Changes to UK Copyright Law could mean the end of Copyrights as we know them

Dara Robinson

Read this today.
http://copyrightaction.com/forum/uk-gov-nationalises-orphans-and-bans-non-consensual-photography-in-public

I was totally stunned when I read this. I cant believe that they would make such drastic changes to the law like that.

Well for one the implications are serious for anyone living in the UK but my worry is how will this affect anyone living in Ireland. Does this mean that because a company is based in the UK they can take my photos and use them for commercial purposes if they cannot get to me?

Any thoughts? Should we be considering removing all of our online content?

Fenster

Thank god I live in Ireland.

EDIT: Okay, I actually just read the article. It is full of FUD.

Dara Robinson

yea man but thats my point, whats to stop them taking my stuff? If the bill has no sanctions attached to it for people who brake the guidelines and has no guidelines yet how can it be enforced? And regardless, whats to stop them taking my pictures and saying that they could not make contact with me? Orphan my photos and use them in the latest coke ad?

Fenster

Because the article is pure fear-mongering? It is not hard to determine ownership for recent works. Unless someone is actively ripping off images and forwarding them on (man in the middle style tomfoolery).

Zillah

This is pretty damn appalling.

I set up a blog under a false name and call it "My favourite photos". I then take a photo from there and make it clear that I found it on this anonymous blog and that I had no way of contacting the original owner. I publish it for free and the author is probably none the wiser.

I really hope this doesn't go through, its horrible. There are a thousand variations on the above scheme.

EDIT: Although, this fee that they pay to the middle man, would it be the same or more than what they'd pay for a normal commercial use? If so then it would generally dissuade deliberate theft.

Dara Robinson

Its legalised theft imho and no its no FUD
The main problem, excluding the main points on the law its self, is that nothing is fixed. The law references back to terms like "orphan work" and "adequate search" which not only remain undefined but will do so until after the law is in place.

Zillah wrote: »

EDIT: Although, this fee that they pay to the middle man, would it be the same or more than what they'd pay for a normal commercial use? If so then it would generally dissuade deliberate theft.

Another undefined part of the bill. What if its 5 pence? or 1 pound? How is that a deterrent?

The author of this particular article hits it on the head when he says "As far as orphans and photographers are concerned, this is a deliberate shell of a bill whose real payload will not be made apparent until it is too late to do anything about it."

I just read this:
The Digital Economy Bill, which will amend the Copyright Act 1988, could kill some parts of the photography industry, experts have warned. Olivier Laurent finds out more

The Digital Economy Bill, currently under scrutiny in the House of Lords, will bring in blanket licensing for all copyright works - including photographs, warns a media law expert.

Section 42 of the Digital Economy Bill, as expected, will bring orphan works - works where the copyright owner cannot be found - into the public domain. However, what was unexpected is the second part of the clause, which imports a new section 116B into the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=872808

Its quite a serious bill, I hope its stopped cause Ireland have a horrible habit of jumping on bandwagons

BarryM

Hi,

As somewhat of a specialist in matters of Intellectual Property I was interested in this and asked a friend in UK, who is much more aware than me, his opinion -

"Barry, the photographers have got a lot of publicity but have got completely the wrong end of the stick. Photographs can have identified owners, or unidentified ones. Those with identified authors (which means those taken by the sorts of photographers who are protesting at the Bill) will NEVER be subject to compulsory licensing under the Bill. Those with unidentified owners may be subject to such licensing, but only under the aegis of an official licensing body approved by HM Govcernment. It won't be any Tom, Dick or Harry (or Charles or Barry come to that) who will be able to set up such a licensing scheme. the Government will ensure any such licensing body sets a full and fair price for its licences which reflect the interests of ther rights holders.

The problem with the Bill is that it is ambiguous, implying that just possibly anyone can set up a licensing scheme and it won't be subject to careful controls. So whilst I can appreciate why photographers might be a bit anxious, the amount of fuss they've caused is not justified.

