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People are disputing about whether the pixelisation work is transformative enough. Well, this is absolutely hilarious really -- I mean, hold on, what is the or

by hxa7241 15y ago

People are disputing about whether the pixelisation work is transformative enough. Well, this is absolutely hilarious really -- I mean, hold on, what is the original work we are talking about here? Photography. You know, where you put some light sensors in front of something you did not create yourself and pretty much just collect the photons that bounce off it.

tsuraan 15y ago
I don't know why the above post is getting down-modded. The point is definitely a good one, even if it was stated flippantly. As has been stated in previous threads on this subject, the image captures the creative work of the creator of the horn, the creator of the suit, etc. The photo is itself a mechanical transcription of a handful of other people's creative works. For the photographer to insist that his arrangement of other people's creative works is original, while somebody else's re-interpretation of the photo is not, is just wrong.
alexqgb 15y ago
Good observation. And exactly correct. Lucky for Maisel, the barber, wardrobe stylist, tailor, and lighting designer can't (and wouldn't) sue him for derivative use of their efforts.
AndrewMoffat 15y ago
I absolutely agree, but I think that the creative part of photography comes from having "the eye" for knowing what a good photo will be, before it's taken. The photo would not have existed to be as good if the photographer did not apply his creative insight in capturing the photo. But in my opinion, for photographers to dictate the terms of their photos' usage is nothing but hiding behind the status quo (the current copyright laws) to stroke their own egos. They don't want anyone else to be mistaken for as the "creator" of the photo, because that is just too damaging to their ego. They can't just capture an image for people to enjoy (by seeing, or by remixing, or whatever), they have to make sure their name is attached to it and in people's faces for all eternity. It's really childish, but it's human behavior. We evolved in a world of finite resources where ownership of and the ability to defend those finite resources meant survival and status. Now we have this new medium where we can create resources and duplicate them nearly infinitely, but we're still hard-wired to try to control every one of those infinite copies, because they're MINEMINEMINEMINE. But we obviously can't watch what everyone is doing, so we just mercilessly beat down anyone who looks like they're getting any attention from using a copy. Sorry for the wall of text, as a digital artist I feel pretty passionate about the subject.
anamax 15y ago
> You know, where you put some light sensors in front of something you did not create yourself and pretty much just collect the photons that bounce off it. You're forgetting the editing that almost all commercial photographs get.
sapphirecat 15y ago
> You know, where you put some light sensors in front of something you did not create yourself and pretty much just collect the photons that bounce off it. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the original in this case was a studio shot, in which the lighting, background, angle of photography, and positioning of the subject were all chosen by the photographer in service of the vision that yielded the artifact generated by "collecting photons". Even outside a studio, a photographer has a lot of control over all of the variables. Weather is about the only thing they don't. To reduce photography to such extremes is akin to saying coding is pretty much typing. By the time that happens, a lot of creativity has already been spent.

by hxa7241 15y ago

tsuraan 15y ago

I don't know why the above post is getting down-modded. The point is definitely a good one, even if it was stated flippantly. As has been stated in previous threads on this subject, the image captures the creative work of the creator of the horn, the creator of the suit, etc. The photo is itself a mechanical transcription of a handful of other people's creative works. For the photographer to insist that his arrangement of other people's creative works is original, while somebody else's re-interpretation of the photo is not, is just wrong.

alexqgb 15y ago

Good observation. And exactly correct. Lucky for Maisel, the barber, wardrobe stylist, tailor, and lighting designer can't (and wouldn't) sue him for derivative use of their efforts.

AndrewMoffat 15y ago

I absolutely agree, but I think that the creative part of photography comes from having "the eye" for knowing what a good photo will be, before it's taken. The photo would not have existed to be as good if the photographer did not apply his creative insight in capturing the photo. But in my opinion, for photographers to dictate the terms of their photos' usage is nothing but hiding behind the status quo (the current copyright laws) to stroke their own egos. They don't want anyone else to be mistaken for as the "creator" of the photo, because that is just too damaging to their ego. They can't just capture an image for people to enjoy (by seeing, or by remixing, or whatever), they have to make sure their name is attached to it and in people's faces for all eternity. It's really childish, but it's human behavior. We evolved in a world of finite resources where ownership of and the ability to defend those finite resources meant survival and status. Now we have this new medium where we can create resources and duplicate them nearly infinitely, but we're still hard-wired to try to control every one of those infinite copies, because they're MINEMINEMINEMINE. But we obviously can't watch what everyone is doing, so we just mercilessly beat down anyone who looks like they're getting any attention from using a copy. Sorry for the wall of text, as a digital artist I feel pretty passionate about the subject.

anamax 15y ago

> You know, where you put some light sensors in front of something you did not create yourself and pretty much just collect the photons that bounce off it. You're forgetting the editing that almost all commercial photographs get.

sapphirecat 15y ago

> You know, where you put some light sensors in front of something you did not create yourself and pretty much just collect the photons that bounce off it. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the original in this case was a studio shot, in which the lighting, background, angle of photography, and positioning of the subject were all chosen by the photographer in service of the vision that yielded the artifact generated by "collecting photons". Even outside a studio, a photographer has a lot of control over all of the variables. Weather is about the only thing they don't. To reduce photography to such extremes is akin to saying coding is pretty much typing. By the time that happens, a lot of creativity has already been spent.