[slowpoke]

This is ridiculous, and I don't mean the response of that site owner. While yes, that woman is at least slightly nuts, the problem in the first place was "oh the horror, people are using my image, let's throw around DMCA takedowns". Yes, it's not nice to not give attribution, but I don't see a fundamental problem here. What was the loss involved? Nothing. People liked the image, so they used it. Where's there any theft? Nobody stole anything. Just another example of why the DMCA is a very bad law and needs to go away. Ideally along with copyright as a whole.

[bigiain]

"it's not nice to not give attribution"

That's _exactly_ the misunderstanding that gets so many people in trouble.

Whether you like it or not, there _are_ "rules", they're called "copyright". They say that attribution or not, the creator of a photograph has exclusive rights to say what can and can't be done with their work. Nothing about whether you're nice or not, nothing about whether you attribute them or not. If they haven't said you can use it - you _can't_ use it (Yeah yeah, except in some very edge-case calle "fair use", but reproducing an entire photo on your website is _never_ "fair use" - if you are ever tempted to claim fair use, make sure you know exactly what it means first…)

TL;DR, Crazy woman is crazy and wrong. Photographer guy is using the tools society provides to assert rights society says he has. Wishing the laws were different does nothing to change them. Behaving as if the laws are the way you wish them to be has a good chance of making you very unhappy.

[etfb]

I can understand where you're coming from, but I think you lack empathy and experience. If you like, send me a copy of every piece of creative work you've ever produced -- songs, poems, articles, computer programs, graphics, whatever -- and I'll just go ahead and post it wherever I want without giving you any attribution. If you can tell me you're OK with that, I'll modify my opinion: rather than saying you lack empathy, I'll say you have a very different worldview than anyone I know, and I'll acknowledge that, under your worldview, your opinion is entirely consistent and reasonable.

[slowpoke]

>I'll just go ahead and post it wherever I want without giving you any attribution

Actually, I use the WTFPL[1] for a lot of code I produce, so yes, you could do that, though it wouldn't be nice to do that.

My opinion is that copyright should not exist. While I can't demand copies from anyone, I don't think anyone has a right to stop me from sharing anything that I have access to, either. Putting things on the internet counts as giving me access. I simply reject the notion that people should be able to control the distribution of digital data. It's both illogical to assert ownership of something abstract and harmful to society at large.

On the other hand, I think people should be credited for their work (if they want). But that's a social issue and not one that can be solved by laws. Look at the scientific community: plagiarism is highly frowned upon and proper attribution is required. And that's mostly by social pressure, not by laws.

So in short, my believe is "Give credit where credit is due, but don't try to tell others what they can or can't do.".

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL

[etfb]

OK, I can see that your worldview differs from mine, but I can't reconcile the last part of your first sentence ("... though it wouldn't be nice to do that") with the rest of your comment. If copyright -- by which I mean the right to copy, not necessarily any laws pertaining to that right -- did not exist, there would be no justification in saying it "wouldn't be nice" to ignore it. It's like: if I didn't like redheads, and I said I didn't want to see any out my window, but I acknowledged that there is and should be no law restricting them, then clearly I'm being unreasonable somewhere along the line.

[slowpoke]

You're misunderstanding the "it's not nice" part. For example, it's not against the law to be (somewhat) rude, either - but it's not nice. As I pointed out, the whole attribution thing is something that needs to be addressed on a social level, not enforced by law.

And in general, I don't think it's an unreasonable world-view to dislike something, but be against regulating it. For example, I'm vehemently against right-wing ideology and fascism, but I still would not want laws restricting nazis to voice their misguided opinions, because everybody is entitled to free speech. That's not being unreasonable, that's being consistent.

[chc]

Do you earn your living off this WTFPL software?

[jekub]

The problem here is that when you want to use a photo, you either take it yourself, or you take one made by someone else and ask him what are his conditions.

When you take a photo and put it one your web site, this doesn't mean that anyone can grab it and use it.

The problem here is that people think that they can do what they want on the web and if you just send them a mail they will do nothing. DMCA is globally a bad thing but but its at this time the only way to make people respect copyright. It should go away but for a better law.

You can transpose this to software easily. If you put some of your code on your blog, you expect people to respect the law and so your copyright. If your code is under GPL for example, you don't want other peoples to take it and include it in their commercial product without respecting the GPL.

Look at all the work done by GPL violation and how its hard to make people correct their behavior when your are a now know organization. This men is alone trying to protect its right and the only thing that he can do which is effective is to fill a DMCA.

And remember that the copyright law is what make GPL possible...

[slowpoke]

>And remember that the copyright law is what make GPL possible...

It's funny you say that, because RMS has cited the creation of a post-scarcity society has one of the explicit goals of free software. In such a society, copyright would not exist, because everything would be free (as in both speech and beer). The GPL is but a means to an end, not an end unto itself, and it just so happens to use the current system of copyright to progress towards that end.

So yes, without copyright, there would be no GPL. But without copyright, we would not have most of the problems the GPL is trying to solve.

[jekub]

> So yes, without copyright, there would be no GPL. But without copyright, we would not have most of the problems the GPL is trying to solve.

The main problem GPL is trying to solve is to keep code free and this problem wasn't created by copyright. In a society without copyright it would be even more difficult to keep code free.

Copyright just allow you to claim some right over the code you produce. In a society without copyright you would not be able to make this claim so, if you publish your code it will be free, but : - nothing force you to publish your code, you can keep it for yourself and just distribute binary ; - nothing force other people to distribute there modifications of some free code.

Copyright is what allow you to say "this code should be and remain free", the only alternative in the view of the GPL and FSF should be a law who say "all code should be free and remain free" or something like this.

(just to be clear, I'm not a partisan of the GPL but this is my understanding of it)

[slowpoke]

The GPL is trying to keep code free in an environment where it's unfree by default. You are conflating what free software is doing right now with what it is trying to eventually accomplish - being a step towards a post-scarcity society. Yes, you could modify code and never share back etc without copyright, but it would at the same time be pointless to do so. Nobody, including yourself, would gain anything from it.

[JoachimSchipper]

It's not obviously ridiculous to expect people to license photos they use.

[nicholassmith]

There isn't any theft, but it's still violation of the creators right to his work. I've actually been in his place and spent time approaching the sites directly, it was significantly more difficult and more of a waste of my time than the DMCA process seems to be.

Essentially, don't be a dick and lift someones picture because it's on the internet.

[Semaphor]

This is a perfect example of why DMCA is great. He manually made a list of site and sent notices. No wrong claims, no automatic bullshit. Now if only there were some laws requiring DMCA to be used that way…

But taking something, making money of it and not even attributing where it's from? That's just the lowest of lows.

[DanBC]

I agree.

And she had a simple remedy if he made a false claim; she could have filed a counter notice.