I heard an interesting interpretation of the photographers protestations recently. Their concern is, in fact, that a load of orphan work photographs will become available for reuse by a licensing body, and that this flood of photographs on the market will depress the prices photographers can charge for use of their photos in the media. In other words, they think their business will be damaged by a flood of cheap photos. That explanation makes a lot of sense to me...."

So there, move on, nothing to see In reality I don't think it will be used in the RoI - there being no specific cover for "widows and orphans" I wonder will we ever see any??

The lesson, mark your photos if you put them on the Net....i.e. 'own' them.

Bye, Barry

Covey

I wouldn't agree entirely with that Barry.

Firstly the Statement "the Government will ensure any such licensing body sets a full and fair price for its licences which reflect the interests of ther rights holders." is not contained there at all. And how exactly can they reflect the interest of right holders when these are not known?

The problem as I see it is there is no definition of what a proper owner search is. For example Valentia is a nickname of someone on Pix.ie. There are no contact details and some valuable photos. The photos are elsewhere with contact details and probably not that hard to find. However, searching Pix.ie and finding no details may be enough to grab the photos, pay whatever fee is involved and off you go. Pix.ie are probably prohibited from giving out contact details under the Data Protection Act, to compound the difficulty.

Whole swathes of stuff will be subject to being acquired on this basis, with perversely the owner needing to find the images in use to claim his/her rights.

I don't think the photographers have got the wrong end of the stick at all and now is the time to have your input prior to this being enacted.

Of course the second part of the article is even more damaging to photographers. The UK has for a number of years now, slowly been trying to make street photography impossible and even illegal. This is the end game on this!

Dara Robinson

what Barry is saying about marking your photographs is something I have been mulling over last night and I think I am going to pull down every photo I have online and watermark the hell out of them and upload them again. I can see no other solution.

The question now is what kind do I use...

Dara Robinson

Covey wrote: »

Of course the second part of the article is even more damaging to photographers. The UK has for a number of years now, slowly been trying to make street photography impossible and even illegal. This is the end game on this!

There is a clarification at the end of the article

Just to try and clear up a common confusion, which is undoubtedly my fault. There are two separate issues here. It's not "a law".

1. The Digital Economy Bill, which involves the changes to copyright. This Bill is currently going through the legislative process, will be back in the Lords in a couple of weeks, the Commons sometime after, and the Government hopes, passed by the end of the parliamentary session at the end of March.

2. The Information Commissioners Office evolving interpretation of privacy law as it relates to data protection and to photography in public places. No new law is involved here, although there is ongoing consultation regarding the latest code of practice, ending 5 March. There is not yet any formal documentation outlining ICO's position on photography, although it has been reported by Amateur Photographer as well as here.

That they both got written up here in the same article was, in hindsight, a mistake that has confused a lot of people. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

My main concerns are 1 how will it affect photographers based around the world? ie will UK companies have the power to orphan photos from international sources? and 2 will Ireland be as retarded as usual and attempt to jump on the Bandwagon?

sineadw

Covey wrote: »

Of course the second part of the article is even more damaging to photographers. The UK has for a number of years now, slowly been trying to make street photography impossible and even illegal. This is the end game on this!

Agreed! WTH! That's in equal parts the most ridiculous and scariest proposal I've heard in a long time!

nilhg

Covey wrote: »

I wouldn't agree entirely with that Barry.



The problem as I see it is there is no definition of what a proper owner search is. For example Valentia is a nickname of someone on Pix.ie. There are no contact details and some valuable photos. The photos are elsewhere with contact details and probably not that hard to find. However, searching Pix.ie and finding no details may be enough to grab the photos, pay whatever fee is involved and off you go. Pix.ie are probably prohibited from giving out contact details under the Data Protection Act, to compound the difficulty.

Probably not a great example, Valentia's contact details are in there, I don't think that any "professional" media user would have a leg to stand on it they said they couldn't find them.

