslexic atheist? He didn't believe in Dog!

[Lars K. Christensen]

"Chan said he is very familiar with Vincent K. Tylor, who puts up images on free wallpaper sites that people can use for desktop savers. But if that image is used for any commercial purposes whatsoever, he said, then Tylor swoops in with a lawsuit."
Which, of course he is perfectly entitled too. The amount he is demanding might be exaggerated, but there is no doubt, that if you are using a picture commercially, for which you have been granted the right to personal use only, it’s an infringement. What’s no to be understood here?
I’m a great fan of Creative Commons. All my photos on Flickr are labeled CC BY NC, which means that anybody can use them non-commercially, as long as they credit me. But if somebody uses one of my photos in an (unlikely) effort to make money for themselves, I will of course demand a share of that.

[Benjamin Marks]

Thanks for the link, Mike. I have been a Saul Leiter fanboy since . . .well, since before "fanboy" was a word. My copy is winging its way here.

[Jim Witkowski]

A cop, priest and a prostitute walk into a bar. The bartender asks, "Is this some kind of a joke?"

[T Hill]

Two guys walk into a bar. The third one ducks.

[misha]

Horse walks into a bar. Bartender says, "hey buddy, why the long face?"

The horse replies, "If you were a horse, you'd have a long face too."
____________________________

An elderly man in a synagogue says to the fellow next to him, "STD!! At 82!!!"

The other man replies, "So? AT&T at 18."
________________________________________

A man walks into his vet's office carrying his dead dog. He's shown into an exam room; the vet says, "I'm sorry, but your dog is dead." The man says, "I want a second opinion."

The vet leaves and comes back in carrying a cat. The vet puts the cat on the table; he sniffs the dog from nose to tail and back. The cat sits and meows.

The vet says, "The cat has told me your dog is dead, and cannot be revived." The man says, "Alright. What do I owe you?" The vet replies $350." The man explodes. "$350 to tell me my dog is dead?!"

The vet replies, "My fee is $50, and it's $300 for the cat scan."
________________________

A Russian woman says, "I'm hungry and thirsty. I'd like a glass of vodka."

A French woman says, "I'm hungry and thirsty. I'd like a glass of wine."

The Jewish woman says, "I'm hungry and sooo thirsty. I think I have diabetes."

[Mike Plews]

Good North Dakota joke here.
Ole goes to the doctor for his annual check up and the doc says "Olaf I have personal question I have to ask, do you and Lena have mutual orgasms?" and Ole says "oh no doc, we got Lutheran Brotherhood!".
Gotta tell that one quick before eveybody forgets what Thrivent Insurance used to be called.

[darr]

It is interesting to hear how the other shoe can drop regarding photography infringement on the internet. You hear so much about royalty-free images and how it can hurt the photographer's bottom line, but now there is another layer added behind some of those images. When one door closes ...

[Nathan Degargoyle]

Man walks into a bar and drops to the floor. It was an iron bar.

Hear about the stupid woodworm? Found dead in a brick. (My granddaughter's favourite joke when she was 5)

"My dog has no nose!"
"How does it smell?"
"Disgusting!"

I'll get me coat.
Taxi!

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Wait, what!? You want attorneys to weigh in on whether a behavior is ethical? Wrong group to ask, seems to me ;-)

[Joe Kashi]

Hi, Mike

From a legal standpoint, one can't give any opinion about the alleged copyright trolling without more, and verified, information. This post is NOT legal advice, only general suggestions about where to start in dealing with these situations.

However, it's fair to say that the alleged conduct, if verified, raises some significant red flags and that the first step for any targeted photographer is to clearly document what occurred, including dated screen shots of the web site showing the photo and its supposedly free nature and then send that information and any lawsuit or demand letter to the appropriate state bar discipline counsel for review. If you can show a pattern, that's important.

A targeted photographer should hire a local attorney whom they trust, to deal with any demand or lawsuit, as well as consult with an intellectual property attorney with specialized copyright experience and probably knowledge of similar situations.

