Twitter Updates for 2007-12-18

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  • Preparing my Christmas cards for mailing tomorrow (writing/addressing/stamping& wax sealing them) #

  • My right hand is about to come apart at the joins from writing messages in Christmas cards(and I've only done 12). #

  • *joints #

  • Good morning all! #

  • @film_girl Morning Christina #

  • There is a UPS man with a package w/ my name on it containing a Canon 40D within 20 miles of my family's home down at the Lake. #

  • @film_girl I'm VERY VERY excited. This is the culmination of 2007 for me. I have spent 8 months researching & researching to decide on this. #

  • @film_girl (saved all year too) and its finally being delivered. Only problem is I'm in Washington DC & its 250 miles south of me - i wont.. #

  • @film_girl ...be getting it until I head home for xmas on Friday. Had it delivered to my parent's house instead of my apt here. #

  • @film_girl Yes! @cplater told me that the other night which allowed me to call them & get a 80$ refund b/c the price had dropped. #

  • @brightwings yes, you discovered our diabolical plan #

  • Listening to this week's Car Talk podcast & doing dishes. #

  • @steverosebush for me my #1 "A' song is by Aha, "Take on me" #

  • @film_girl Hush you - none of your snark :P #

  • @hotdogsladies Amen. #

  • @webguy2k then you're really not going to be happy w/ the word I just played.... #

  • Traffic hell! Aaaaaaaaaah #

Twitter Updates for 2007-12-17

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  • daaaamn you amazon. Ordered my Canon 40D on Thursday for $1280. Just checked and Amazon has it now for $1199. grrrrrrrrr PICK A PRICE #

  • @cplater oooooh re-he-he-heaaaaly #

  • @cplater Do I call them or do it via the website somehow? #

  • @Webguy2k woot I challeneged you & Jen to a scrabble game on facebook #

  • @webguy2k hah! #

  • Thanks to @cplater, I just saved 80$. #

  • Yes! #

  • I'm playing 7 different ones at the moment w/ various ppl. #

  • @webguy2k k #

  • @gruber I use MarsEdit myself due to its nice integration w/ NetNewsWire. What do you use? #

  • Ok so I don't have to work this week. I'm going to stay up tonight & catch up on a bit of blogging. #

  • Very funny Fark photoshop contest. I submitted this to digg - I would appreciate diggs. (link in next post) #

  • http://tinyurl.com/29hpxo #

  • @blankbaby I heard you on NPR this morning! #

  • @blankbaby Don't worry. You did just fine. At first I was like - oh no- MSM is going to attempt to sound intelligent on software security. #

  • @blankbaby And then there you were sticking up for Apple security. #

  • Just bought a 500gb external firewire 800 drive @ apple store. #

  • @film_girl No actually - the Apple Store employee talked me into the supposed goodness of the WD MyBook Studio Editions (Quad interface) #

  • @film_girl I would have preferred the GDrive Quad but they didn't have any in store and my HD space on my MBP is at 10GB free... #

  • @film_girl and my new Canon40D gets here at Xmas so I'm going to be needing HD space very very soon. #

  • @film_girl oh wow - year I learned about the 5 year warranty at the apple store but now you've made me feel so much better about my purchase #

  • If you haven't seen the front page of Apple.com today then go there now. Hilarious Christmas video ala old Rudolf xmas kid shows. Very Funny #

  • Copying my 30 gig iPhoto library to my new spiffy quad interface external 500gb drive. Firewire 800 is great! #

  • Next up: moving my iTunes library there as well & then installing Adobe Lightroom. #

  • @ejacqui For your ankles right? :P #

Misunderstanding Copyright Law And Ruining Everyone’s Fun

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So the Richter Scales video that everyone has been talking about is history (mostly - good old Daily Motion tends to ignore the take down notices, so I was able to embed it above). It is the victim of a bullying tactic by a photographer and her lawyer. Once again, a perversion of copyright is being used to destroy art.

The video, set to the tune of We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel, mocked just about everyone in Silicon Valley as being part of a new technology bubble. I wasn’t spared - I even have the honor of being the display image for the video in the YouTube version.

But the video has now been taken down, because Lane Hartwell, the photographer who took one of the pictures that was included in the video, complained that she wasn’t paid for her work. She hired a lawyer and sent take down notices to all of the major video sites, and the video was removed.

A bit of a mob in favor of Hartwell has come together to support her. But the mob, while virulent in their support, has little understanding of copyright law.

I spoke with a copyright attorney this afternoon and described the facts to him. He confirmed my thoughts on the matter. Copyright is a structure around prohibitions, not permissions, he says. That means it lays out rules for things people cannot do with your work - it does not give you the right to demand permission before any use is made.

The Richter Scale video was almost certainly fair use of the photo. A court would look at a variety of factors in making the determination. Among those factors, a court would decide if the use is likely to adversely affect the incentives of others to create copyrighted works, and whether their decision one way or another would tend promote the progress of science and the useful arts. In this case, the inclusion of the photo in a parody work would almost certainly be held by a court to be fair use, the attorney said.

The real issue here is that Hartwell’s feelings were hurt. She wanted attribution in the video, and the creators ignored her. Attribution and people’s feelings are not things copyright law considers; rather, it sets forth the rules under which copyrighted works may be or may not be used by others. In this case, a court would likely side with Richter Scales. But to avoid the risk, they decided to simply take down the video. I hope they remake it without Hartwell’s images and repost it soon. It’s too good to not be republished.

Societal ideals around what constitutes ownership over art are changing. People who try to protect and silo off their work are simply being ignored. Those that embrace the community, and give back to it not only allowing but asking for their work to be mashed up, re-used and otherwise embraced are being rewarded with attention. At the core is a basic implicit understanding - if you want to be part of the community, you have to give back to it, too.

(Via TechCrunch.)

Journalism Professor Says Citizen Journalists Should Be Regulated

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There's just something about the idea a lack of "elite" gatekeepers that upsets some people. It's why you hear complaints about Wikipedia or blogs or home videos on YouTube. For some reason, there are a group of folks (often the former elitist gatekeepers) who feel that since not all of the content is great, useful or interesting, it all is problematic in some way or another.

The latest to express this type of viewpoint is David Hazinski, a journalism professor and former NBC correspondent, claiming that "unfettered" citizen journalism is "too risky" and that it needs to be regulated (via Romenesko) by "official" media companies, handing out "certificates" to citizen journalists. Unfortunately, his basic premise seems to be incorrect. He states: "Supporters of "citizen journalism" argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don't provide." That's not quite true. While some supporters may claim that, in general the benefits of the idea that anyone can be a reporter isn't necessarily about reliable information, but about providing additional viewpoints and information to try to make sure that more of the story is out there for people to find. It's not necessarily about being better -- but just giving an outlet to people who can add more to the story. He's certainly right that it can be abused, but that's missing the point. Sure it can be abused. But so can the traditional press.

What's more important is that such abuses can also be outed and brought to light, just like any other news story. Hazinski is right that professional journalists should be verifying the information provided by "citizen journalists" but that should be true of anyone they accept information from. Almost all of the complaints he lobs at these untrained journalists applies equally to the trained ones -- so it's hard to interpret this piece as anything but complaints from someone who doesn't like the riffraff encroaching on his turf.