It’s come to my attention that the National Geographic International Photography Contest 2008 is now making entrants photographs available as downloadable wallpaper. This concerned fellow friend and photographer Don Hall enough to email those running the contest to withdraw his entries. The concern as put by Don in his note to National Geographic… “Free distribution of your entries, probably the b
Click to Enlarge Click to Enlarge Altered photos are nothing new (see Photo Tampering Throughout History via Dartmouth College), but only in the past 4 years have altered photos become a tool used to influence prospective voters in US elections. In 2004 Jane Fonda was inserted into a Ken Light photo forever associating John Kerry to her and tarnishing his anti-Vietnam war protest record. Not only are such manipulatio
This past week I learned about a truly insane photo contest that seems to be a disaster in the making and a photo event that seemed to have questionable motives that turns out to be OK in the end. Contrasted are the stories of Microsoft Iconic Britain contest and Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk. Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk A concerned reader emailed me, quoting the Terms & Conditions of Use
There have been many stories over the past few years about copyright infringement on Flickr. To date most have been about individuals maliciously downloading the work of others to resell it as their own or companies using photographs commercially violating either the licensing restrictions of the photo or ignoring the need for a model release. What most remain unaware of is that Flickr fosters copyright infringement
I found recent news of an on going dispute between Robert Wyland and the California Coastal Commission over the use of his whale tail license plate design quite interesting. I actually have this license plate on my car and never knew it was a Robert Wyland design. In short Wyland is asking that 20% of future revenue be donated to his art foundation and the California Coastal Commission is not interested. The licensin
I was catching up on my blog reading briefly this morning and happened to catch a brief entry on Lawrence Lessig’s blog about an online petition he felt compelled to sign: “Against the Orphan Works Act of 2008“. As many of you may know Mr. Lessig has been vocal in his opposition to the current form of the Orphans Work Legislation now being reviewed in Washington D.C. His op-ed piece in the New York
Up until recently it’s been nearly impossible to know for certain where your online photos might end up on the Internet. As we’ve heard over the years a growing vocal minority will be the first to jump on photographers complaining about online image theft stating “Get used to it. You put it online. That’s how it is.” This argument is anything but true and frustrates the hell out of photo
In mid-April there was an excellent panel discussion “Copyright in a Hyper Digital Age†put on by ASMP discussing the changing landscape of Copyright law as it impacts photographers. A variety of discussions took place, but the most timely and interesting was about the Orphans Work legislation that is again being discussed in the US Congress and US Senate. No other legislation is likely to have as big of an impac