Toronto Photography Meetup Group

As TPMG is a large diverse group of photographers do you feel the official policy for the use of other photographers images on the bulletin board should be to abide by the license or copyright for each image?

I am not suggesting that the moderators police the issue as they already spend enough time for TPMG, I am suggesting it be another sticky on the correct conduct for the use of the TPMG board.

My two cents.

I don't think we're going to make this as policy, however that's my opinion, feel free to disagree with it. The reason is that it will be be policed to no end that it's going to turn off a lot of people including me.

Jerrold puts it best in his other message. If you're going to put an image on the web, expect it to be used and linked by others. I have that same expectation. The bloggers that contacts me first before using my photos, I thank them very much. Everybody else, I don't even bother nor waste my time on it as it's a losing battle.

The other fact is that people just don't know. Sure you can educate it but it again is going to be an ongoing thing. Expect this to happen continuously. And some aren't computer savy where they don't know how to link it even if flickr provides the capabilities.

I realize that no matter what regulations you have in place people are still going to rip off and misuse other's people work. Jerrold was talking about his own images and just because it is no longer important to him personally doesn't mean it shouldn't be important to TPMG as a community of photographers. We are a photographic club and if we don't stand up for artist rights and in the case of copyright law legal rights just because it is not expedient then I find it somewhat disheartening.

If people can learn to post an image they can learn to post a link. My guess is that the policing effort will be minimum, I don't think that any one expects more then the occasional direction to the policy FAQ llike for the green tint "gate".

I am also not talking about Flickr usage requirements just artistic owner rights.

I assume this is because of "how to create the green tint effect" message...in that case they did NOT infringe copyright; using the Canadian Department of Justice document outlining the Copyright Act at:
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowFullDoc/cs/C-42///en

"29. Fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study does not infringe copyright."

In the "green tint" message the examples posted were for research on how to do that particular effect; in that case they did NOT have to mention the creator's name.

If it had been for comment, criticism or review, THEN they would have to mention the author AND the source:

29.1 Fair dealing for the purpose of criticism or review does not infringe copyright if the following are mentioned:
(a) the source; and
(b) if given in the source, the name of the
(i) author, in the case of a work,
(ii) performer, in the case of a performer

Thank You for that!!!


I've never used copyrighted music in a slide show... not ever, er, well.. maybe that's a lie, but really it was for research purposes! OK, I'll shut up now.

You assumed wrong: the green tint did not infringe on copyright laws, also any problems with the images of question has been solved through a long string of off topic posting all of which could be avoided if we were to had a TPMG policy in place that we could have referenced in the first place. Originally the image postings did go against the creative commons license for use of the images in question.

I don't care about MP3 its a red herring not a can of worms. I only care about this community of photographers that we all belong to.

Putting up a sticky reminding people of proper etiquette when linking images would be fine, IMO. But making it an "official TPMG policy" would put added task and stress on admins and members to enforce this official policy. Scolding people on internet forums is never fun.

How often does this happen here on TPMG? Is it a rampant problem, or is it someething that could easily be remedied by sending the ocassional PM?

There's a difference between copyright and "royalty-free"...royalty-free music is still copyrighted, just that you've paid for the rights to use it within the terms of the agreement in advance.

Then there's freeware software, it's still copyrighted but you don't have to pay for it (as long as you're using it within the license terms, like non-commercial use; you may have to pay for it for commercial use).

In the UK for years they called freeware "public domain" but those are two totally different terms...public domain means that they author has voluntarily given up their rights to the code for the good of the community so that the community can benefit from it (back in the early days of computers many programmers donated code routines to the general community since there was no software back then). I still use some PD routines in my code, but I credit the author and source.

Then there's the GNU General Public License which allows people to modify the code but it gets real messy since it deals with copylefts (rather than copyrights).

Actually, something like that could be in the TOU (Terms Of Use) in the copyright section.

Seems like overkill to me. Why reinvent the wheel? These rules are global, and most people understand and abide by them anyways.

What happens when some unknowing user posts a image without linkback? Mike or David have to act and enforce international copyright regulations? That seems silly to me.

"Your hotlink to image flickr.com/08243hkj2h4h287hj24/4k2h4ih98/kittens without linkback puts you in violation of the official TPMG TOU section 2 chapter 12b and have been banned by the TPMG police pending further investigation"

My questions remain unanswered so far:

How often does this problem actually occur?

Is it so often that it can't be settled by sending a friendly PM requesting linkback?

By all means, if linkback on web res images is so important to you guys, feel free to educate the infringing forum poster all you want. But I think it's redundant and unessesary to create TPMG official policies and such.

Jerrold you are exaggerating no one is asking you to police the policy, just like many of the "official" rules on this board like the buy and sell and polite conduct in the other stickies they are firm guide lines so people know what is expected when they post, the enforcement is rather sporadic no one expects or wants any more.

Are you telling me its easier to send a PM then to refer a person to a sticky, hardly redundant if the information isn't posted in the first place.

