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The replacement value is actually much more than that. You could take that same equipment and shoot your entire lifetime and never get a shot like that. The in

The replacement value is actually much more than that. You could take that same equipment and shoot your entire lifetime and never get a shot like that. The internet is not about content. It's about distribution. It costs a LOT of money to use a human -- the artist -- to "distribute" that image from nature onto his digital camera. From there it costs zero to distribute it to the rest of the world. The answer is to tie the initial "distribution" of the data with the end consumer. So share the small image for free with whomever wants to see it, then charge a small fortune for a steganographically watermarked 10MB one. If you "sign" your images with a tamper-proof record of whom the recipient is, who you are, and perhaps a personalized message, not only can you track the image, you increase its value for the buyer. It's a good thing for both patron and artist. ADD: As a real-world example of how this works, take my funny picture collection. (http://caption-of-the-day.com http://caption-of-the-day.com) I have a hobby of collecting funny pictures. Finally decided to put them all on a blog. Now many of these pictures are actually web comics, or demotivators, or whatever. I want to credit each artist, but I'm just some schmuck collecting funny pictures. I don't have time to research each and every one. But with watermarking I don't have to. Most of the times whoever made the image also put a watermark on it pointing back to their website. So instead of "lifting" the pictures, I'm actually providing free advertising for the artist. Artists compete to have their work distributed for free. Consumers become big fans of certain brands and help the artists advertise. Think of how worse this system would be if the artists controlled everything. DRM is a menace. The business models might be different, but The technology community has solved the exact problem this photographer is concerned about.

dazbradbury 15y ago
Firstly, I'm loving http://caption-of-the-day.com/ http://caption-of-the-day.com/ - but it appears to be broken. "Click to View" only activates the top post (in Firefox 9 at least). Will be adding you to my list of sites to visit regularly though... Secondly, whilst watermarking works for funny pictures, or people who solely sell artwork, it isn't something I would class as a solution. For people who mainly want to share their work, but simply don't want it ripped off, it's ruining the original artwork. Watermarks are ugly. Also, the OP says he's not concerned with distribution...
- DanielBMarkham 15y ago
  Thanks! I read his concerns about distribution a different way. If you give your photo away for “credit” then the best possible scenario for you is someone will see your photo, contact you, and ask if they could borrow one of your photos… for credit. Try this… next time you’re at dinner, tell your waiter you’ll tell all your friends how good the service was if he gives you dinner for free. It occurs to me that as much as I hate DRM, I'm actually making a "DRM-light" argument. I think it's possible to have a file format in which the artist "signs" his work, perhaps along with whomever he sold it to -- a secure provenance chain. The payment provider would perform this service as part of the digital transfer. That way you could distribute anything you want, however you want. The value would be in the distribution chain. I'm a hobby photographer and professional programmer and author. Believe me, I know the pain this guy is experiencing. But the simple fact is bits are worthless. The photos of Ansel Adams aren't worth nearly as much anymore. But the provenance of a piece of work, being able to show that it came directly from the artist, perhaps with a personalized message on the back? That's priceless. The economy just isn't based on physical goods as much as it used to be. (BTW, "click to view" is supposed to slide out a section where I provide my own snarky comments. That way if I decide to use one of the images in a presentation some day I've already got a few jokes lined up. Works on FF 8.0 in Ubuntu for me, but I'll look into it.)
  - dazbradbury 15y ago
    "click to view" is supposed to slide out a section where I provide my own snarky comments On your home page, go to the second post, and click... You're javascript only slides things with the id sampleOuter. As you have multiple entries with the id sampleOuter on your homepage, most browsers will pick the first. If you're intent is to slide open ALL of them, I'd use a class, rather than an ID. If you're intent is to just slide open the one that's clicked on, you need each "sampleOuter" to have a unique identifier you can select it on. You can then pass that to your "toggleSampleView" method. HTH.
dspillett 15y ago
> The replacement value is actually much more than that. While I agree with his main point regarding letting someone use your output "for credit", judging the cost of a photo like this is more than somewhat bogus and makes his argument sound silly (so the people that need to listen to his correct point will just turn off long before they get to it). The replacement value for a photo has nothing to has very little to do with what it cost to take the photo, or what it would cost the user to have the photo taken especially for them. Most photos are worthless except to the person who took them. If someone uses your photo without permission you have not lost the photo so it does not need replacing. What he may have lost is the price he could have commanded for exclusive use of the image, because he can no longer sell/license exclusive use (as it has already been used). So what he would need reimbursing for is the value he could have gained through such licensing (plus any relevant legal and admin fees), not the cost of taking the photo (which might be far a greater amount, or might equally be a far lower one). It is an opportunity cost issue, not a time-and-materials cost issue. The "cost to make from scratch" argument isn't really valid either: you have to consider supply and demand of the "images for license" market as generating the image from scratch is far from the only alternative option. There may be many photographers out there with similar images at a much cheaper rate - said images may be less perfect for the intended use, but the price/availability difference may make this an acceptable compromise. Of course he has now set a fixed price for the image If you use it without negotiating a different price then this is what you can expect to have to pay when found. It might be a silly price, but that is the price: take it, leave it, or try negotiate something else - simply taking something for nothing because you disagree on price (the position taken by many people when they try to justify downloading a movie or game from an unofficial source) would not be acceptable. Your point regarding only publishing the small version of the image publicly is a valid one, and the only way to protect the exclusivity of the larger format image: but this isn't perfect because once the larger format image is out there it is no longer protected because it may be used in a way that allows it to be copied and reused without permission (any contract with an exclusivity clause would need to be carefully worded to make it clear who is responsible for protecting said exclusive use: who (the creator or the licensee) should be responsible for chasing unlicensed users who have taken the image from the licensee's materials? (the source copied from being identified by the watermark you describe)).

