Tag Archives: Internet age

Is using a flickr image a copyright infringement?

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I run a number of sites that use RSS feeds from flickr.  By using these feeds I’m able to show relevant images to the theme of the site.  It turns out there are a few people that are not happy that I’ve included their images on the site.  They tend to send me sharp nastygrams telling me to remove the images immediately.  I generally comply.  I’m not trying to get anyone angry.  I do sometimes wonder how much thought the slighted party gives to their request.

Let me state for the record that I went to college for photography.  I’ve even been paid for photographic work.  I have more than a passing acquaintance with copyright law.  I mostly take pictures for fun these days.  There’s the odd time where I’ll make a couple of bucks from my skills but that’s not too often.  I take copyright seriously but I also keep it in perspective.

Copyright  law remedies tend to measure the “severity” of an infringement based on some kind of a test of harm caused by the infringement.  Some uses of a copyrighted work are not deemed to be an infringement.  These cases are called “fair use”.  Imagine a teacher projecting a picture taken by  Ansel Adams on the screen so that his composition could be discussed.  This is a fair use.  There are other fair uses like when only a few seconds of a video or audio recording are used.

The recent ruckus over at flickr has prompted me to do a bit of research.  I found this  nice description of the limits on exclusive rights as it applies to US copyright.  The Cornell Law School page lists four factors that are considered when applying fair use to a copyrighted work.  I found the fourth factor the most interesting:  ”the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”  In the case of the flickr images only a small version of the image is used.  It is my contention that the use of these images does not impair the copyright holders marketability of their image.  I could probably even argue that by appearing on my site I’ve increased the copyright holder’s ability to market the image.

In every case thus far the request has come from a talented amateur.  By that I mean the quality of the images produced are pretty good but they are produced as hobby.  I have nothing against shooting for a hobby and if you can make money from it great!  My issue is if you are not attempting to make any money what is your monetary loss  by having someone put one of your images on their website?  To be clear the images I use are attributed to the photographer and link to the photographers photostream on flickr.  Most photographers find out about the site because they’ve had visitors to their photostream that came from my site.  There was a interesting post on flickr that discussed using pictures from flickr to decorate your house.  Mr. Gallo made a similar argument to mine.  He also suggest that some photographers relax a little.

Maybe one day this tempest in a teacup will make more sense to me.  Until then I’ll just keep dealing with the requests as they come in.

School Caught Spying on Student’s Webcam

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A couple of months ago I wrote a post about Google Latitude which generated some impassioned responses.   The gist of the comments was that Latitude was very Big Brotherish. Well kids you ain’t seen nothing yet.   Last year the Lower Merion School District moved into the 21st century and provided laptops to their students.  So far so good.  On the Apple laptops are webcams that can be remotely monitored.  Not just can be but were allegedly used to spy on a student at home.

I came across this story via the Location Meme blog post entitled The Aliens of Lower Merion County.  Location Meme sourced an article that discusses a class action lawsuit filed by a student who was reportedly reprimanded for “improper behaviour at home“.  Isn’t that his parent’s job?  How did the school find out about this?  They took a picture of the improper behaviour via the school’s computer and showed it to the student.  The school district has since shut off this feature.  Here is a link to the school district’s announcement.

About 8 years ago I worked on a project for the Ojo Video Phone.   You sometimes see the characters on NCSI using this phone.  When I first met with the folks that made the phone they gave me a little demonstration of the phone.  I noticed that the phone had this decidedly low tech feature – a door over the camera.  I asked why low-tech was used instead of say and LED. It turns out that users were generally freaked out by the idea that a camera could be spying on them.  I guess they were right!  I wonder if you took a survey how many people would report that they stick something over their computer’s built in camera?

Geocaching and the Social Web

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In case you haven’t heard of it before Geocaching is an activity that is part treasure hunt, part social web.   The tagline at geocaching.com is: “The game were you are the search engine.”  What I find most interesting about participating in Geocaching is it’s ability to to bring people together in realspace via an application in cyberspace.

In order to find a geocache someone first has to place it, so right out of the gate you get a kind of a social interaction.  It takes at a minimum two people to make geocaching work.  If it was just two people you wouldn’t really need a website now would you?  The process works something like this:  place geocache and post it on the web, participants go to the web to find available geocaches, go outside and look for the geocache, come home and post a log about your experience.   As it turns out there are a lot of Geocachers.  There have been almost 700,000 logs written in the last 7 days by almost 87,000 members.   This is an active community.

