7 ms·

You know, it is pretty easy to kill someone. That doesn't mean it's morally acceptable, let alone legal. It doesn't matter how easy it is to copy the photograph

You know, it is pretty easy to kill someone. That doesn't mean it's morally acceptable, let alone legal. It doesn't matter how easy it is to copy the photograph. It's still not morally acceptable or legal. As to your second argument, that 'anyone can take pro quality photos with minimal talent': image quality isn't all that counts. In fact, it's substantially less important than composing a good photograph in the first place. Someone with a little experience can take much better photographs with a $200 camera than someone unexperienced can with a $1200 camera. Taking good photographs is as hard as it always was. It's about artistic composition, about knowing your tools, about having enough to experience to take the shot. Ask an amateur photographer friend whether he thinks he can easily reproduce this photo. Those in my vicinity all tell me they can't. Firstly, their equipment is insufficient. A $900 DSLR won't cut it and they don't have those filters. Secondly, they would never have thought of doing it this way, with these tools. Anyone can copy. This guy has done original work. How many people have enough experience with this $200 filter to know it would be perfect for this shot?

smokeyj 15y ago
If I'm a programmer, and I let my customers download my program for free and include a crack -- who's fault is it if someone doesn't pay up for the program? This is the internet. I had to download a copy the photograph just to view the image. It's stored in my cache right now. You have an unlicensed copy as well. Do I feel like a murdering thief? No, I don't. If you run a bike-shop, don't leave the bikes out front without locks. They're going to get stolen. Don't bitch about society when they go missing. If you're putting art out on the internet, don't bitch when everyone has a copy. At least watermark that sucker.
- gurkendoktor 15y ago
  The belief that morality and practicability are the same thing just scares me, really. Individual humans become more powerful all the time. We need to respect arbitrary, consentual rules to keep the world going instead of going back to "strong eats weak, bad luck".
  - smokeyj 15y ago
    > We need to respect arbitrary, consentual rules to keep the world going Such as PIPA and SOPA? Believing that a concept such as a digital pattern or an idea is property that belongs to someone is borderline religious -- because I'm sure you fervently believe it without any supporting evidence. Just because you can monetize something doesn't mean you own it. If I discovered the wheel first, does that mean society owes me money bags for stealing my invention?
    - gurkendoktor 15y ago
      > Such as PIPA and SOPA? Bad legislation and lobbyism are no reasons for or against anything. > Believing that a concept such as a digital pattern or an idea is property that belongs to someone is borderline religious -- because I'm sure you fervently believe it without any supporting evidence. That is arbitrary from an objective point of view. Now name me a law or human concept that is not. Thank you for your assumptions about SOPA and fervent religiousness in a thread that has to do with neither.
- Samuel_Michon 15y ago
  "If I'm a programmer, and I let my customers download my program for free and include a crack -- who's fault is it if someone doesn't pay up for the program? This is the internet." It's called trust, it's why we've been lauding Louis CK's latest effort. Also, Apple used to distribute their OS software that way, it didn't require a serial number or online validation. "If you run a bike-shop, don't leave the bikes out front without locks. They're going to get stolen. Don't bitch about society when they go missing. If you're putting art out on the internet, don't bitch when everyone has a copy." Nice argument for DRM. I thought all of us here were opposed to that kind of thing. "At least watermark that sucker." What is that supposed to accomplish? Even if those who appropriate the picture don't crop the pictures, that doesn't justify republishing it without permission and/or compensation.
  - smokeyj 15y ago
    Slap your website name across the whole image. I don't think anyone here is against DRM -- just shitty DRM that dilutes the user experience. Steam is an example of DRM done right IMO.
mibbitor 15y ago
> Taking good photographs is as hard as it always was. Untrue. With digital, you can take 1,000 photos and chances are one will be fantastic. You can brute force brilliance. That wasn't true before digital. Photos are simply recording something that exists. It's not creating art as such (IMHO). So unlike painting / writing books / writing code, you could just sit a monkey there with a good camera, variety of lenses, filters, etc and have him take a fantastic photo sooner or later. Don't get me wrong, I love taking photos, and try to make my photos better each time, try to learn what settings, composure etc will make the best photo etc. But at the same time, pretty soon you'll have cameras that take a billion photos all at the same time with every available setting, then allow you to navigate through and select the best. Taking photos then just comes down to judging what makes a good photo, which most people can do (And can also be automated by surveying people or doing A/B testing etc). > You know, it is pretty easy to kill someone. That doesn't mean it's morally acceptable, let alone legal. It doesn't matter how easy it is to copy the photograph. It's still not morally acceptable or legal. If you kill me, it affects me. If you copy a photo of mine, I haven't lost anything. It's a bad analogy.
- Confusion 15y ago
  If you copy a photo of mine, I haven't lost anything. It's a bad analogy. If people consistently copy your photos with impunity, you've lost your job. The same goes for writer and movie makers. soon you'll have cameras that take a billion photos all at the same time with every available setting, then allow you to navigate through and select the best. Good luck navigating through a billion photos... (And can also be automated by surveying people or doing A/B testing etc) ... or autoselecting through a billion photographs. What's a good photograph is independent of how many people feel it's a good photograph. If you ask the general public to pick the best photos between some Cartier-Bresson's and some of your own black-and-white shots intended to appeal to the general public (assuming you have a moderate ability to make such photographs), I know what the outcome is. Entirely independent of what are actually the best photo's. And even if you could auto-select the best shot, a billion photographs of people on some village square wouldn't include the shot this guy made. A billion photographs taken around noon would never have included this shot. A billion photographs with a different cliffline would never have included this shot. A bajillion monkeys will never write Shakespeare in the lifetime of the universe.
alex_c 15y ago
You know, it is pretty easy to kill someone. That doesn't mean it's morally acceptable, let alone legal. It doesn't matter how easy it is to copy the photograph. It's still not morally acceptable or legal. And yet, people still kill each other on a daily basis. At some point it may become practical to take precautions not to get killed, or to move into a line of work or a place where you're less likely to get killed.
- Confusion 15y ago
  We've got a system in place to ensure very few people kill each other. It would be nice if that same system could ensure people wouldn't just copy photographs (for commercial purposes). And it actually does a reasonable job of that. This guy wasn't arguing he has a hard time making a living, which is the argument that people seem to be replying to. He's arguing that people shouldn't copy photographs for commercial purposes. It's hard to see how anyone could disagree with that: I don't want my code copied either (well, specific parts of it). The question of what you should do when people in fact do copy your photographs is mostly separated from that.
  - alex_c 15y ago
    The question of what should be done in cases of copyright infringement is the only one that can really be usefully discussed, which is probably why most people are addressing that instead. Should people copy photographs for commercial purposes? Of course not. End of discussion, not much more to say. This seems to come up fairly often - an article making a moral argument that copying is wrong, followed by comments saying "Yeah, but it still happens, so you should do X", followed by replies saying "no, but you don't understand, it's wrong!" Strangely enough, this seems to come up mostly in the context of music (or, in this case, photography). I haven't seen many software blogs making a purely moral argument as opposed to a practical discussion of what to do about it.
dchest 15y ago
It's still not morally acceptable or legal. It's illegal, yes. But the question whether copying published works is morally unacceptable to people is debatable. Comparing sharing with killing or stealing is a common mistake. Citing http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Theft http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Theft The idea that laws decide what is right or wrong is mistaken in general. Laws are, at their best, an attempt to achieve justice; to say that laws define justice or ethical conduct is turning things upside down.

