In defense of copyright

Well the last 24 hours have certainly been interesting. I noticed on Monday night that a photo of mine was grabbed from this blog and used to create a “meme” that was posted to a very popular Facebook page that’s all about Colorado Springs. My watermark and URL had been cropped out. You can see the photo above, and the original post where the photo was featured can be seen HERE. The meme was actually very sweet. It expressed what a lot of us probably feel about the barn, how much we all loved it, and how much we all miss it. I loved that barn too, and for the record I agree with what the meme said. But here’s the thing: the picture was used without my permission and that made me uncomfortable, especially in light of the fact that it was watermarked, like all of the pictures on this blog, and there is a copyright notice at the top of the page. I really wish whoever had created the meme had just contacted me about it first!

After some thought, I contacted the owner of the FB page and pleaded my case, asking him to please remove the photo. Anyone who reads this blog regularly or knows me personally knows that I am articulate and polite, especially with written communication. I took great deal of care in my message to him, trying to state my case without offending him or sounding accusatory. Here’s a screen shot of it, so you can judge for yourself (please note that the first two sentences are boilerplate, automatically provided by Facebook when you report a photo):

I know it’s hard to communicate effectively without the benefit of vocal inflection, and it’s possible that he was taken aback by my request because it seemed rude to him. I also understand that people don’t like to be challenged, which is perfectly natural. In the afternoon I had the following response from him:  

I provided the proof, along with a link to the blog post from January of 2010. He agreed to take the photo down (and if he’s reading this post:  thank you for doing that!). I told him that in the future, if he wanted to use any of my pictures, to just contact me so we could talk about it. He told me that someone else actually created the meme and submitted it to his page, wished me well, and I thought it was all over and done with until I checked the page and saw that he had posted a screen shot of my message asking him to take the photo down (initially it included my name and profile photo, but was quickly corrected -- thank goodness!). I see in retrospect now that I should have asked him to keep our communication private. There was an immediate negative backlash in the comments, and it went on all day. Understand that this page has over 42,000 “likes” and is very popular with people from here. (Deservedly so, it’s a very funny page and has a lot of wry commentary about Colorado Springs.) Along with posting a screen shot of my message, he asked people for pictures of the barn. A few people stepped up and shared pictures. A few people came to my defense and pointed out that I was polite and that I own the rights to the photo. But the majority of the commenters mocked me or maligned my character. Here are some of the names that I was called:  “dumb”, “loser”, “idiot”, “lame and petty”, “sourpuss”, “rude ass”, “greedy”, “selfish”. The spelling and grammar on this blog were also called into question, which actually made me laugh out loud, because I do not know anyone who is more scrupulous and exacting about spelling and grammar than I am! One person demanded to know my name because it was mentioned that I'm a professional photographer ("Can we get her name to avoid her work since she doesn't want us to see it?"). That kinda freaked me out, not gonna lie.  What really came to light, though, is how little understanding people have of copyright, so I’m just going to directly quote a few of the comments here so that I can respond.

