More business models based on using your images, with no payment to you
I for one have been relatively quiet during this ASMP election period. But all around us, companies have been developing even more businesses based on the use of your photos, with no thought of compensating (or even crediting) you.
Here's another one: Cooliris, featured in today's NY Times. Take their video tour to see how their business model is based on using other people's intellectual property with no payment to the creators.
I could chase after infringement after infringement as a full time job. But there has to be a better method than full time threatening the thousands of sites using my images.
It could take years to work out the details (especially if the trade associations representing you still haven't lifted a finger to start). But the more I think about it, the more I think we have to pursue the music and film industry's model of mandatory royalties for worldwide web and electronic uses.
We've given you some of the details here over the last several months.
If I am elected to the ASMP board, I will try to get them to start work on 21st century solutions. Someone has to start creating royalty streams for us in light of these new infringing business models. I volunteer.
5 comments:
wow, thanks, i'm about to check it out, thanks for looking out
I see this as a very gray area for infringement. Isn't this tool just another way to view images already on the web?
Maybe the potential to save your images or share them with others is what bothers you. But that can already be done, though this would make it simpler. Google Images has already bypassed these murky waters with court rulings in their favor.
I do feel to see how their business model will make $ beyond the potential to license this software. What am I missing?
Ken
You are correct about the gray area. Until this goes to court, and sometimes the appeal process, there is no legal precedent set.
But the difference between this and, let's say Google using the thumbnails of your photos on a web search, is significant.
First off Google uses a thumbnail on their search results page. Cooliris created an application that takes the photos and makes them full screen.
When the photo is removed from the context of the page and is used, not as a search result, but as a full screen "wallpaper," or part of a slide show, without my permission, it's a copyright violation.
Now what if every application that used images off of someone else's web site had to pay a license fee to do that? That's where I'm heading.
I see what you mean about the differences with google. With the proliferation of images on the web we will only see more of these applications or "business models" to come.
I'm all for generating license fees for these usages, similar to ASCAP for the music industry...but hasn't the photo industry tried to go down this road before?
Even if a creator wanted to jump on the new business model of "free", without any link or attribution back to the creator or origin of the image or intellectual property that model falls apart.
It's hard to see Cooliris being challenged on this unless some deep pockets feel a threat. I don't think that asmp or apa would step up to this or have the resources either.
But I praise and support your desire for action. Hope you're elected!
If our trade associations play their cards correctly (which they currently aren't), I see us presenting this solution, along with several other proposals, as part of an all encompassing solution to the massive "orphan works" issue.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act turned out bad for us. The Orphan Works bill could be far worse.
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