dazbradbury 15y ago

Firstly, I'm loving http://caption-of-the-day.com/ http://caption-of-the-day.com/ - but it appears to be broken. "Click to View" only activates the top post (in Firefox 9 at least). Will be adding you to my list of sites to visit regularly though... Secondly, whilst watermarking works for funny pictures, or people who solely sell artwork, it isn't something I would class as a solution. For people who mainly want to share their work, but simply don't want it ripped off, it's ruining the original artwork. Watermarks are ugly. Also, the OP says he's not concerned with distribution...

DanielBMarkham 15y ago
Thanks! I read his concerns about distribution a different way. If you give your photo away for “credit” then the best possible scenario for you is someone will see your photo, contact you, and ask if they could borrow one of your photos… for credit. Try this… next time you’re at dinner, tell your waiter you’ll tell all your friends how good the service was if he gives you dinner for free. It occurs to me that as much as I hate DRM, I'm actually making a "DRM-light" argument. I think it's possible to have a file format in which the artist "signs" his work, perhaps along with whomever he sold it to -- a secure provenance chain. The payment provider would perform this service as part of the digital transfer. That way you could distribute anything you want, however you want. The value would be in the distribution chain. I'm a hobby photographer and professional programmer and author. Believe me, I know the pain this guy is experiencing. But the simple fact is bits are worthless. The photos of Ansel Adams aren't worth nearly as much anymore. But the provenance of a piece of work, being able to show that it came directly from the artist, perhaps with a personalized message on the back? That's priceless. The economy just isn't based on physical goods as much as it used to be. (BTW, "click to view" is supposed to slide out a section where I provide my own snarky comments. That way if I decide to use one of the images in a presentation some day I've already got a few jokes lined up. Works on FF 8.0 in Ubuntu for me, but I'll look into it.)
- dazbradbury 15y ago
  "click to view" is supposed to slide out a section where I provide my own snarky comments On your home page, go to the second post, and click... You're javascript only slides things with the id sampleOuter. As you have multiple entries with the id sampleOuter on your homepage, most browsers will pick the first. If you're intent is to slide open ALL of them, I'd use a class, rather than an ID. If you're intent is to just slide open the one that's clicked on, you need each "sampleOuter" to have a unique identifier you can select it on. You can then pass that to your "toggleSampleView" method. HTH.

dspillett 15y ago

> The replacement value is actually much more than that. While I agree with his main point regarding letting someone use your output "for credit", judging the cost of a photo like this is more than somewhat bogus and makes his argument sound silly (so the people that need to listen to his correct point will just turn off long before they get to it). The replacement value for a photo has nothing to has very little to do with what it cost to take the photo, or what it would cost the user to have the photo taken especially for them. Most photos are worthless except to the person who took them. If someone uses your photo without permission you have not lost the photo so it does not need replacing. What he may have lost is the price he could have commanded for exclusive use of the image, because he can no longer sell/license exclusive use (as it has already been used). So what he would need reimbursing for is the value he could have gained through such licensing (plus any relevant legal and admin fees), not the cost of taking the photo (which might be far a greater amount, or might equally be a far lower one). It is an opportunity cost issue, not a time-and-materials cost issue. The "cost to make from scratch" argument isn't really valid either: you have to consider supply and demand of the "images for license" market as generating the image from scratch is far from the only alternative option. There may be many photographers out there with similar images at a much cheaper rate - said images may be less perfect for the intended use, but the price/availability difference may make this an acceptable compromise. Of course he has now set a fixed price for the image If you use it without negotiating a different price then this is what you can expect to have to pay when found. It might be a silly price, but that is the price: take it, leave it, or try negotiate something else - simply taking something for nothing because you disagree on price (the position taken by many people when they try to justify downloading a movie or game from an unofficial source) would not be acceptable. Your point regarding only publishing the small version of the image publicly is a valid one, and the only way to protect the exclusivity of the larger format image: but this isn't perfect because once the larger format image is out there it is no longer protected because it may be used in a way that allows it to be copied and reused without permission (any contract with an exclusivity clause would need to be carefully worded to make it clear who is responsible for protecting said exclusive use: who (the creator or the licensee) should be responsible for chasing unlicensed users who have taken the image from the licensee's materials? (the source copied from being identified by the watermark you describe)).