Here you go (stickied in the "Welcome and Messages from the Organizers" forum).

If/when Mike is up to it, he may add the same to the TOU.

It'll be in the guideline later

As stated, we will NOT BE policing this. If you guys want to police go right ahead. Though expect a lot of messages to go way off topic and end into futile discussions to no end several times a week.

If you guys are willing to put up with that noise, feel free to do it. The effort for TPMG organizers, Dan, myself and others to monitor this is not worth our time.

Better yet, if you feel compelled to do something, I would recommend that you PM the person instead to remind them.

Thanks Jerrold and Mike.

It's good as photographers to take a bit of a lead in showing respect for each others work.

testing 1, 2, 3... http://www.petafoo.com/files/images/funny-kittens.preview.jpg
Photographer unknown, found via Google Image Search.

Surely you're not doing it right then!

Please post a link to the source and author of the above emoticon, or you'll be banhammered from TPMG (winky wink).

Wow I can't believe you're still going on about this. Some people really know how to blow things out of proportion.

It was a simple innocent posting of someone posting a pic of reference when asking how the photographer may have created a certain processing look. There was hardly any ill or malicous intent. If anything the photographer should take some pride and flattery in having their work inspire another photographer. But maybe that is just me being an optimist rather than pesimistic and thinking the worst. The tpmg member never in any way elluded to the work being their own. To me it was clear they were referencing someone else's work. They linked it from the original location and not their own gallery. Anyone could easily follow the link back to credit the original photographer. This would have been appropriate subject matter to continue had their been any type of misrepresentation.

Would a credit have been nice and appropriate? Sure it would have, but continuing to gripe and scold the person is more malicious than the original action. I like the idea of adding a sticky note to indicate polite actions to be taken and I fully agree with Jerrold that nobody needs the job of policing it heavily or would it foster positivity.

Tomatos, tomatos, potatos, potatos. Can we move on now? I think the point had already been clearly driven home.

Jeremy please read the full thread before complaining. This thread is definitely not about or directed at a simple innocent posting. That thread in question has been beaten to death and also resolved, it seems it is you that doesn't seem to want to let it die.

Its about a much more important issue for some of the photographers that contribute to the TPMG community:

That the work of other photographers be respected on TPMG at least to the limit of the license the work comes under.

I'm fully aware of how to read and comprehend sentences. I can also assertain a reference to subject matter but I thank you for informing me of my actions and mindset.

I already let it die when I put one post in the original thread. Now I have posted here because if you continue the subject in a poll then you are asking for opinions to be posted. Whether they agree with you or not, you have to accept them in an open forum debate that you created. Thus is the nature of a opinion poll.

Discrediting the work or license of photographers is the farthest from what I'm trying to do. My point is that the point was already made and the error was made innocently in the first place. The original poster appoligized and it should have ended there.

We agree to disagree, yet agree on the fundamental point. Now I'm going back to watching it snow outside cause I'm stuck inside.

Jeremy the case you bring up is by no means the only case. A previous recent case of note was when a TPMG photographer's work was altered and reposted and I don't mean in a critique section.



Then you must know that your opening statement is somewhat of a personal and inflammatory remark that is of questionable merit in an open debate.



I think its time for more of Jerrold's properly referenced kitten shots.

The example of the work being altered I whole heartidly agree with. That's a whole other ball of wax.

The second part, I appoligize it was not meant to be inflammatory. I just think it's lesson learned and well enough left alone.

Can they be non-allergenic cats? They make me sneeze and tear up.

I found an interesting story that delves into the issue of news organizations using Facebook images and text in their news stories, the debate of Fair Use/Dealing vs. freeloading and the issue of copyrights...it deals with the New Years Day stabbing of 14 year old Stefanie Rengel so it's current discussion:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/tech/ ... legal.html

I think part of the problem with that scenario is that users agree to give license to Facebook to use the photo for pretty much whatever they want. Simply by uploading they are giving away their rights to sole ownership and copyright of the image.

The second part is that the images were then picked up by another source and published.

Does the waving of copyright by uploading to Facebook transfer legal use to third parties to obtain the image from FB? That is hard to say. Yet since FB now has legal rights to use and publish the image for their own purposes as they see fit, if FB does not mind that the image is being used and credited to their site can the original owner/photographer or subject sue or have legal claim?

This is why I only load 72 dpi images of my photography to facebook and am in the process of quickly removing any high res images I may have uploaded. Probably a futile effort but it eases my mind a wee bit.

You do realize that dpi is a meaningless number which can be changed by ANYONE at printing time.

If you upload a 1600x1200 pixel image at 300dpi, and you upload the same image at 30dpi it will have the exact same appearance on screen, but anyone can change the dpi number to print at the size they want, which would be 5.4x4" for 300dpi, or 54x40" for 30dpi.

Mike has a point... which is why I actually RESIZE my images rather than just change the DPI. So I am usually uploading 640x480 at 72dpi for the web... which would make a pretty bad print at anything above a 4x6

never really thought about that. I guess I have a whole lot of rebatching to do.