Not only is the community active in cyberspace it is also active in real-space.  There are many geocaching events going on in a given month.  These events are an opportunity for geocachers to get together and share experiences and in some cases make exciting new ones.   My trip to Ishpatina Ridge was one such event.  For that event me and my geocaching buddy Bakers Dozen along with four other people flew to within 4 km of the cache.  There were other’s that boated or hiked in.  It was a diverse group that is for sure.  It was also a ton of fun.  We celebrated our hike to Ontario’s Highest point with a glass of wine brought along for the occasion by Zoeker Bill.

Geocaching is an excellent example of how the social web increases real contact between people.  The more events you attend the more people you will meet.   All of this is enabled and facilitated by a social application in cyberspace.

10 Reasons I love my Blackberry

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I’ve been using my Blackberry Curve for about two years now.   I’m still amazed at how useful the device is.  Of course there are all the standard reasons for loving a Blackberry like getting your email but there is a lot more to it than just email.

You may have a different list or you may prefer some other device.  Here is my list of 10 reasons why I love my Blackberry.

  1. It has a real keyboard.  You have to use your thumbs but once you are used to that you can pound out short messages very easily.
  2. The built in camera is very handy.  I’ve used it to take pictures of my kids, grab pics of a whiteboard diagram, everyday dramas.  It just comes in so handy, especially on the social web.
  3. Geocaching software.  Don’t know what geocaching is then jump over to Cachemania to find out – What is Geocaching?  Not only is it paperless geocaching it also allows you to geocache anywhere, anytime without preperation.  Get to an intersting spot where you think there might be a geocache?  Spark up the Blackberry and Geocache Navigator to find out.
  4. Google Maps.   I can’t count how many times I’ve used Google Maps to either help me find where I”m going or even to help me find a place that I didn’t realize I needed to go until I was in a different city.  Buying roses for my wife comes to mind.   I was out geocaching and realized I needed to get the flowers for our 15th Anniversary the next day (give me some credit it wasn’t a last minute decision).  I dropped florist into a Google Map search and it lead me over to the Florist in Barrie.  That was handy.
  5. Google Latitude. This one creeps a lot of people out but it is not as creepy as you might think.  Google Latitude allows me to share my location with my friends.  I chose who gets to see where I am and when.  Adoption on this feature is bound to be slow.  I”m sure some people don’t even realize but I know use it to automatically post what city I”m in to my Google Talk status.
  6. Twitter Tools.  Whether it’s Twitterberry or Twitpic both of which beneifit from being accessable from my Blackberry.   I posted pictures from a major traffic jam on the 401 to my Twitpic account.  That wouldn’t have been possible without the Blackberry.
  7. Bright enough to be an impromptu flashlight.   My wife and I were at concert featuring Squeeze when she managed to knock her glasses off.  Try finding those on the dancefloor of a club without illumination!
  8. Speaking of music, now that there is a Blackberry Application store I’ve been able to install Shazam for my Blackberry.  So to all you iPhone users that thought you were special, not anymore.
  9. Even more music.  RIM has updated their Blackberry synchronization software so that now I can sync playlists from my iTunes directly to my Blackberry.  That has been so very helpful.   I still use my iPod as my main music listening device, in the old days we called them Walkmans, but having a subset of my music everywhere I go has allowed me to carry two devices less often.
  10. I can get email, addressbook and calendar while I’m mobile.  We shouldn’t underestimate how powerful it is to remain that connected when your business is you.  I have no receptionist, I have not assistant, it’s just me.  The need to stay connected is compounded when your business runs on Internet time.  There are no timezones, there is no business day when you are operating on Internet time.

So what did I miss?  I’m sure you have your reasons for liking the Blackberry or for you Apple fans your iPhone.  Tell me what you think I missed by posting a comment.

What did Grade 11 Physics teach me?

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Many of us have heard the expression “All I really needed to know I learned in Kindergarten”.  This might be true but I learned a valuable lesson in Grade 11 Physics.  I had the less than populr Mr Poplowski.  I’d already had him as a teacher for Grade 9 Science.   I loved science so his style wasn’t a problem for me.  Not all my friends can say the same thing (right Laurie?).

It was in Mr. Poplowski’s class that we started to learned constants and formula’s.   Some of these concepts were new to me and were not things I knew or expected to know on the future.   As we were learning about Plancks constant or the like, I agonized over trying to remember this kind of knowledge.  In one conversation with Mr. Poplowski I learned this which turned out to be an important lesson:  I don’t need to know everything I just need to know where to find it!.  I was in high school a long, long time ago.  Well before the Internet.

Now in the Internet Age we have ready access to more information than ever before.   The trick is no longer what you can remember but how can you synthesize original ideas for the information currently available?  In life all tests are open book.   We don’t have to remember the facts.  We have to creatively apply known facts into unknown situations.   

So this is a little thank you to Mr Poplowski for teaching me a lesson that I put in practice every day.