I have read summaries of a number of reported cases where, if memory serves, similar sorts of situations have back-fired through counterclaims and the like.

Please note that I don't do these sorts of cases and would not be able to give specific advice to any affected readers, only suggest a general starting point.

[Steve Rosenblum]

Horse walks into a bar. Bartender says, "So....Why the long face?"

Badda Bing! =)

[ann]

Surely this business woman who supports local artists could have paid a local photograher to take pictures of their work? Maybe she will in future!

[Patrick Dodds]

"Certainly sir, coming right up."
A neutrino walks into a bar.

[Rex Lechat]

Dyslexic: I laughed and laughed and laughed. IN a public place. Wonderful because of its succinctness.

[Bil Mitchell]

You omitted the punchline of the bartender/rabbi/priest/minister story: "What is this, some kind of a joke?"

[GKFroehlich]

Jumper cable walks into a bar. Bartender says "I'll serve you, but don't start anything."

Hydrogen atom walk into a bar. Tells the bartender, "I've lost my electron." Bartender says, "Are you sure?" He tells the bartender “Yes, I'm positive."

Latin professor walks into a bar. Tells the bartender "I'll have a martinus." Bartender asks "Don't you mean a martini?" Professor says "If I’d wanted a double, I'd have asked for it!"

Termite walks into a bar. Asks “Is the bar tender here?”

E-flat walks into a bar. Bartender says “Sorry, we don't serve minors.”

Cowboy walks into a bar. Asks the bartender "Where is everybody?" Bartender replies, "They've gone to the hanging." Cowboy says "Hanging? Who are they hanging?" Bartender replies "Brown Paper Pete." Cowboy asks "What kind of a name is that?" Bartender says "Well, Pete wears a brown paper hat, a brown paper shirt, brown paper trousers, and brown paper shoes." Cowboy says "What are they hanging him for?" Bartender replies "Rustling."

Baby seal walks into a club…

[Paul C]

I was able to order the Saul Leiter Early Black and White book from bookdepository.com in the UK (which is odd, since they're owned by Amazon but seem to operate independently), and I've received a shipment notice.

I've had a watch set with them for this title for more than a year. I did double-check Amazon, found no real listing, so I went ahead with the order last week.

Since then, The Book Depository, among others, is listing the book via Amazon.com in the US.

[Don Craig]

Worth noting that the young tree-decorating Bettie Page at the NSFW link has a very definite magenta cast. They don't make flesh tones like they used to.

[Steve Renwick]

A Frenchman walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder.

The bartender says, "Hey, that's cool. Where did you get it?"

The parrot says, "In France -- they've got millions of them there."

[Jimmy Reina]

A horse walks into a bar, sits down, and orders a beer.
The bartender brings the drink,and says "That'll be $12.00".
The horse offers a $20 bill,and when the bartender brings the change back he says, "Y'know, we don't get many horses in here".
The horse replies, " Yeah, and at $12.00 a beer, you are not liable to get many more".

A man walks into a bar with a dog on his head.
The bartender says, "we don't allow no pigs in here".
The man says, "That's not a pig, it's a dog."
The bartender says, "I was talking to the dog".

A grasshopper walks into a bar, and sits down.
The bartender walks up and says, "Y'know, we have a drink named after you".
The grasshopper says, "Really? You have a drink named 'Marvin'?".

(the punctuation on that one nearly killed me).

And then. there's this-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HvV-rB-ltc

[Craig C.]

Mike,

I found it ironic that the prime subject of the article was copyright infringement and then went on to use a couple of jokes I'm sure I copyrighted decades ago. ;~)

Or at least I've been telling them for over 50 years.

BTW, did you hear the Chinese philosopher Confucius once said, "Man who pass through airport turnstile sideways going to Bangkok."

[Phil Maus]

Two cannibals were eating a clown, one said to the other, "Does this taste funny to you?"

[Jim Witkowski]

I can't believe no one has entered this one.