• First things first:  “How can she prove it's her photo?” I published it on January 10, 2010 right HERE, and, according to the metadata, I took the picture on January 8^th at 12:50pm. I actually remember taking the picture.
• “Who gives a crap? It's a pic OF A BARN lady.” Agreed, it’s just a picture of a barn, and not even a good picture at that. But it’s my picture of a barn, which is my point.
• “That was not even you who painted that picture on the barn, if anyone would have rights to copyright to that it is the actual artist not you, it is a public viewing (sic).” (Followed by an insult to my intelligence which I won’t include here.) Okay, this is a point that many of the commenters seemed to really latch on to. Actually, according to what’s called freedom of panorama, it’s okay to take a picture of a building that has a mural on it, and post it online, otherwise a lot of us would be in trouble for taking pictures of buildings, cityscapes and whatnot! Think about those vacation pictures you took at Disneyland. Disney is zealously protective of their copyright, but taking a picture of your kid and Mickey Mouse standing in front of Cinderella’s Castle isn’t a violation of that. (If you tried to sell that picture, that'd be a different story.)
• “Did she have the owners (sic) permission to take the picture?” This is also a really good question. The answer is no, but I didn’t need it. You can take a picture of anything that’s out there in the world (or at least in the U.S.!), as long as you are standing on public property -- that is to say, the sidewalk or street. The only exceptions to this have to do with Homeland Security. I took the photo from the sidewalk and did not trespass on private property. Think about your local newspapers  and news stations. They do this every day. Heck, YOU do this every day.
• “Who cares who took the photo.” I do. Obviously. :-) It’s hard to explain why I care, so I’ll make an analogy here: let’s say you live on a piece of property that's easily trespassable upon but clearly marked “no trespassing”, and yet people routinely walk through it anyway – that’s how it feels. How I feel about it is my own thing, and you may disagree with me or even think I’m a petty asshole, but it’s how I feel and that’s that.
• “If you put it out on the Internet, you should expect people to use/see it. It should be considered consent for others to use as soon as you upload it.” This is how the world at large seems to see it, but the way the law is written clearly protects the copyright holder. The image was watermarked; whoever grabbed it cropped the watermark out. There is a very succinctly worded copyright statement at the top of this blog. Just so we're clear on this: I’m definitely not putting photos on my blog as a stock photography thing! Thanks!
• “When they're on the internet, they're the internet's property. If you're not using them for monetary gain (like on marketing materials) It's free reign (sic).” This is absolutely not the case. Not even a little bit. The internet is not an entity and it doesn't own property. Seeing a picture on the internet does not grant you any rights to it.  I could link to a bunch of boring copyright stuff to explain at this point, but I’ll spare you. Google it!

Let's get to the long and short of it all. U.S copyright law may be tortuous and labyrinthine, but it’s very straightforward on this particular point: whoever took the picture owns the copyright, even if it’s a crappy picture of an old barn. If you have used a photo without permission and the copyright owner asks you to take it down, just do it. It’s their right. Always ask before using a photo that isn’t yours.

I think that’s enough about all of this. Suffice it to say that it has been a pretty rough day for me. I realize that this is just another internet tempest in a teapot and a small one at that, but yes, the comments did get to me. It’s not a good feeling, being called a selfish, stupid, greedy, jerk/loser by a bunch of complete strangers and to have to hold your tongue. Pat was especially angry (how would you feel if a mob insulted your loved one all day long?). I'm sure my mom will read this post first thing in the morning and be extremely distressed too. One of the commenters actually knows me personally, but didn’t realize that the blog in question is written by me, and thus didn’t realize she was inadvertently disparaging me, her friend! (Honest mistake there!) At any rate, I learned some things from this brouhaha:

1. If you plan to stand up for yourself on an issue like this, be prepared to take a lot of flack. But stand up for yourself anyway, because you're in the right.
2. Most folks don’t understand copyright very well.
3. People can be downright horrible when they disagree with you online. I guess I knew this, but I’ve never been the focus of it before. It took my breath away.

And finally, the beautiful irony of this has not escaped me. Take another look at the barn and read the immortal words inscribed upon it: “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”  Thank you Mr. Lennon and Mr. McCartney! I am taking your words to heart today!

I will close this long, looooong post with a lovely photo taken by Pat recently at Monument Valley Park -- used with his permission, of course! To all who commented on the dreaded Facebook post, whether unkindly or in support of me, your opinions have been duly noted and appreciated (some more than others!).  Have a wonderful Thursday, everyone! Onward and upward!

UPDATE 11:57AM: I received a private message from the owner of the group. He apologized very sincerely, and it's apparent to me that he feels badly for what transpired. He removed the thread from his page. I'm inclined to be circumspect, as always. I have no hard feelings toward him. We are all human, even the people who insulted me in the heat of the moment. Let's all just move on, shall we? Nothing to see here! Carry on!