Comment by shagie

Comment by shagie 19 hours ago

Why should I be required to license my (non-stock) photographs hanging in a gallery to someone who wants to make placemats of those images?

Why should a photograph of a model (I have a model release) that I took be something I am required to license to someone who wants to use it in a way that is defamatory to the model?

Why should I be required to accept the finances in licensing terms as someone who is posting neat photographs and looking to make some beer money? vs someone who is a well known photographer and selling prints for a couple hundred dollars at art fairs? vs someone who is world famous and sells prints for tens of thousands of dollars?

Can I even make/guarntee limited edition photographs anymore?

Why do I have to sell a license to you? Why do I not have the same rights as a company making a product and being able to refuse to accept a client?

gwbas1c 15 hours ago

Because once you make information available to the general public, you have no way to control what the general public does with that information. (This is the reason why DRM failed.)

(In general, my proposal is more in context with things like movies, TV shows, music; situations where in the past anyone could make a DVD/CD player that could play any DVD/CD, anyone could sell any DVD/CD by buying into the patent pool. No one could sell a DVD/CD that could only play in a specific model, and a CD/DVD player maker didn't have to negotiate with every studio. So my licensing model isn't quite the same situation that you're talking about.)

---

In this case, the problem is that fair use is eroded. The questions are:

> Why should I be required to license my (non-stock) photographs hanging in a gallery to someone who wants to make placemats of those images?

1: Once you make information available to the general public, how long do you retain exclusive control of that information? At what point is the general public's fair use eroded?

> Why should I be required to accept the finances in licensing terms as someone who is posting neat photographs and looking to make some beer money? vs someone who is a well known photographer and selling prints for a couple hundred dollars at art fairs? vs someone who is world famous and sells prints for tens of thousands of dollars?

2: That's really the formula. It's a wonderful thing to argue about. Again, though, it's about making sure that fair use is preserved.

> Can I even make/guarntee limited edition photographs anymore?

3: (Please also see answer 1) Why do people still flock to the Lourve (sp?) to see the Mona Lisa? That being said, copyright isn't intended to support artificial scarcity, and I think breaking down artificial scarcity makes popular items more valuable. (IE, the knockoff prints, that you collect royalties from, make the limited "artist made prints" more valuable.)

> Why do I have to sell a license to you? Why do I not have the same rights as a company making a product and being able to refuse to accept a client?

Fair use. (Sorry, running out of time, see my example about the DC/DVD market. Also, radio stations used to be able to play any song and follow a formula to pay the right holder. The artists couldn't refuse a station from playing their song.)

---

> Why should a photograph of a model (I have a model release) that I took be something I am required to license to someone who wants to use it in a way that is defamatory to the model?

This isn't a copyright / fair use issue

Reply View 3 replies

shagie 14 hours ago

The same copyright laws apply to all things that are copyrightable regardless of medium. Anything that can be put into a fixed medium, be it print, digital recording, film.
Such a proposal needs to take into consideration everything that is copyrightable rather than just literature or film productions... but also software and photographs.
---
50 years after publication date. If you want to license it before then for some other purpose, that's something that depends on your use of it and what I'm willing to accept.
If you have a formula, put it on the table. How much should it cost for me to commercially license some open source software?
How much should it cost you to license my photographs for fine art replicas? for placemats?
My contention is that any price that is legislated is wrong for the majority of the use cases. Any attempt to make it right gets into absurd nuance.
It is the same copyright laws that frustrate people for getting literature or movies into the public domain that also protects open source.
The alternative to copyright isn't "everything is free" but rather "everything is locked up."
The GPL was created because Stallman wanted to be able to modify printers. Getting rid of copyright (or making it very short duration) wouldn't have changed his experience with printers. What it would have changed would have been that that the GPL would lose all its teeth to compel people make their software licensed the same (under copyright law!).
People are upset about content they created two decades ago being incorporated into an AI model ( https://www.deviantart.com/shagie/art/Moonrise-over-San-Fran... )... without copyright I would have no right to complain about this.
---
However, all of this is pretty much moot and performative. If you want to change it to something shorter than 50 years - get the WTO to renegotiate TRIPS.
That ain't happening.
Spending effort to say "this is how it should be..." go write a story and release it to the public domain about that utopia of copyright freedom.
Speaking for myself, if I lost the rights provided by copyright to my photographs after a decade and half or so - I would not have posted them.
I do not want art locked up behind patronage and restricted to those few... though if that was the only alternative to being able to make some money off my photographs, then that's what I would have done.

Reply View | 2 replies
- gwbas1c 11 hours ago
  
  Let me oversimplify
  Current system: exclusive control for a period of time, then public domain.
  My proposal: exclusive control for a period of time, then compulsory licensing (for fair use), then public domain.
  Makes sense?
  The point of compulsory licensing is to preserve fair use.
  
  Reply View | 0 replies
- gwbas1c 12 hours ago
  
  You're getting far too defensive, and are missing the point that I'm making about fair use.
  Then perhaps let me explain what I mean by fair use:
  For example, I'd like to write an ebook reader that can give me an AI summary of the last chapter that I read, or give me a quick AI based summary of who a character is on the page that I'm reading.
  Fair use means that I don't need to negotiate with every publisher and every author, or negotiate with Kindle to be able to access their content.
  This is why we need compulsory licensing; it makes a middle ground between the exclusive control that you have when you create something, and the eventual entry into public domain.
  
  Reply View | 0 replies