The terrible tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma was just a few miles north of where I live in Norman. It was visible from the hill where I live – although only indirectly. The funnel could not be seen through the rain, but the power flashes were clearly visible. Here you can see some of my neighbors watching.
From the time that the tornado hit until 9:15 p.m., internet and television were not functioning in my neighborhood. It was a day of listening to the radio. No pictures, no interactivity, just the audio simulcast of KWTV’s television coverage. One reporter almost wretched on the air when coming across a victim who was impaled. Another left a long stretch of dead air when she was unable to continue talking after discussing the reaction of a parent of one of the children lost at an elementary school.
Archive for the ‘images’ Category
Moore Tornado
Tuesday, May 21st, 2013Illegal to Post Images of Your Ballot?
Tuesday, November 6th, 2012We’re seeing lots of chatter about people posting photos of their ballots taken with phones (such as on the ABC/Yahoo Live Stream and NBC News Blog.)
The Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard Law School has a wonderful chart, backed up with citations to statutes, of state laws concerning taking photos in polling places. And guess what – yikes, it’s illegal plenty of places.
It sure seems like these laws are behind the times. And there’s reason to think that taking video and photos in the ballot booth is quite the opposite of socially pernicious. For instance, there’s this video (albeit unverified) of a person trying to vote for Obama with the machine registering a vote for Romney:
Cameras in the U.S. Supreme Court Closer to Reality
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Photo by me.
Arthur Bright has a nice post at Citizen Media Law Blog on the good news that the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11 to 7 to require the U.S. Supreme Court to allow television cameras into hearings.
The bill that has been approved in committee, S.B. 1945, provides:
The Supreme Court shall permit television coverage of all open sessions of the Court unless the Court decides, by a vote of the majority of justices, that allowing such coverage in a particular case would constitute a violation of the due process rights of 1 or more of the parties before the Court.
We’ll see if the bill becomes law. And if it does, the U.S. Supreme Court could always, of course, strike it down (making for a fun new case for your Federal Courts textbook). But it’s a great step in the right direction for open government and media freedom.
My concern going forward, if cameras are allowed into SCOTUS, is that everyone will have equal access to the footage. If the networks put their own cameras in and produce copyrighted footage, that won’t be a boon to bloggers and citizen journalists. The best implementation would be for the court to do its own television feed, which, as a federal government work, would be copyright-free.
And, of course, there’d be fewer cords to trip over …
Illinois Court Rules TechnoBuffalo Blog Not Covered by Shield Law
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
A leaked image published by TechnoBuffalo.
A state court in Illinois has ruled that gadget blog TechnoBuffalo is not covered by the Illinois shield law. Chris Healy of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reports on the decision.
In August of last year, TechnoBuffalo published photos of an instruction manual for a yet-to-hit-stores Motorola Droid smartphone. The photos came to the blog by way of an “anonymous tipster.”
The Johns-Bryne Company, the printers hired to reproduce the material for Motorola, sued the blog to learn the identity of the leak, and the blog claimed the protection of Illinois’s reporter’s privilege law. The court, however, read the statute in a restrictive way, saying that TechnoBuffalo does not qualify as a “news medium” and its bloggers are not “reporters,” thus making the law inapplicable.
TechnoBuffalo has asked the court to reconsider and has vowed to appeal.
Social Media Gotchas in Court – Plus: Professor Goldman’s Innovation Giveaway
Friday, January 6th, 2012
Professor Eric Goldman has been keeping a list of cases in which a person’s social media has been used as evidence against them, or, as he puts it, when litigants say “one thing in court and another when talking to their friends online.”
In the latest case, a workers comp claimant, who says he is in excruciating pain after a refrigerator fell on him, put pictures on Facebook and MySpace that show him drinking and partying. To try to get the photos excluded from evidence, the claimant attempted to seize the moral high ground, arguing that the use of the pictures in litigation was “a disgrace to the dignity of the workers’ compensation proceedings and the legal system.”