There is going to have to be a strong campaign by sites like pix and flickr to explain the implications of this to their users.

Dara Robinson

Anyone have a good system for watermarking photographs?

Covey

Ok bad example, but you get my drift.

SinisterDexter

Dara - I find Picasa does a good job - letting you choose how much transparency you want, and to place the tag where ever you want on the pic.

Just my two cents on that.

Visuelle

The world has gone mad!!!!

Captain Flaps

Lightroom has a few plugins that will do graphic watermarks, or if you're happy with just your name you can put that on with the stock software. THe lightroom 3 beta has a great watermark function which will be one of the reason's I'll get the final release.

Dara Robinson

tbh there is nothing we can do over here but simply make sure the law is not passed over here also. Other than that we just have to protect our own photos

And to that end its about time I pulled the finger out and watermarked my pictures. So to that end I went looking and found this
And while its not perfect its pretty good.
Read about it here
And download it here
Oh and its Free but only works for CS4

I would have liked some kind of digital marker that was invisible but embedded in the image itself and would make it easier for you to trace it as it could not be removed as it could not be seen. Similar to the technology with cars and serial codes embedded in the paint etc
But as a compromise its good.

Now I just have to waft through all my work on-line, remove it and replace it with watermarked versions... crap that just too much sounds like work lol

Captain Flaps

Dara Robinson wrote: »

I would have liked some kind of digital marker that was invisible but embedded in the image itself and would make it easier for you to trace it as it could not be removed as it could not be seen. Similar to the technology with cars and serial codes embedded in the paint etc
But as a compromise its good.

Why compromise? http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1151024

I'm sure there's stuff like this available for Photoshop too. Metadata embeds IPTC copyright info that appears in the properties of the photo. If you do this to all your photos, they'll never be orphaned.

Eirebear

Captain Flaps wrote: »

Why compromise? http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1151024

I'm sure there's stuff like this available for Photoshop too. Metadata embeds IPTC copyright info that appears in the properties of the photo. If you do this to all your photos, they'll never be orphaned.

Its fairly easy to strip the metadata out of a file though is it not?

Captain Flaps

It is, but if you combine that with a watermark there's really no way someone can use your images and claim ignorance.

BarryM

Dara Robinson wrote: »

tbh there is nothing we can do over here but simply make sure the law is not passed over here also. Other than that we just have to protect our own photos

Apropos, an answer from my 'specialist' He refers to the UK 'cos he is based there, but your remarks above are (sort of) relevant, I say sort of because if you post on a UK site you are covered....??

"Barry, the first point your correspondent makes is a fair one - the Government needs to be more explicit about how it will ensure a fair price but in any case, the Copyright Tribunal is available to ensure the price set is reasonable. If the rights owners are unknown and don't make themselves known, then there is no reason why they should have a say on what is a fair price. As soon as an unknown photographer makes him/herself known, they can ensure the price is fair.

The question of a due diligent search is one that the Government has said it will consult widely on and develop codes of practice. I agree it is a knotty problem. Again, there needs to be some sort of independent oversight - and the Copyright Tribunal is well placed to do this - to ensure that the search carried out in a particular case was diligent enough. I am certain the Pix example your correspondent refers to would NOT be considered a due diligent search.

The Data Protection Act does not stop details about owners being revealed. Paragraphs 3 and 5 of Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 1998 is the reference to quote!

Your respondent states that the photographer can only complain if he/she finds the material being copied, but the solution to that fair point is that the rights owner in the photograph should ensure he/she is clearly identified in the first place. This is usual practice with literary works, films, sound recordings, etc....."

K_user

So in one swoop the UK government is giving the media the right to take what they want, from who they want, with no chance of recourse.

A photo loaded onto a chat forum could be whipped off by a newspaper and saved as a "just in case". As the owner of said photograph could be from a different country and therefore they are "unattainable". And even if they aren't, who cares? Just don't tell them, pay a nominal fee to a holding company and let them do with it as they wish...