A grizzly bear ambles into a bar and stands at the bar in front of the tender then says, "Bartender give me a. . . beer."

Bartender says,. . .wait for it. . ."What's with the big pause?"

[Mike Plews]

OK one more
How many Psychiatrists does it take to screw in a light bulb ?
One but the light bulb really has to want to change.

[Mike Plews]

Doggone it, I can't stop now

What do you get if you throw a hand grenade into a French kitchen?

Linoleum blownapart

sorry

[Benjamin Marks]

On the copyright "troll" piece: I think the emotional punch of the story comes not from the question of infringement, but the method of negotiation/attempted collection after the fact. In America, we have the basic rule, "wrongdoers pay" in tort law. The little "(c)" symbol is placed on work to put folks on notice that they can't just appropriate and use the material for their own gain, subject to fair-use and other exceptions. So, if you use copyrighted material without permission, ya' done wrong, pardner, and you've got to pay the man. But there is something distasteful about sending in the lawyers with large $$ demands to a small business-person. Be clear: this is an emotional rather than a rational response to the issue, based on a specific set of facts. I am sure there is a rationale behind the collection tactic, but it seems like a pretty poor way to run the railroad.

However, do you have the same emotional result if it was a big corporation with its own lawyers that appropriated the photographer's work? Say McDonalds appropriated the image and was using it in their ads? It can't really be one rule for big infringers and another for the small ones.

But there can be some common sense used in collections tactics. I think the model of Mike's print sales could be useful to the participants -- scale the damages to the ability of the infringer to pay? In this case you have a third actor -- the law firm involved. Using lawyers as collection agencies tends to distort the size of the harm alleged, in my own view of course.

I once got a fortune cookie that said "The big fish eat the little fish, but beware the pirahna." In this case the big fish is McDonalds and Getty Images. The little fish are you and me. The pirhanas? That's the Inter-Web baby. And it is eating all our lunch in this generation.

[beuler]

A piece of string walks into a bar and reads the sign "we don't serve string".

The piece of string ties itself into a knot and walks up to the bar tender who asks: "are you a piece of string"?

"No, I'm a fraid knot"!

[Chan]

Mohammad Ali for $100? I'm tempted!

[Rob Griffin]

Ole wakes in the morning and finds that Lena has passed away in her sleep. He calls the funeral home to ask them to come pick up Lena. They say, Ole we are sorry for your loss, what is your address? Ole says, we live on the corner of Chrysanthemum and Eucalyptus. Guy at the funeral home asks, Ole can you spell that for me? Ole says, how about I drag her to the corner of Oak and Elm and meet you there?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Rob Griffin

[ctein]

Dear Mark,

"That said, the demand for $9,500 for a single use on a website looks like copyright trolling to me. As does initiating proceedings with a lawsuit rather than a simple request for payment."

~~~~

Umm, except that's not what happened. Reread the article. It says there were months of negotiations over payment BEFORE a lawsuit was filed. A letter demanding payment is not a lawsuit.

And, BTW, that's exactly how negotiations work-- you ask for the sun, moon and stars. The other party offers up just the moon. You counter by willing to give up on the stars, if you can get the solar system. Etc. That's not trolling. (My last sentence in the featured addition explains why you need to ask for large amounts.)

Your situation was mistaken identity. It's a problem with automated searches (and it's a serious and tough one), but it's DIFFERENT problem.

~~~~

Dear Omer,

Yeah, totally scrubbed. And I'm taking a wild leap here, but I'm gonna bet the owner of that site didn't make all those photographs on his site or get permission from the creators to use them.

I am such a cynic.

Still doesn't excuse infringement -- copyright does NOT require a notice or label. The "I thought it was free" argument? Sorry, that horse won't fly.

It doesn't leave the original photographer with many options except to go after people who misuse their work (which includes that blogger, of course).

Unless the originating photographers are conspiring with the wallpaper blogger to create this honey pot, it ain't trolling.

pax / Ctein

[Joseph Brunjes]

I would tell a few jokes but am afraid of getting sued for copyright infringement.