Nice try.
The court allowed the evidence.
Confronted with this case, Goldman offers the following:
Now that Facebook can do facial recognition, it should next develop a tool to automatically detect photos depicting alcoholic drinks and give users a way to automatically opt-out of those photos!
Goldman’s quite a guy, huh? Instead of trying to grab some quick cash by applying for a software/business-method patent on this, he’s offered it up as a public service. Someone note this down so that Goldman’s post can be used as prior art to block patent-hungry Facebook if and when they apply for a patent on “Method of Shielding Workers Comp Claimants from Impeaching Photos of Boozing”.
Here’s the full list of social-media-evidence-gotcha cases Professor Goldman has collected:
- Social Media Photos Foil Yet Another Litigant – Clement v. Johnson’s Warehouse
- YouTube Video Impeaches Witness’ Credibility – Ensign Yacht v. Arrigoni
- Facebook Entries Negate Car Crash Victims’ Physical Injury Claims
- Contrary MySpace Evidence Strikes a Litigant Again – HAC, Inc. v. Box
- MySpace Postings Foil Another Litigant – Sedie v. U.S.
- Disturbingly Humorous MySpace Posts Used as Impeaching Evidence in Spousal Abuse Case – Embry v. State
- Latest Example of Social Networking Site Evidence Contradicting In-Court Testimony – People v. Franco
10,000th Konomarked Photo
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011
I just uploaded my 10,000th konomarked photo to Flickr.
Konomark is a project I’ve started to help facilitate sharing of photos and other copyrighted content on the internet. My putting a “konomark” on your copyrighted content, you invite strangers to e-mail you and ask for permission for gratis re-use.
You may have noticed this blog is konomarked, and there’s a line of konomarked photos that appears running down the column on the right.
If you’d like to konomark a photo on Flickr, here’s the best way to do it.
First, tag the photo with the word “konomark”.
Second, insert the following into the description for the photo:
This photo is <b><a href=”http://www.konomark.org” rel=”nofollow”>konomarked</a></b> (“Most Rights Sharable”): If you would like to use this image without paying anything, e-mail me and ask. I’m generally willing to share.
My Citizen Journalism Rights Respected Just Now
Friday, November 18th, 2011On my drive home here in Grand Forks, North Dakota I came across the scene of a bad car accident. Oldsmobile sedan vs. GMC Jimmy, and everybody lost. I didn’t witness the accident, but I imagine that speeding, ice, and inattentive driving were factors.
I decided to take my citizen-journalist rights for a try-out with my Canon SLR camera with a big 70-200mm telephoto lens. These pictures were taken about 35 minutes ago at about 4:40 p.m. CST. I am very happy to report that police and fire officials treated me courteously.
Rights of Photojournalists to Take Photos in Public
Thursday, November 10th, 2011People who like to take random photos in public places (like these unfortunate ACLU plaintiffs) are subject to harassment by law enforcement. They shouldn’t be. But they are.
While there is a fair amount of material providing general legal guidance focused on the writing side of blogging (such as at CMLP and EFF), there is a paucity of material advising you on what you can and can’t get away with using a camera.
The best resource I’ve found – although about six years old – is this legal memorandum [pdf] from Kurt Wimmer and John Blevins at the law firm of Covington & Burling, done for the National Press Photographers Association. From the memo:
In summary, we find that there is no federal law that justifies the broad prohibitions that are being imposed on photography in public areas. There is no new federal law, including the Patriot Act, that restricts photography of public buildings and installations on the basis of concerns over terrorism. Restrictions of photojournalism that proceed on this basis may constitute violations of journalists’ First Amendment right to gather news.
I’ll think I’ll print out a copy and put it in my camera bag.
More:
ACLU Sues to Stop Sheriff Harassment of Photographers
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
Some of the thousands of photographs I’ve taken which, I am sure, the LASD would consider to be without aesthetic value. (More where those came from on Flickr.)