smokeyj 15y ago

If I'm a programmer, and I let my customers download my program for free and include a crack -- who's fault is it if someone doesn't pay up for the program? This is the internet. I had to download a copy the photograph just to view the image. It's stored in my cache right now. You have an unlicensed copy as well. Do I feel like a murdering thief? No, I don't. If you run a bike-shop, don't leave the bikes out front without locks. They're going to get stolen. Don't bitch about society when they go missing. If you're putting art out on the internet, don't bitch when everyone has a copy. At least watermark that sucker.

gurkendoktor 15y ago
The belief that morality and practicability are the same thing just scares me, really. Individual humans become more powerful all the time. We need to respect arbitrary, consentual rules to keep the world going instead of going back to "strong eats weak, bad luck".
- smokeyj 15y ago
  > We need to respect arbitrary, consentual rules to keep the world going Such as PIPA and SOPA? Believing that a concept such as a digital pattern or an idea is property that belongs to someone is borderline religious -- because I'm sure you fervently believe it without any supporting evidence. Just because you can monetize something doesn't mean you own it. If I discovered the wheel first, does that mean society owes me money bags for stealing my invention?
  - gurkendoktor 15y ago
    > Such as PIPA and SOPA? Bad legislation and lobbyism are no reasons for or against anything. > Believing that a concept such as a digital pattern or an idea is property that belongs to someone is borderline religious -- because I'm sure you fervently believe it without any supporting evidence. That is arbitrary from an objective point of view. Now name me a law or human concept that is not. Thank you for your assumptions about SOPA and fervent religiousness in a thread that has to do with neither.
Samuel_Michon 15y ago
"If I'm a programmer, and I let my customers download my program for free and include a crack -- who's fault is it if someone doesn't pay up for the program? This is the internet." It's called trust, it's why we've been lauding Louis CK's latest effort. Also, Apple used to distribute their OS software that way, it didn't require a serial number or online validation. "If you run a bike-shop, don't leave the bikes out front without locks. They're going to get stolen. Don't bitch about society when they go missing. If you're putting art out on the internet, don't bitch when everyone has a copy." Nice argument for DRM. I thought all of us here were opposed to that kind of thing. "At least watermark that sucker." What is that supposed to accomplish? Even if those who appropriate the picture don't crop the pictures, that doesn't justify republishing it without permission and/or compensation.
- smokeyj 15y ago
  Slap your website name across the whole image. I don't think anyone here is against DRM -- just shitty DRM that dilutes the user experience. Steam is an example of DRM done right IMO.

