If something is on the Internet, is it free? Ask many people and they would assume that it is.
Until technology makes it just as easy to track artists' rights, royalties and attributions (RRA), as it is for a mashup artist to Google and save, a lot more DMCA fights are going to be appearing on the news.
Image courtesy of Tc7
Recently, photographer Lane Hartwell noticed that one of her images was used in a video by the Richter Scales that went viral on YouTube. Lane was upset that it was being distributed without her permission, so she had her lawyer file a DMCA request to have the video taken down.
Until an easier way for artists to track their content, more conflicts like this are going to spring up. Here at Aviary, we are trying to provide exactly this type of capability to all kinds of artists. Whether you are a photographer or a videographer you should be able to work together, easily tracking RRA forever.
If it's On the Internet, it's Free!
The problem lies in the process itself. It is currently much easier to download images than it is to attribute and get permission to use them. Most people will retrieve content via a simple web search, click and Save, not thinking twice about whether the owner reserves any rights in how it's reused. They assume if it is online, it's free to use.
Sure, you can manually credit your sources in the notes of your Youtube videos or Flickr images , but that takes too much time and effort... especially if you are only producing a 5 minute video. People are inherently lazy and unless they fully understand and care about copyright they wont make the extra effort.
Creative Commons is Not Enough
Creative Commons is doing a great job addressing part of this problem by making it easier for artists to license out their work, but it's not enough on its own. What if a photographer decides to change their license once a mashup artist already (legally) used it? In retrospect it looks like the mashup artist used the work illegally!
What if I change my mind? Creative Commons licenses are non-revocable... You can stop distributing your work under a Creative Commons license at any time you wish; but this will not withdraw any copies of your work that already exist under a Creative Commons license from circulation...
That's great in theory. But in practice it's a different story. There is no visible permanence to a revocable license. For example, on Flickr, Creative Commons licenses are not permanent. A photographer can change his or her license at any time on Flickr does not keep track of the changes. If you already used their image you could get in trouble unless you took a snapshots of the license at the time you used the image.
That's really asking people to do a lot of work and also assumes that people would have the foresight to realize that the license is publicly revocable. Most people simply won't think about that possibility and there will eventually be a conflict.
The Solution is Relying on Technology
I propose that we develop a system that inherently tracks where files come from and stores that information directly in the file itself. We need to store meta data about the file's origins, along with the actual file itself.
An example of this in action would be Photoshop tracking where new files are coming from as you do a web search and paste in the copy data. The final jpg could contain a layer of metadata from which any future user could see where elements of it originated from, be it web urls or other forms of contact information. The technology would also need to warn users (but not prevent them), when they are using a file in a way that goes against what's been instructed by the original owners.
We are actually trying to build a system that does exactly that.
One of Aviary's main focuses has been to make sure that all RRAs are automatically tracked throughout the creative process using our suite of tools. We deal with copyright issues all the time at Worth1000.com, (a site that hosts "photoshopped" images) so we are pretty sensitive to finding the balance between ownership rights and encouraging creativity through remixing. While it is important to educate the masses to care about the content rights of others, there's no way to educate enough people to make self-government effective. An infrastructure for tracking creative content will be very helpful in protecting rights where education can't. It also needs to be easy as pie.
Aviary will help artists track their content forever by letting our servers do all the grunt work, so they don't have to worry about it and others can remix work legally. Everyone wins.
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Posted by Ben Darfler on 2007-12-18 14:43:14
Cool idea and a typo "A infrastructure for tracking creative content"
Posted by alex lines on 2007-12-19 04:04:47
sounds like a cool idea. i'm interested to hear more about the implementation - will this be a public spec? if i'm building, for example, a review site where users can upload images of restaurants they've reviewed, will i be able to query your service from the app to learn about the licensing details of an image that someone uploads to my site?
Posted by Ari Fuchs on 2007-12-19 13:27:00
Yes. If was image is created using one of our tools or uploaded to our site it will contain metadata with this information. If one of these files is uploaded to your site you'll be able to query our service and use it to retrieve any licensing details.
Posted by Koby on 2007-12-20 00:16:17
Nicely explained!
The system has the potential to affect anyone who has ever looked at a pixel.
But most importantly, bonus points for including Pretty Boy.
Posted by Chris B on 2007-12-30 03:08:52
So the program warns me that I might be using someone else's image in a way that the original owner might not like. That's an interesting idea. I'm concerned, however, about the "but not prevent them" line. Does this mean complete lack of prevention, or is it more of a passive aggressive "You can screw with this image all you want, but we're not going to let you save it" kind of implementation?