As for stopping people taking photo's in public - what tosh.
Watch the tourism numbers drop. Wait for local businesses to start screaming.
Wait for the first US citizen to sue the UK government for being arrested because he took a picture of the Eye...

magicbastarder

the second part refers to the information commissioner's proposed code update - note two words; 'proposed' and 'code'. not 'implemented' and 'law'.

plus, from the ICO website:

The code applies to activities such as:

* collecting a person’s details through an online application form;
* creating a personal profile of a website visitor by analysing his or her online activity;
* collecting and using personal data for the purposes of marketing goods and services online;
* using cloud computing facilities to process personal data; or
* profiling individuals for other legitimate purposes.

This code does not apply to information that does not, or could not, identify an individual - for example properly anonymised or statistical information. It does not apply either to activities like displaying the same broadcast-type content to everyone visiting a website, because this does not involve the processing of personal data.

stopping me from taking a photo in public seems a long way outside the bounds of the above activities.

Dara Robinson

Captain Flaps, I already use metadata but thats not what I was hoping for. I was thinking more along the lines of embedded into the code of the picture, invisible to the naked eye but very visable through some kind of software. But for the moment a watermark and metadata will have to do

magicbastarder

Dara Robinson wrote: »

tbh there is nothing we can do over here but simply make sure the law is not passed over here also.

assuming the copyright law was passed in the UK, it's not something which would just affect UK photographers, though.

nilhg

Dara Robinson wrote: »

Captain Flaps, I already use metadata but thats not what I was hoping for. I was thinking more along the lines of embedded into the code of the picture, invisible to the naked eye but very visable through some kind of software. But for the moment a watermark and metadata will have to do

http://www.sfu.ca/~vwchu/zjmask.html

Not sure what'd happen when flickr/pix generate their smaller sizes.

BarryM

Another input that I saw today -

"There will soon be a big new beast in the IP [intellectual property] jungle. And while the creature comes with the seemingly innocuous acronym of ACTA, cyber activists and copyright mavens fear that it will pave the way for a Global DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) that will significantly impact on ordinary people's privacy, and erode civil liberties. Moreover, they warn, the secrecy surrounding the ACTA negotiations raises important questions about representative democracy, and demonstrates the extent to which the developed world remains determined to dominate and control the developing world. For the research community, says University of Ottawa's Michael Geist, ACTA will make Open Access (OA) even more urgent. However, he cautions, if ACTA succeeds in propagating the bruising statutory damages rules used in US copyright infringement cases it could threaten the institutional repository movement."



More here: http://ow.ly/1fAnA

So, we could be caught in the net... (no pun intended)

swatki

hey I was wondering if i cud ask your advice on a topic , you also may like my story.
I explore abandoned sites and junkyards , and last year i found a bombproof metal case of over 200 photos of this persons life...in an open yard of a crumbling down house
basically i deduced the photos down to this one reappearing guy and picked him as the owner, a few months later i went up to the site while the council were clearing the whole place out , they told me the guys names and g so i found out some cool facts about him..being an underwater hockey champion etc ..... thing is i want to used these photos in my fine art degree show ...ive tried contacting the guy every way i can ...but cant !!....and im thinking of resorting to covering up his eyes in the display so i dont get in trouble with my tutors or the law ...........this may be seen as unethical ...can you please give me some advice on my problem ,,, ive searched the internet but cant find any information , especially for this part of the world.
I would appreciate a response
Thankx
E.

magicbastarder

i suspect your lecturers should be able to tell you about copyright and privacy laws - and ethics - as relating to using found material in an exhibition?

swatki

Unfortunately they cant. I did call a copyright legislation office in dublin 2 , they said that if i show a disclaimer that states that i made a substantial effort to contact this person which i certainly have . i should be able to show the images.

magicbastarder

the orphan works section did not make it through the house of commons.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/08/digital-economy-bill-passes-third-reading