I’m always taking photos of random things. I think it’s fun. And photos are valuable for illustrating blog posts, among other things.
But a lot of law enforcement agencies consider photography to be a “suspicious activity.” You can be seriously harassed for street photography.
Happily, the ACLU is stepping in to do something about it. The ACLU is now suing to challenge a policy of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department that considers as “terrorism-related” the activity of taking “pictures or video footage with no apparent esthetic value, i.e., camera angles, security equipment, security personnel, traffic lights, building entrances, etc.”
If I had a buck for every photo I’ve taken of “security equipment, security personnel, traffic lights, building entrances, etc.,” then I would have a huge wad of cash. Enough to buy a full-frame digital SLR and maybe even get a sweet L-series 400mm telephoto lens.
And I’d run out and use it to take pictures of traffic lights, building entrances, and other stuff like that. And then I’d probably have to call the ACLU for help, because I could get into trouble like their latest plaintiffs Shane Quentin and Shawn Nee.
Quentin was targeted when he was taking photographs of refineries at night in south Los Angeles at night. (I’ve been meaning to do this myself the next time have some extra time down there. The refineries at night are stunning – fortresses of light, flame, fog, and exhaust. Highly photogenic in my book.) Well for his efforts, Quentin was frisked and placed in the back of squad car. He was kept there for about 45 minutes before he was let go.
It could have been me.
Nee’s misadventures are even harder to fathom. LASD deputies detained and searched plaintiff Shawn Nee when he was taking pictures turnstiles at an L.A. Metro station. This gives you an idea of where they were at: They asked Nee if he was planning to sell the photos to al-Qaeda.
Really. I’m not making that up. I mean, not only are they imply that he was in league with al-Qaeda, but that he was doing it for the money.
Then the LASD officers threatened to stick Nee on an FBI “hit list.” Okay, that’s absurd. Everyone who watches USA network knows that the CIA is in charge of assassinating terrorists on U.S. soil. But I digress.
On a separate occasion, sheriff’s deputies ordered Nee to refrain from taking photos along the Hollywood Walk of Fame at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, outside the W Hotel. I mean, holy heck. If you aren’t safe taking pictures there – smack-dab in the middle of freaking Hollywood – where are you?
You can tell I’m upset. I’m using far too much italics.
The ACLU’s complaint [pdf], unlike this blog post, is a model of legal writing. For one, it’s written with a literary flair, yet it refrains from crossing the line into floweriness. Like this:
Photography is not a crime; it is a means of artistic expression. In public spaces, on public streets and from public sidewalks, no law bars Los Angeles residents and visitors from photographing the world around them, from documenting their own lives or using their lenses to find the sublime in the commonplace.
Nicely said. The complaint also is filled with footnoted references to essays, art reviews, and books. It’s very well-researched. A model pleading. Kudos to the ACLU. What’s more, this is a lawsuit that is badly needed to push back against an unhealthy trend. As the complaint says:
Over the past several years, law enforcement agencies across the country have implemented “suspicious activity reporting” programs, under which officers are trained to report certain categories of behavior believed to be potential indicators of terrorism. Many departments include photography as one such ‘suspicious activity’ that should be reported.
Mickey H. Osterreicher said in a letter to L.A. Sheriff Lee Baca that the aim is to get “at least” the L.A. Sheriff’s Department to revise departmental policy and instruct deputies correspondingly.
“Safety and security concerns should not be used as a pretext to chill free speech and expression or to impede the ability to gather news,” Osterreicher said.
More:
UK Anti-Terrorism Law Invoked Against Dad Who FB’d Photo of Daughter Eating Ice Cream in Mall
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
The face of terrorism? (Photo: Chris White)
To be entirely frank, I would understand authorities accusing me of terrorism for bringing my 3- and 6-year-old boys into a shopping mall. They go berserk in public spaces. Generally, you can’t capture a non-blurry photo of my boys with a cell phone – they move too fast. Often they are moving fast in a way that constitutes an immediate threat to property and person. But this photo of Chris White’s daughter seems to me to have nothing-to-do-with-terrorism written all over it.
