7 ms·

I don't use Twitter so I could be wrong about what happened, but this seems crazy. Three people retweeted a photo that included the photographer's name. However

I don't use Twitter so I could be wrong about what happened, but this seems crazy. Three people retweeted a photo that included the photographer's name. However, Twitter didn't show the name in the thumbnail because it cropped the image (but was still visible when enlarged). Somehow, this led to the government mandating Twitter to release the identities of the retweeters? Does anyone know how a random image from 10 years ago that picked up nearly zero traction on Twitter made it to the top court in Japan? Another thought: what if a website displays the image lower down on the page so someone has to scroll to see the bottom? Is that also an infringement?

halfjew22 6y ago
Well, to be fair, the judge in the dissenting position (1/5) freed the 3 retweeters from blame because they did not cut off the photographer's name, but rather Twitter did in order to fit the aspect ratio displayed within the application. I'm still confused though after reading the article.
- gruez 6y ago
  >but rather Twitter did in order to fit the aspect ratio displayed within the application. This is bonkers. The attribution is still there, you just have click it. Besides, I doubt anyone who cared about the image is going to be content looking at the low-res thumbnail. The reputational damage done to the photographer is negligible. Punishing the retweeters is also problematic because they themselves didn't crop the picture, twitter did. What does this mean for cropping that's done by the user-agent, or is otherwise device specific? eg. you post on the desktop site, where nothing is cropped, so you think everything is okay. Little do you know on the mobile site, all the images get cropped. Are you now liable as well?
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Sounds more like the reputational damage is to the court system allowing this to occur.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - darren_ 6y ago
    > This is bonkers. The attribution is still there, you just have click it This means, almost by definition, that the most viewed versions of these photos on twitter, probably by a very high margin, have no attribution. Why is this bonkers? The right to attribution is clear, and it’s not your place to judge whether or not the artist should be exercising it. The latter question comes down to how feasible it is for a person tweeting to know how their tweets are going to look on the main timeline w/regard to attribution, which seems like something it’s reasonable for a court to decide.
    - em-bee 6y ago
      what's bonkers is wanting to punish users for something they didn't do. judges not understanding technology strikes again.
      - aspaceman 6y ago
        I believe this decision punishes Twitter - not the users.
        em-bee 6y ago
        to punish twitter they wouldn't need the identities of the retweeters. the only use for knowing the retweeters is to haul them into court.
        roblabla 6y ago
        To be fair, they could be asking for the identities in order to summon them as witnesses against twitter. I don't hold much faith that this is the intention though...
        em-bee 6y ago
        the thought crossed my mind, but wouldn't you do that after you sue in the discovery step?
    - 6y ago
- nradov 6y ago
  Regardless of the legal issue, I sure hate it when social media services like Facebook and Strava crop my photo thumbnails to fit a certain aspect ratio. They frequently end up cropping out important parts like someone's face. I wish there was an option to not crop, and instead add white space around the image to make it fit.
fireattack 6y ago
This reminds me of a question I asked before on Wikipedia [1]. Some of their pictures on Commons, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Belgium_-_Location_Map_(2013)_-_BEL_-_UNOCHA.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Belgium_-_Location_Map_(2... , are from UNOCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). UNOCHA specifically asks their work to be 'Credit as follows: "Credit: OCHA"', but obviously Wikipedia don't do it on their article page if you just embed the picture, you have to click on the picture to see the credit. Actually, they even went further and removed the "OCHA" watermark from the original image (see File History). To be honest, I wasn't super satisfied with the answers I got there (see ref), but then again I'm not familiar with this topic. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_124#Isn%27t_the_way_we_use_these_UNOCHA_maps_directly_violate_the_Creative_Commons_license%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy...
- stordoff 6y ago
  The linked CC licence states (and it appears to be confirmed that this is the licence that applies[1]): > If You Distribute, or Publicly Perform the Work or any Adaptations or Collections, You must, unless a request has been made pursuant to Section 4(a), keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author [...]; (ii) the title of the Work if supplied; (iii) to the extent reasonably practicable, the URI, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and (iv) , consistent with Section 3(b), in the case of an Adaptation, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Adaptation (e.g., "French translation of the Work by Original Author," or "Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author"). The credit required by this Section 4 (b) may be implemented in any reasonable manner As the licence states that attribution must be reasonable to the medium and in any reasonable manner, having the attribution details on an information page would appear to be acceptable - the CC wiki[2] and FAQ[3] seem to support this: > There is no one right way; just make sure your attribution is reasonable and suited to the medium you're working with. That being said, you still have to include attribution requirements somehow, even if it's just a link to an About page that has that info.[2] > Additionally, you may satisfy the attribution requirement by providing a link to a place where the attribution information may be found.[3] This is also made explicit in version 4.0 of the licence[4]: > For example, it may be reasonable to satisfy the conditions by providing a URI or hyperlink to a resource that includes the required information. Regarding removing the watermark, it does not appear to be a copyright notice, so the right to do so would seem to be implied by the right to make adaptions. [1] "Wikimedia Foundation has received an e-mail confirming that the copyright holder has approved publication under the terms mentioned on this page. This correspondence has been reviewed by an OTRS member and stored in our permission archive. The correspondence is available to trusted volunteers as ticket #2014031410007248." [2] https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/best_practices_for_attribution https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/best_practices_for_att... [3] https://creativecommons.org/faq/#How_do_I_properly_attribute_a_Creative_Commons_licensed_work.3F https://creativecommons.org/faq/#How_do_I_properly_attribute... [4] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
gerland 6y ago
Does it matter how many people rights were borkend and how famous they were?
- ladberg 6y ago
  You're right, it doesn't really matter how known the incident was. However, I don't think it should have happened at all and if someone were to sue, I would have assumed they would only be entertained if it was a widespread case or they were famous (not something I agree with, just how the world works).

