Wednesday, 1 June 2011

So Much Fuss Over A Photo That The Photographer Has No Problem With People Copying

Over the years we've seen various legal battles surrounding news organizations using amateur photographs that were posted to social networking or photo hosting sites. However, MSNBC has a long and detailed story about the legal issues surrounding news organizations using a photo that Stefanie Gordon shot from an airplane with her iPhone of the space shuttle Endeavor's launch:
Gordon took the shot, and upon landing, uploaded it to Twitpic, tweeted it and promptly went away from computers and technology for the day. The photo caught on and a bunch of news organizations used it -- some licensing it, some not. Here's how MSNBC describes her situation:
It also landed her smack in the middle of an ethical and legal debate that may be as important as the future of the Internet itself.
Except that's wrong. It didn't land her in the middle of that debate at all, because Gordon makes it clear she didn't care how it was used or if anyone paid her for it:
To be sure, Stefanie did not seek this fight, and doesn't feel too compelled to be its poster child, either.

"I never even thought about what could happen,” she said. “To me, it's just a picture. I tweeted and put my phone away. ... I had four hours of sleep and wasn't thinking. I was trying to spend time with my dad. I've never been a person who feels like I need to make money off of everything. I just put it out there for people to see."
And yet, Bob Sullivan from MSNBC seems to want to keep forcing this issue back on her as if she should care. It's really kind of disgusting. Gordon was happy to share the work, like plenty of other people who create and share content. It shouldn't be about copyright. It needn't be about copyright. And yet, MSNBC feels the need to make it about copyright. Why?

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Source: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110531/02413814474/so-much-fuss-over-photo-that-photographer-has-no-problem-with-people-copying.shtml

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