I will let Mr. White explain what happened in his own words:
Walking down the shopping mall a man approached me from behind as I was carrying my daughter in my arms. He came from behind me, cutting in front of me and told me to stop. That was quite a shock as I am wary of people with crew cuts and white shirts suddenly appearing in front of me [Me too. –EEJ], but then realised he was a security guard. He then said I had been spotted taking photos in the shopping centre which was ‘illegal’ and not allowed and then asked me to delete any photos I had taken. I explained I had taken 2 photos of my daughter eating ice cream and that she was the only person in the photo so didn’t see any problem. i also said that I wasn’t that willing to delete the photo’s and there seemed little point as I had actually uploaded them to facebook. He then said i would have to stay right where I was while he called the police …
The older police officer … said that there had been a complaint about me taking photos and that there were clear signs in Braehead shopping centre saying that no photographs were allowed. I tried to explain that I hadn’t seen any clearly displayed signs and that I had taken 2 photos of my daughter. … He then said that under the Prevention of Terrorism Act he was quite within in his rights to confiscate my mobile phone without any explanation for taking photos within a public shopping centre[.] … He then said on this occasion he would allow me to keep the photos, but he wanted to take my full details. Name, place of birth, age, employment status, address. … The police officer also said that the security guard was within his rights to now ask me to leave Braehead Shopping Centre and bar me from the premises which I was happy to oblige.
The UK Prevention of Terrorism Act apparently allows the UK’s Home Secretary or a court to issue a “control order” that can restrict a terrorist suspect’s liberty in various ways, including prohibiting the person from possessing a mobile phone. I don’t see in the act where it allows a police officer to exercise that power on the spot when confronting a person the officer believes to be a suspect. But maybe someone who understands UK law better can chime in on that.
Well, after Mr. White started a Facebook page called Boycott Braehead, the story was picked up by the BBC, and within hours the management of Braehead was apologizing and announcing a change in policy so that people will be able to take photos of friends and family. They are also saying they will implement the change at all 11 centers owned by the same company.
Meanwhile, the Boycott Braehead page has 22,381 likes. Check that: 22,475. (It’s going up as I write this.) Now it’s 22,498.
More:
- Carlos Miller on Photography is Not a Crime: UK Man Investigated For Terrorism After Photographing Daughter In Mall
- BBC: Row over photo in shopping centre
The Shields are Down! The Shields are Down!
Friday, September 2nd, 2011Righthaven – the copyright thugster and blogger-suer extraordinaire – continues the nosedive it began with its Democratic Underground defeat in June, the revelations from which led me to suggest the Nevada bar should consider attorney misconduct charges against Righthaven CEO Steve Gibson.
Here’s some of the latest to happen since then:
Insignificant rebellion? South Carolina attorney Todd Kincannon is looking for people who’ve been sued by Righthaven to be clients for a class-action litigation he’s putting together. He’s even looking for people who’ve already settled. Wow, I don’t recall ever seeing people have a potential cause of action because they’ve settled. Righthaven hoped to blaze new legal trails – but not like this!
I used to bulls-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home. They're not much bigger than two meters.
Cha-CHING! After losing on fair use in Righthaven v. Hoehn, 2011 WL 2441020 (D. Nev. June 20, 2011), Righthaven’s now been order to pay $34,000 in attorneys fees. “The wheels appear to be coming off the Righthaven trainwreck-in-progress,” says Ars Technica. And that’s gonna matter for a business that thrives on low-dollar settlements somewhere in the $2,500 range.
Will Righthaven declare bankruptcy before the year is out? Hmmm. Difficult to see. Always in motion the future is.
The CIA: Copyrightless Image Agency
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow
(Photo: CIA)
Here’s a tip on how to get copyright-free images to use to illustrate your blog posts: The CIA World Factbook. It’s a public domain set of images, maps, and text about the countries of the world, courtesy of America’s spooks.
