Copyright Protection Is Only For the Old

In case you haven’t heard of the Lane Hartwell versus The Richter Scales, it’s in interesting story. CNET has a decent summary of the story so far.

The short version is the a cappella group that did the “Here Comes Another Bubble” video that was all the rage on YouTube — and quite funny — got a complaint from the photographer of one of the photos they used in their video, since they hadn’t gotten permission to use it. They also were unwilling to negotiate, and after YouTube removed the video (following a DMCA complaint from Hartwell) they put up a new version that didn’t have her photo in it.

To me, the most interesting thing are some of the funny and out-of-it comments that people have left both on Lane’s site and on other sites discussing the issue. There are a few funny ones like these from “newgun2000″ on CNet:

if you dont want it copied
dont post it online
Duh

[Sarcasm on] Of course. Why didn’t anyone else think of that before? Duh. Obviously anything you post online will be copied, that’s the way the world works. Who in their right mind would dare to post anything on the Internet if it wasn’t meant to be copied over and over? [Sarcasm off, for now]

newgun2000 posts again for our amusement:

If you dont want this to happen
DONT POST ANY OF YOUR PICKS ONLINE
waste of time

See above.

And more “duh” comments along the same lines, but also stating that nobody should care because it’s only a picture:

It’s a picture, which isn’t a big deal!

If you don’t want anyone to use your “famous” pictures, leave them off the net. This is one area you obviously don’t understand.

Who cares if she makes her living from pictures, it’s obviously not a big deal since it’s only a picture.

If your work is so precious to you, why did you make it available on flickr? Seems pretty lame to try to squeeze money out of a non-profit singing group for using images you made publicly available.

Yeah, how dare you put something of value on Flickr! Flickr should have nothing but creative commons free-for-all images, since it’s all public like that. Copyrights are for private places where other people can’t see anything you made.

But then there are the comments that imply that hoping for copyright protection for something you create is old fashioned thinking, and that Lane needs to get with the times and forget about keeping any copyright on her photographs. It’s a weird sentiment. I don’t consider myself old (I’m 31) but I just don’t understand the connection between 20-year-olds today and the lack of interest in copyright protection. Here are a few samples from Lane’s most recent post on the issue:

I had no idea who you were before this, but now I see that you’re a classic “get off my lawn” old type that have discovered how to use a computer. You are pathetic.

Ah, because people who’ve known how to use computers for a long time would have learned by now that copyright law is a sham and is nothing but a Scientologist conspiracy theory? Wait, what?

Lady, get a grip on yourself. You are then new poster child for people who just. Don’t. Get. It.

Watch out for those Polaroids! They’ll put photographers out of business too! And those Electro-lamps, why, the whale oil industry will surely die off! And what’s this I hear about horseless carriages?! The end is near!

I’m not sure how copyright violations stack up against horseless carriages, but there you have it. Oops, my punctuation is too old fashioned. I meant to write. There. You. Have. It. HTH! HAND!

You are pathetic… You should also think about how much money they made from that video. I bet it’s ZERO!

I bet so also! I bet that with one million people watching the video, not a single one ever bought anything from the band’s web site — which was, of course, linked to from the video.

when a bunch of people who are having fun and are not professional (like this group - they all have day jobs) get together and do something for fun (and for free) that gets so popular so quickly (and making any money was never their intend) why are all the professionals who can’t produce anything of that quality get angry?

Of course! When the band wrote the song and posted it on Youtube, I’m sure they were all thinking, “Hey, let’s just let people watch this, it will in no way help us get more popular or sell any of our albums.”

You live in the dark ages. Take pictures in a cave.

Oh, you still owe lots of people money for profiting off their faces but haven’t paid them a single cent. Better send out those cheques soon. Or get a call from our lawyers.

Bye, dinosaur! Read up on fair use.

There it is again. Copyright law is something from the dark ages. Only dinosaurs had any interest in intellectual property protection. The modern world needs nothing of your quaint notions of copyright.

Listen, if you are so concerned about your stupid pictures, don’t post them on the internet on a public flickr account. Better yet, yu should continue to shoot in film and then you can keep your pictures in a box under your bed, Far away from the Internet Boogeyman who is trying to steal your livelyhood.

Seriously, don’t all web browsers have built-in spellchecking for textarea form fields now? WTF is up with people?

Another good (in the odd, sociological way) one:

Sorry Lane, but lets be serious here. We’re long into the age of the digital where copies can be made at a moments notice. Art and the concept of copyright have been evolving for centuries and will continue to evolve. The internet is about open source and freedom. It has made the public interest in art more apparent and you might as well accept that. Fighting against it is, well, childish. You might say “Well, if there’s no profit, who will make it?” Check out history, Peanut. You can’t destroy art with digital technology or government intervention.

Art shouldn’t be a source of income anyway. Get a real job, hippie.

There isn’t really much to say. The main point is that the Internet is about freedom and Lane should get a new job because only a hippie would be profiting from something artistic. Wait, no, wouldn’t a hippie not be profiting from art, and instead be spouting something about freedom to do whatever they want (like copy other people’s intellectual property?)

So how much did you pay wordpress for your blog? Oh that’s right wordpress is free. Seems you have no problem using other people’s work without compensation.

The video made people smile. It was not for sale, it was for free. If nothing else it brought publicity to your work and did not prevent you from being able to sell it. All legality aside, what you did was show people making money is more important to you then making people happy, way to go!

So being willing to use free software like WordPress means that you should have no interest in copyright protection for anything you create? That seems a little random.

And how did the video bring publicity to Lane’s work, when there were no photo credits or anything like that? Nobody would have known anything about the sources of the photos if she hadn’t raised a stink, leading to the Richter Scales putting some credit information on their site.

Old mentality won’t die yet.

We all have to give up on copyright, patents,
intellectual “property” and other foul habits of
the Old World.
The New World, the one being born right now,
between humans freely communicating with each
other, will hopefully crush down every form of
selfishness. We need a new mentality of
cooperation and sharing, if we are to survive in
the rising New World.

Yikes.

Hey, get a life buddy. There was no money, it was viral video. “Good faith”? If it was good faith, you’d be happy with the free publicity the band handed you. Now, go away and think about the spirit of Christmas for a little while scruge.

No money from viral videos? Really? Tell that to all the people making big bucks from viral videos (YouTube, random spammy copycat sites, etc.)

And then the ultimate in well-reasoned arguments about the dismantling of the intellectual property infrastructure in this country:

eat shit and die lanie. you’re a stupid ass bitch

By the way, David Pogue has an interesting story about the generational gap in copyright morality over at the NYT. It’s interesting to see that so well-reflected in these comments that treat copyright as something that the kids have done away with, and the old folks need to catch up with the times. Come on old folks, put down your Nirvana CDs and get on the (crappy lossless) Britney Spears iTunes bandwagon!