Other questions / concerns I'm having: would this source-attribution thing be visable only in Aviary programs, or anywhere? Would this meta-data cause other, more commonly-used editing programs to be confused? Are there settings in Aviary that are essentially "don't warn me about that crap, don't add that crap to the metadata, and just let me edit this image" in nature?
Posted by Avi Muchnick on 2007-12-31 23:31:52
I don't think outright prevention is truly effective and either way, a user might be prevented from doing something they really should be able to do. For example, if someone wants to use my image for their own private (non-commercial) enjoyment, that's completely legal. The program can never know what someone intends, so all we should be doing is letting them know the artists' wishes. Even if we could enforce it (i.e. stop an image from being edited in Aviary), if there's a jerk out there who really wants to cheat the system they could do so by using another editor. We don't think that people are thieves - they just are too lazy and/or uneducated about copyright law and the Internet. If they know they don't need to worry about those issues because our system will help them out, then we think people will gravitate towards using this type of system and respecting the wishes of others. As to your other questions: Source-attribution could be pulled via our API by any third-party application. It's just a simple URL lookup. It would not interfere with other applications - it's a simple url embedded in the file, similar to EXIF data, and that URL is where the file's history and creator info is located. You can choose to make an image editable/viewable by all in Aviary, or to just your friends or to nobody. So yes, those permission settings exist for the creator. As far as someone who wants to edit someone else's image, and the creator doesn't want it edited I think it's only fair the creator's voice be heard. At the very least the potential editor should know how the file can and can't be used. Otherwise they should just edit files that are open to the public (via filtering their search results) and won't have warnings on it.
Posted by russ99 on 2008-03-14 14:41:49
My only issue is if this kind of system is prevalent, it will lead to a future where every visual item or piece of content is "owned" by someone and thus stifling work and creativity. I don't want everything I create stalled and stifled by dealing with a system similar to the one currently in place with Rights Managed art. What makes Creative Commons such a great idea is that the author still reserves rights while not putting limits in use. So the author continues to get credit for their work and it can evolve into different works of art as well. Besides, shouldn't only exceptional pieces of art get the Rights Managed treatment? I don't think everyone should be forced to keep the author's intent when we're dealing with 6 identical shots of the same city by 6 different photographers.
Posted by Chris Keller on 2008-03-20 14:26:03
Not being a programmer or a mathematician, I'll submit an idea whose implementation would likely be an enormous undertaking in itself. Also, it occurs to me that if this isn't already in practice, I should most likely be developing it and submitting it to the patent office rather than this comments forum. I propose redesigning how an image is written so as to include its EXIF data in its entirety in spontaneously - generated, repeating patterns as pixels throughout the image. If I've explained myself correctly, my plan would be to avoid having the data lost in acts like screenshots. Get back to me about this if you like; I'd really like to discuss this with someone who has knowledge of how I might go about putting this idea into practice, or at least who would like to discuss the concerns involved. Thanks!
Posted by Leo Koppel on 2008-05-04 17:47:13
This system, like the majority of "digital rights management" attempts, will most likely fail to solve the problem at hand. People that willingly wish to ignore copyright to use content for their own gain will always find a way to do so, and regular users, that aren't even violating copyright, will no doubt be the ones affected. Suppose Photoshop does start to track the origins of its content, and saves it with image files. However, will older versions of Photoshop, and other programs, miraculously start to do the same, or will they cut out this content, or even be unable to read an image completely? Will operating systems have to keep track of who owns induvidual pixels, so as to stop people from taking screenshots? Your proposed method is much like a begginer website designer's naive attempt to protect photos or source code on his site by blocking right-clicks. It absolutely fails to protect the material, while at the same time annoying completely innocent users. The statement, "The Solution is Relying on Technology," is flawed. Technology doesn't control ideas. Only people control ideas. There is simply no way to use technology, least this difficult-to-implement system, to do so.
Posted by makc on 2008-08-06 04:23:02
I think the key is make this feature actually useful to people. Calling me a "jerk" for using other editor doesnt help, btw. If I do not care who the authors are and what the licence is, what good this feature is to me?
Posted by ????? on 2008-12-20 08:53:24
One of the most creative posts I’ve seen in awhile:) Very informative as well!
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Posted by Michael Galpert on 2007-12-18 12:29:32
One other related note: Tara Hunt makes a great point about the double tragedy that occurs when artists attempt to implement Creative Commons and are left with a bad experience. "Now, if the accreditation is broken, it ceases to benefit the original artists, who have a bad experience with Creative Commons and won't put future works into the commons for usage, so, ultimately the mashup artists suffer as well because they have less material to pull from for their own creative works." http://www.horsepigcow.com/2007/12/16/tragedy-of-the-commons-lane-hartwell-vs-richter-scales/