My Take on Copyright Violations
So recently I received an email about a copyright violation from using an image without the consent of the owner. It's a lack of courtesy on my part to obtain permission, nor crediting the image at all, but in my perspective - most of my content has always been about the writing, albeit with the inclusion of visuals to inspire some imagery. This is the reason why I rarely have any posts tagged under photography and visual design. Plus, I used to have a past-time saving up nice graphics I find online, often without any good way to trace back to their origins. And what happens if I remix them up?
To my self-defense: here's an old post about my take on the concept of Intellectual Property - https://steemit.com/philosophy/@kevinwong/the-end-of-intellectual-property-on-imagination-artificial-intelligence-and-procedural-generation
And so, dealing with my first incidence of such a matter, my response to the related material is the following:-
Sorry about the use of the image without your consent. It's easy to forget about the implications of using the work of others to accompany my writing when the information is freely available online. Being an uncensorable blockchain, what I can only do now is to:-
- Invite you over to the platform.
- Write a letter of apology and introduce your account.
I hope this is an acceptable solution as the Steem blockchain disallows any edits after a certain time - and the post has been well over 6 months old. Steemit is a great way to monetise content and community contributions - we're always looking out for talents to support. The inability to delete / edit out content may seem weird, but here's the gist of the technology involved - https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf
While I personally do not care if anybody wants to use my work available online without my consent at all, I do feel sorry about whatever I've done to have caused someone distress in this fashion. However, I would like to stress again that my content is implied in the writing unless if it's obviously something else. What are your thoughts on this?
On my end, as a producer... all people have to do is ask or make a fair offer. If you leave a few coins laying around, that doesn't mean others can just help themselves because they were freely available. Just ask. Most of us artists prefer we work together, not against each other.
Totally agreed. It's an oversight on my part to use images even though I couldn't properly credit them. There also just needs to be an easy way to do this, and I hope the compromise is fair deal enough, especially after the damage is done. Look it out, it's the awesome "book head" mini sculpture here https://steemit.com/life/@kevinwong/building-a-better-tomorrow
Now I would like to take the chance to credit the owner after it has been made known:-
http://matus76.deviantart.com/art/Self-Taught-411149744
http://matiassierra.net
One of the greatest things to any online artist these days would have to be this blockchain. It does a fine job of protecting my work in ways most don't realize yet. I'm sure, if you really think about it, and since you understand how this all works, you can see the benefits.
You did the right thing. Owning up to an honest mistake is respectable. There was a time when someone here used something of mine and included an insult along with the stab in the back. That was not a good day for them. Very disrespectful. Trust is important when it comes to things like this. Trust is why it's okay to leave a few coins laying around the house. People should never have to worry.
To avoid this situation I have tried very hard to only use material that is either marked for re-use with no attribution, available under a creative commons licence, or available under a creative commons attribution license.
One thing that also works in my favor as a science blogger is my being a HUGE proponent of open access scientific journal publications. I do not care for the pay to read monetization that the majority of high caliber journals publish with. As such I have been sourcing my writings from the few good journals that are not pay to read ( aka Open access), an additional benefit to these journals is most are also publishing under creative commons licenses, allowing me to reproduce figures from the articles in my posts.
I feel that this is beneficial in two ways: one it avoids any complications for steemit, and everyone else here over copyright and two, my writing gives more exposure to the researchers who are publishing in these open access journals. Hopefully as steemit continues to grow, and hopefully my blogging talents and blog in general continue to grow I will be able to really help some of these researchers gain exposure for their work and put more eyes on the journals who are publishing science for everyone to read. It will lead to the most progress for us all I think.
Good thought on your part, most of my posts after the first month of steemit are generally in the realm of open use images. Well except for popular meme images.. thats another can of worms..
If your meme comes from one of the meme generation sites, I believe those are creative Commons protected.
I always give credit to real owner.
Definitely a good consideration.
That is such a shame. It is so hard to control such a volume of data. I hope there are coders savvy enough to flag and restrict this from happening to protect unsuspecting forums and bloggers. My guess is that most of the time it is unintentional. What puzzles me is why do people upload things on the internet that they want to remain confidential. I know as an inventor I can not disclose information that way. Duplication and reposting of internet media usually have trails back to it's original links that would even benefit owners of these copy writes anyways.
I guess most fail to consider the "publicness" of the internet. I've uploaded quite a number of stuff which should've been kept off the net too lol..
I recommend using https://unsplash.com/
If you send me a request I can make a couple images too. If I publish them on steemit ( and you link back) and would be happy with steemit tips.
I have done this for @sirwinchester in the past.
You are a high quality contributor so I don't mind helping out.
Check out my posts for examples of my work.
Nice. Yup, recently (pretty much after mid year last year) I've been resorting to open-use images. Thanks for the offer! Do you have a repository?
One of the things early photo algorithms should have had is a way to track photos to their source.
There are so many good songs that I have found from ripped off sources. And then spent weeks trying to hunt down the real song/artist.
What we don't have on the internets is an actual way of getting ahold of artists.
We have had gatekeepers for so long, BMG etc, that we have no clue how to work without them.
Further, copyrights are going to go away. The internets will become much much more decentralized, and going after anyone will be like trying to kill a swarm, one fly at a time.
This is a very good point. So far I've yet to see any blockchain solutions comprehensively address this issue in a more widespread manner ..
What if you could link to photos from a site and pay for the consent of use? Would that work?
Sorta... and its sorta already done. There are sites that sell stock photos. And by stock, we mean anything that anyone uploaded that they thought would sell.
So, if that is what you mean, its been done. If that is not quite what you mean, by the time you got it ready for market, the internets will already be destroying copyright... its too late for that model.
I understand it from the other party, since this might be his/her way of making a living: selling photographs. I know I wouldn't like to see my pictures floating around on the internet without at least giving me credit for it.
Ofcourse these things happen and like you, I've always collected many pictures in the earlier days and would never be able to find the source of those. I decided not to use them though and just use my own images or google for a good one, so I can link back to the source.
I think you handeled it pretty nicely. You've pointed them to a place where they can earn more for their photos and if you introduce them, you'll give them a nice flying start here!
Well I can just hope it wouldn't be blown out of proportion!
I think we have to be extra careful with this since there is real monetary value here that is not only paid once but rather aggregates as Steem Power. I also made a post about this in regards to the implications it can have for the future of copyright.
How Plagiarism Can End Steemit And What You Can Do About It
Ah I remember this one!
Good one.
If too you like my articles, please donate for my education, I am an engineering student, studying on loan and living in aided facilities. BTC address: 1Lop6vbYTDUcVrUtDTuZ6adcAoDydAKJS4
That's the reason so many licenses are in existence. It's OK for you to allow anybody to use your work for whatever usage. However, not everybody thinks the same and even the same person could license a single work over a non permissive license.
Also, please notice that if there is no license explicitly stated, then nobody can use that work without permission.
Agreeable since we're still living with regulations even when it comes to free information on the internet. What do you think about popular meme images in this case?
Perhaps in the future, many users of steemit could face such situation.
With the growing popularity of the platform and rewards, more and more images authors can demand compensation, especially if user did not link to the source.
For some images authors firts of all it is a way of protecting intellectual property, for others, the opportunity to receive money.
It's quite an interesting complex. Better to just refrain from using any images that aren't for open use.