mibbitor 15y ago

> Taking good photographs is as hard as it always was. Untrue. With digital, you can take 1,000 photos and chances are one will be fantastic. You can brute force brilliance. That wasn't true before digital. Photos are simply recording something that exists. It's not creating art as such (IMHO). So unlike painting / writing books / writing code, you could just sit a monkey there with a good camera, variety of lenses, filters, etc and have him take a fantastic photo sooner or later. Don't get me wrong, I love taking photos, and try to make my photos better each time, try to learn what settings, composure etc will make the best photo etc. But at the same time, pretty soon you'll have cameras that take a billion photos all at the same time with every available setting, then allow you to navigate through and select the best. Taking photos then just comes down to judging what makes a good photo, which most people can do (And can also be automated by surveying people or doing A/B testing etc). > You know, it is pretty easy to kill someone. That doesn't mean it's morally acceptable, let alone legal. It doesn't matter how easy it is to copy the photograph. It's still not morally acceptable or legal. If you kill me, it affects me. If you copy a photo of mine, I haven't lost anything. It's a bad analogy.

Confusion 15y ago
If you copy a photo of mine, I haven't lost anything. It's a bad analogy. If people consistently copy your photos with impunity, you've lost your job. The same goes for writer and movie makers. soon you'll have cameras that take a billion photos all at the same time with every available setting, then allow you to navigate through and select the best. Good luck navigating through a billion photos... (And can also be automated by surveying people or doing A/B testing etc) ... or autoselecting through a billion photographs. What's a good photograph is independent of how many people feel it's a good photograph. If you ask the general public to pick the best photos between some Cartier-Bresson's and some of your own black-and-white shots intended to appeal to the general public (assuming you have a moderate ability to make such photographs), I know what the outcome is. Entirely independent of what are actually the best photo's. And even if you could auto-select the best shot, a billion photographs of people on some village square wouldn't include the shot this guy made. A billion photographs taken around noon would never have included this shot. A billion photographs with a different cliffline would never have included this shot. A bajillion monkeys will never write Shakespeare in the lifetime of the universe.

alex_c 15y ago

You know, it is pretty easy to kill someone. That doesn't mean it's morally acceptable, let alone legal. It doesn't matter how easy it is to copy the photograph. It's still not morally acceptable or legal. And yet, people still kill each other on a daily basis. At some point it may become practical to take precautions not to get killed, or to move into a line of work or a place where you're less likely to get killed.

Confusion 15y ago
We've got a system in place to ensure very few people kill each other. It would be nice if that same system could ensure people wouldn't just copy photographs (for commercial purposes). And it actually does a reasonable job of that. This guy wasn't arguing he has a hard time making a living, which is the argument that people seem to be replying to. He's arguing that people shouldn't copy photographs for commercial purposes. It's hard to see how anyone could disagree with that: I don't want my code copied either (well, specific parts of it). The question of what you should do when people in fact do copy your photographs is mostly separated from that.
- alex_c 15y ago
  The question of what should be done in cases of copyright infringement is the only one that can really be usefully discussed, which is probably why most people are addressing that instead. Should people copy photographs for commercial purposes? Of course not. End of discussion, not much more to say. This seems to come up fairly often - an article making a moral argument that copying is wrong, followed by comments saying "Yeah, but it still happens, so you should do X", followed by replies saying "no, but you don't understand, it's wrong!" Strangely enough, this seems to come up mostly in the context of music (or, in this case, photography). I haven't seen many software blogs making a purely moral argument as opposed to a practical discussion of what to do about it.

dchest 15y ago

It's still not morally acceptable or legal. It's illegal, yes. But the question whether copying published works is morally unacceptable to people is debatable. Comparing sharing with killing or stealing is a common mistake. Citing http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Theft http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Theft The idea that laws decide what is right or wrong is mistaken in general. Laws are, at their best, an attempt to achieve justice; to say that laws define justice or ethical conduct is turning things upside down.