halfjew22 6y ago

Well, to be fair, the judge in the dissenting position (1/5) freed the 3 retweeters from blame because they did not cut off the photographer's name, but rather Twitter did in order to fit the aspect ratio displayed within the application. I'm still confused though after reading the article.

gruez 6y ago
>but rather Twitter did in order to fit the aspect ratio displayed within the application. This is bonkers. The attribution is still there, you just have click it. Besides, I doubt anyone who cared about the image is going to be content looking at the low-res thumbnail. The reputational damage done to the photographer is negligible. Punishing the retweeters is also problematic because they themselves didn't crop the picture, twitter did. What does this mean for cropping that's done by the user-agent, or is otherwise device specific? eg. you post on the desktop site, where nothing is cropped, so you think everything is okay. Little do you know on the mobile site, all the images get cropped. Are you now liable as well?
- dylan604 6y ago
  Sounds more like the reputational damage is to the court system allowing this to occur.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- darren_ 6y ago
  > This is bonkers. The attribution is still there, you just have click it This means, almost by definition, that the most viewed versions of these photos on twitter, probably by a very high margin, have no attribution. Why is this bonkers? The right to attribution is clear, and it’s not your place to judge whether or not the artist should be exercising it. The latter question comes down to how feasible it is for a person tweeting to know how their tweets are going to look on the main timeline w/regard to attribution, which seems like something it’s reasonable for a court to decide.
  - em-bee 6y ago
    what's bonkers is wanting to punish users for something they didn't do. judges not understanding technology strikes again.
    - aspaceman 6y ago
      I believe this decision punishes Twitter - not the users.
      - em-bee 6y ago
        to punish twitter they wouldn't need the identities of the retweeters. the only use for knowing the retweeters is to haul them into court.
        roblabla 6y ago
        To be fair, they could be asking for the identities in order to summon them as witnesses against twitter. I don't hold much faith that this is the intention though...
        em-bee 6y ago
        the thought crossed my mind, but wouldn't you do that after you sue in the discovery step?
  - 6y ago
nradov 6y ago
Regardless of the legal issue, I sure hate it when social media services like Facebook and Strava crop my photo thumbnails to fit a certain aspect ratio. They frequently end up cropping out important parts like someone's face. I wish there was an option to not crop, and instead add white space around the image to make it fit.

fireattack 6y ago

This reminds me of a question I asked before on Wikipedia [1]. Some of their pictures on Commons, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Belgium_-_Location_Map_(2013)_-_BEL_-_UNOCHA.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Belgium_-_Location_Map_(2... , are from UNOCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). UNOCHA specifically asks their work to be 'Credit as follows: "Credit: OCHA"', but obviously Wikipedia don't do it on their article page if you just embed the picture, you have to click on the picture to see the credit. Actually, they even went further and removed the "OCHA" watermark from the original image (see File History). To be honest, I wasn't super satisfied with the answers I got there (see ref), but then again I'm not familiar with this topic. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_124#Isn%27t_the_way_we_use_these_UNOCHA_maps_directly_violate_the_Creative_Commons_license%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy...

stordoff 6y ago
The linked CC licence states (and it appears to be confirmed that this is the licence that applies[1]): > If You Distribute, or Publicly Perform the Work or any Adaptations or Collections, You must, unless a request has been made pursuant to Section 4(a), keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author [...]; (ii) the title of the Work if supplied; (iii) to the extent reasonably practicable, the URI, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and (iv) , consistent with Section 3(b), in the case of an Adaptation, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Adaptation (e.g., "French translation of the Work by Original Author," or "Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author"). The credit required by this Section 4 (b) may be implemented in any reasonable manner As the licence states that attribution must be reasonable to the medium and in any reasonable manner, having the attribution details on an information page would appear to be acceptable - the CC wiki[2] and FAQ[3] seem to support this: > There is no one right way; just make sure your attribution is reasonable and suited to the medium you're working with. That being said, you still have to include attribution requirements somehow, even if it's just a link to an About page that has that info.[2] > Additionally, you may satisfy the attribution requirement by providing a link to a place where the attribution information may be found.[3] This is also made explicit in version 4.0 of the licence[4]: > For example, it may be reasonable to satisfy the conditions by providing a URI or hyperlink to a resource that includes the required information. Regarding removing the watermark, it does not appear to be a copyright notice, so the right to do so would seem to be implied by the right to make adaptions. [1] "Wikimedia Foundation has received an e-mail confirming that the copyright holder has approved publication under the terms mentioned on this page. This correspondence has been reviewed by an OTRS member and stored in our permission archive. The correspondence is available to trusted volunteers as ticket #2014031410007248." [2] https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/best_practices_for_attribution https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/best_practices_for_att... [3] https://creativecommons.org/faq/#How_do_I_properly_attribute_a_Creative_Commons_licensed_work.3F https://creativecommons.org/faq/#How_do_I_properly_attribute... [4] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode

gerland 6y ago

Does it matter how many people rights were borkend and how famous they were?

ladberg 6y ago
You're right, it doesn't really matter how known the incident was. However, I don't think it should have happened at all and if someone were to sue, I would have assumed they would only be entertained if it was a widespread case or they were famous (not something I agree with, just how the world works).