[KeithB]

Of course the classic version of a honeypot/copyright troll is Prenda:
http://www.popehat.com/tag/prenda-law/

People post porn to bitTorrent like sites. Find out who downloads it, send letters from law firm to demand payment or get lawsuit. The people who post the porn are the makers of the porn and the lawyers.

Currently this gang is getting in big trouble for perjury and other misrepresentations to Federal judges.

[Omer]

Ctein, what appears to be one of the photographer in question pictures is on the google hosted wallpaper site. And the photographer is very aggressive.

Yes, all photographs have copyright protection.

[anthony]

On the "copyright trolling" post: I (full disclosure) am both a photographer and someone born and raised in VT, so have an emotional connection with both sides.

As near as I can reconstruct, a photograph was downloaded from a site heavily marketed as a place for "free" images, and then used on a company's website, i.e., for "commercial purposes". And now the photographer wants a huge amount of money for said use.

It seems that both parties bear some responsibility here: the photographer for a business plan that perhaps is less than forthright, and the company owner for an apparent lack of awareness of copyright practice.

I'm with the company owner on this one - seems the photographer and his lawyers are pushing their weight around, and in a big way. That in itself will prompt me to send off a note of support to the company owner, and perhaps even a contribution to help defray legal expenses.

If the photographer made some effort to be reasonable - perhaps $100 given the use - then it would be a whole different matter.

[anthony]

And on a lighter note.

The past, present and future walk into a bar. Things were pretty tense.

(Note - partial attribution- this may have been purloined from an earlier post/comment on this site.)

[Mark]

I love a video with a happy ending. Karma rocks.

[John Robison]

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar,
and dosen't.

[Patch]

Did you hear about the magic cow that walked down the road and turned into a field.

[ctein]

By the late, great John M. "Mike" Ford:

Werner Heisenberg, Kurt Godel and Noam Chomsky walk into a bar.

Heisenberg says, "Is this joke funny? I can't tell?"

Godel replies, "That's because we're inside the joke."

To which Chomsky responds."Of course it's funny.

"You're just telling it wrong!"

You've been a lovely audience. Don't forget to tip your server on the way out.
pax / Ctein

[Robert Harshman]

Letting a for profit company's use your photo's for credit is a great way to get more work for nothing. It's actually a sign of a young inexperienced photographer that does not know how to market themselves.

I love it when someone that's being paid contacts me to use photo's for credit which means free. Stupid. I have NEVER gotten work from a credit even when I've also charged the user.

Recently Cameron's house, actually garage, featured in the Ferris Bueller movie finally sold. Both CNN and CBS contacted me to use some of the images for credit. CNN was the worse by far. They asked for unlimited, perpetual, worldwide use for credit. I told them based on there request it would be $5,000 per image but if they had a budget perhaps we could come to some agreement. They cancelled the story.

While you think I missed an opportunity for PR, I believe I simply helped myself and any other commercial photographer out there reinforce the idea that we need to be paid for our work, giving credit is not being paid.

[Giovanni]

Hi Mike
ordered Saul Leiter from The Book Depository yesterday, can't wait to receive it, his work in color is amazing so it's going to be interesting to compare his approach to B&W.
Then this moring I walk to one of my local bookstores (Paris being Paris, can't have a neighborhood without a few), and there it is for potentially more instantaneous gratification. Ten euros more than the BD price, but there is a tradeoff and price to pay to keep alive the pleasure of walking in your neighborhood bookworm hole and smell the paper before you buy...
Tradeoff this time was: wait for Leiter to show up in the mail, and reinvest the discount towards amother gem found in the store, fresh from the presses of Nazraeli (Portland, OR): Jay Maisel, New York in the '50s. Great images, esp. plates 53 and 57. I'd add it to your shopping list...

[Tony]

A woman walks into a bar and says "I'll have an entendre."
"I tell you what, make it a double."
So the barman gave her one.