I’ve used CIA World Factbook images on this blog to illustrate posts about Peru and Ireland.
There’s more background by me on Pixelization.
School Assembly Shocker: Student’s Social Media Skimmed for Slideshow
Thursday, April 14th, 2011
Lynde Point Lighthouse near Old Saybrook, Conn. (Photo: Robert J. Beyus, NPS)
Kashmir Hill called the ploy a “clever lesson,” and she gave “[k]udos to the Connecticut high school employee who came up with this dramatic lesson on Internet safety.”
Some students at Old Saybrook High School, however, reacted angrily, saying it invaded their privacy.
Do the students have a point? Legally speaking, yeah, maybe.
I think this would probably not make for an ultimately successful lawsuit for copyright or right-of-publicity infringement. But there’s probably enough on both of those causes of action to file a complaint that isn’t frivolous. And hey, publicity rights have been getting crazy lately, so you never know.
So far no word on whether Righthaven is trying to sign up students for copyright lawsuits.
According to the New Haven Register, principal Oliver Barton said the pictures selected were publicly accessible and thought unlikely to embarrass anyone.
But that didn’t stop the backlash.
For me, I just can’t believe school administrators thought this was a good idea. What a great way to peeve off parents. While I question their sense of judgment, it does look like their lesson is working. Check out this passage from the New Haven Register article:
“They told us we were going to watch something about Internet safety, and they said they personalized the slide show, ” said a freshman named Kayla, who didn’t want to use her last name.
Did you catch that? Kayla didn’t want to use her last name!
Lesson learned.
New Level of Crazy as Righthaven Sues Eriq Gardner then Pulls Back
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
A reproduction of a reproduction of a reproduction of a reproduction of the photo. (Photo credit: Ay yay yay yay. I have a headache.)
Wow, this is crazy even for Righthaven.
The copyright thugster sued reporter Eriq Gardner for copyright infringement for posting on Ars Technica a photo reproduced in one of Righthaven’s own lawsuit filings. They then voluntarily dismissed the suit.
Sean Harrington on Righthaven, barratry, and champerty
Monday, March 21st, 2011I’ve just come across a nice blog post on Righthaven, written by law student Sean Harrington and published on the official blog of the Minnesota State Bar Associations’s Computer and Technology Law Section:
Harrington has a quick analysis of what is happening with two antique defenses that are getting a workout by Righthaven copyright-infringement defendants: champerty and barratry. The post also provides some brief analysis of the relation of Perfect 10 v. Amazon case to Righthaven litigation against someone whose website/blogging platform displayed inline-linked images.
CNN’s Treatment of “Amateurs”
Friday, March 11th, 2011
Watching the coverage of the Japan earthquake, I find it disappointing that, in this day and age, CNN freely scrapes You Tube videos and then simply credits them to “You Tube,” without crediting the photographer. Then, they denigrate the footage by labelling it “amateur video.” Anyone who struggles to stay upright and continues to film while the ground is hopping around underneath them and while metal, glass, and concrete is crashing down from up above them, does not need to be categorized as journalistically inferior. Perhaps the subtle putdown of “amateur” helps CNN justify to itself its lack of respect for the copyright interests of the individual/non-corporate media. Of course, CNN expects others to stay away from any footage that originates with them.
Righthaven Tries to Shake $6K Out of Sick 20-Year-Old on Disability
Friday, February 18th, 2011Denver’s Westword has a report about Righthaven’s lastest victim: a chronically ill 20-year-old mildly autistic hobby blogger who allegedly reposted a Denver Post picture of a TSA patdown. Righthaven said they could make the suit go away for $6,000. The blogger, Brian Hill, who is on disability, says he doesn’t have the money to pay, or the money to hire a lawyer, or the money to travel to Denver to defend himself.
Blogger Continues Suit Against Fluvanna County over Seal Ordinance
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
The Seal of Fluvanna County, Virginia
Rothamel is suing to assert his First Amendment right to use the county’s seal to illustrate news stories about county government. A county ordinance passed in September 2010 made unauthorized use of the seal a Class 1 misdemeanor punishable with a fine of up to 12 months in jail and/or a fine of up to $2,500.
After being sued, the county’s board of supervisors voted to change the ordinance to downgrade the punishment to a maximum $100 fine and/or as long as 30 days in jail. That will bring Fluvanna County into line with the Commonwealth of Virginia’s seal statute.
The suit, however, will go forward. Suing on Rothamel’s behalf is The Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties organization that says the state law suffers from the “same vagueness problem” as the original ordinance.
Here’s Byran Rothamel’s March 2010 post about the ordinance accompanied by a big blank spot where the seal would be restored, I take it, if Rothamel’s suit is successful.
Truly a Troll: Righthaven Suing Over TSA Pat-Down Photo
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011Steve Green in the Las Vegas Sun reports about a new spate of lawsuits filed by Righthaven against bloggers who have reposted a photo from the Denver Post showing a TSA pat-down of a passenger’s crotch: Blogger, websites sued by Righthaven over ‘TSA enhanced pat-down’ photo
What’s new – and troubling – with these latest lawsuits is that the people being sued may have had no idea that the photo they were using originated with the Denver Post. Since the photo went viral, it’s showed up in Google image search results disconnected from the Denver Post.
Bloggers worried about getting sued by Righthaven had previously been able to steer clear of newspaper sites owned by companies doing business with Righthaven. But that is no longer a way to insulate yourself from Righthaven’s wrath. Using an image from a completely random website – one you might deem unlike to sue, or at least likely to share a commodious understanding of fair use – might land you in the Righthaven drift nets.
I am not a big fan of using the word “troll” to describe people enforcing intellectual property rights. And I’ve resisted using it to describe Righthaven litigation against people who reposted stories from newspapers. But what Righthaven is now doing can truly be called trolling.
Masnick Reflects on Public Domain Day
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
Further to our discussion of the public domain – mostly relevant to bloggers as a source of free images – Mike Masnick of TechDirt reflects on Public Domain Day, as other nations receive new content into the public domain, and once again, nothing in the U.S. becomes free of copyright restrictions.
Righthaven Now Suing Bloggers Over Graphics
Friday, January 7th, 2011From Steve Green in the Las Vegas Sun:
We should all be grateful to the Las Vegas Sun for devoting so much coverage to the Righthaven lawsuits, and to Steve Green for doing such a good job with it.
When Do Works Enter the Public Domain?
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
Copyright protection, under the U.S. Constitution, only lasts for “limited times.” That means eventually (at least theoretically) all copyrighted works, including photos that can be incorporated into a blog post, will enter the public domain at some point in the future.
So how old does a work have to be to enter the public domain?
Well, it’s complicated. You are generally safe assuming something is in the public domain if it was published in 1922 or before. (The hazy legal world of apparent exceptions are discussed here and here.)
Does that mean that next year works from 1923 will enter the public domain?
Unfortuntately, no. The reason why is that Congress has been, for decades now, regularly extending copyright terms at the bidding of the entertainment industry. The latest special-interest windfall was the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (text, summary). Because of this most recent extension legislation, the public domain is stuck at 1922 and will be for quite a while.
The public domain won’t grow again because of copyright expiration until 2019 – unless Congress extends the copyright term again. And you can bet that special interests are lined up to lobby for that extension when the time comes.
Since Disney lobbied hard for its passage, the Sonny Bono Act was dubbed the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” by some. Without the law, Mickey Mouse’s original cartoon short films would have entered the public domain by now.
But note that, because of sloppy work done in Disney’s early days, people who have looked at the matter closely (here and here) have concluded that the original Mickey Mouse and the motion picture Steamboat Willie (in which Mickey made one of his first appearances) are no longer the subject of a valid copyright. The public domain status of Mickey Mouse remains untested in court. People tend to be very afraid of Disney lawyers. I can’t imagine why.
The Google Street View Case – What it Doesn’t Mean for Bloggers
Monday, January 3rd, 2011
A Google Street View car driving through the countryside. (Image: Google. Used without permission.)
A few weeks ago, Google lost a lawsuit over its Street View feature. The reporting about the case was generally off the mark, so let me try to clear things up.
In the federal lawsuit, Aaron and Christine Boring of Franklin Park, Pa. won $1 in damages against Google, Inc. for trespassing.
Press coverage (e.g., this not-very-well-written story) made it sound as if Google incurred liability by taking a picture of private property and displaying it on the internet. That’s not the case. The reason Google was liable for trespassing is because Google drove its Street View car onto private land, going up a private road that was marked with a “No Trespassing” sign.
In other words, the case doesn’t say it’s trespassing to take a picture of private property and display it on the internet. (Indeed it’s not.) What the case means is that it’s trespassing to trespass.
So, if you are a blogger, this case shouldn’t make you nervous about posting pictures of private property – unless those pictures serve as evidence of your having done something unlawful.
And that’s what Google did. By posting the pictures, they proved that they committed a civilly actionable trespass. It also would appear that Google violated Pennsylvania criminal trespass statute at 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3503.
It was absurd for Google to fight this in court. They should have respected the law, and they should have respected private property rights. It’s too bad they only had to pay a dollar. I personally think a small measure of punitive damages would have been in order.
It’s another case of Google doing whatever Google gets ready to do – regardless of the law.
And they keep getting away with it.
Righthaven, Images, and Drudge
Monday, December 13th, 2010Righthaven is now suing over photos. And they’re taking on Drudge:
- Drudge Report owner sued by Righthaven, by Steve Green in the Las Vegas Sun
Blogger’s Fair-Use Argument Regarding Copyrighted Photo Questionable
Tuesday, November 20th, 2012Irina Chevaldina maintains a blog styled “RK Associates” whose sole purpose seems to be criticize the business dealings of Miami-area businessman Ranaan Katz. The blog intro says:
The offending picture of Katz is a head shot apparently taken courtside (by someone other than Katz) at a basketball game in Israel. The picture appears in several posts, recently with the message “He ripped off special needs little Jewish girl” superimposed over his chest.
Here’s where it starts to get interesting: Katz apparently bought certain rights to the photo, in the interest of bringing a copyright infringement suit against Chevaldina, which he then did in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Her lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the case. In it, Chevaldina’s lawyers correctly point out that Katz cannot make any claim of infringement occurring before he bought the rights on May 29, 2012, absent any evidence that he bought the right to sue for past infringement.
The other claims in the trial motion – at Defendant’s Second Motion to Dismiss, Katz v. Chevaldina, No. 1:12-CV-22211-JLK, 2012 WL 4504086 – lay out the battleground for the brewing legal fight.
The lawyers lead with the argument that Chevaldina can successfully raise a fair-use defense under the Copyright Act:
Now, Chevaldina’s lawyers seem to say that because Chevaldina wants to criticize Katz the businessman, it is OK for her to use a copyrighted picture of Katz the basketball fan to do so. Criticism in the Copyright Act sense more typically references criticism of the copyrighted work itself (think of book or movie reviews, analyses of museum exhibits, and the like).
So it will be interesting to see how that part of the case develops.
Chevaldina’s lawyers also correctly point out that courts value news uses of copyrighted works in the fair-use analysis:
They further assert that Chevaldina’s use is a news use. Their brief lacks any exposition on this point, though.
Chevaldina’s lawyers also contend that her use of the photo is transformative, another key element in a Copyright Act fair-use defense:
Of course, the use in question does not have to transform the photo itself to be a transformative use.
So, again, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out as the case moves forward.
Tags: copyright infringement, criticism and commentary, fair use, news source
Posted in copyright, images, intellectual property, lawsuits against bloggers | Comments Off