Blaming The Flickr API For Copyright Infringement?
from the APIs-don't-infringe-copyright,-people-do dept
The Fourth of July is over, but for some Flickr users the holiday's revolutionary spirit is still running strong. Apparently over the weekend a company called MyxerTones made Flickr's entire photographic catalog available for sale as cellphone wallpaper -- regardless of the license selected by each photo's owner.
For Jim Goldstein, a photographer affected by the violation, this was the last straw. He's posted a lengthy discussion of the issue in which he details other instances where his Flickr photos have been used without permission. Goldstein lays the blame at Flickr's feet, saying that their API and RSS systems suffer from "security holes" and don't properly protect users' copyrights. His post has attracted over 100 comments and nearly as many inbound links.
So what's the problem, exactly? In an early email to Flickr, Goldstein put it this way:
I want to be clear RSS feeds are not a problem for people to receive updates to view photos either in their RSS reader or through a web browser on their computer [...] Personally I like that Flickr provides tags as a means of searching and organizing. I have no problem with using this functionality for all uses other than the unauthorized publication of my work.
In other words, use of his work by RSS is fine, except when it isn't. How is Flickr supposed to know the difference? Well, it just is. And not by requiring Goldstein to mark his photos "friends only," mind you -- Goldstein doesn't want to lose the promotional value of Flickr's tag searches and RSS feeds. Flickr should know, somehow, that he doesn't mind users viewing his photos in their RSS readers, but does mind when they view them, via RSS, on Mac Mini connected to a TV that uses FlickrFan. Photos should be public, but not, you know, really public.
Needless to say, this is incoherent. If your work can be viewed on a computer it can also be copied -- and, in fact, already has been. And, if the copier so desires, they can then reuse it. It's sweet of Flickr to implement tricks like their one pixel overlays, but only a fool would think they stop any but the laziest and most insignificant pirates.
Does Flickr's API make unauthorized use of copyrighted material easier? Sure. But it doesn't fundamentally change any of the operations that can be performed on photos through the website -- it just simplifies a bit of the rigamarole associated with automating the process. In this respect it serves as a device that abets infringement. But that can't reasonably be considered a flaw or mistake, for reasons we should all be familiar with by now.
The Flickr API can be used to violate photograph owners' rights. But the fault lies with those who misuse the tool, not with the tool itself. Goldstein doesn't seem content with going after infringers, and I suppose that's understandable -- it's a neverending battle, and an unsatisfying one. But what he's asking from Flickr is both wrongheaded and technically impossible. He, and copyright owners everywhere, can choose to adapt to the rules of the digital age or to retreat from them entirely -- but rewriting them is not an option.
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Filed Under: blame, copyright, flickr api
Companies: flickr, yahoo
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What rights are violated?
This privilege violates the public's natural right to share and build upon cultural works precisely in order to create the privilege of copyright. So let's get it straight whose rights are being violated and whose privileges are being infringed.
Copyright legislates recipients of published works against making copies or derivatives they'd otherwise naturally be able to manufacture - without the copyright holder's permission.
Which part of the Flickr API manufactures such a copy or derivative? It's no doubt very careful not to do so.
I suggest any infringements are performed by recipients of authorised copies, subsequent to their use of Flickr.
A photographer who publishes their work and wishes to constrain the public's use of the work they have received is a Canute against the tide. It doesn't matter what the legislature says. If the people are reclaiming their natural rights, contrary to their suspension by copyright, then there's not much those entitled to copyright can do about it.
Let's keep this in perspective. It's not a matter of the public stealing a photographer's property, but a matter of the public enjoying the natural rights to their own property (the artworks in their legitimate possession) and ignoring the photographer's grant of a monopoly over the reproduction of their published works.
What's the solution? Sell your art, not copies - given the public is quite happy and able to make copies. Making art is the tricky part, whereas making copies is a doddle. So sell your art. The market for copies has ended.
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Ummm...
Your article makes no sense. Flickr is good, but it is bad. You are basically doing exactly what you claim Mr. Goldstein is doing. So you just want us to accept your good/bad "digital age" developments.
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Re: Ummm...
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Hardly an accurate representation of my points
If a photographer does something in conflict with Flickr Terms of Use they are held accountable. I don't see what the problem is in holding Flickr accountable to when they are not meeting their end of the bargain. Hiding behind the arguments that something is technically difficult or that "you put photos online accept the fact that things are going to be stolen" is unacceptable. It's not acceptable to Flickr or any other online service to let their intellectual property be misused why should that be acceptable to individual photographers.
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Re: Hardly an accurate representation of my points
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Re: Hardly an accurate representation of my points
Copyright is a weapon designed for, and only able to be wielded by, publishing corporations. The fact that it has been so cruelly used against individual citizens should not mislead you into believing that it can be used by individuals, whether against corporations or other individuals.
The only thing an individual self-publishing citizen can do is to neutralise copyright in their works by using a copyleft license such as the GPL.
It is extremely unfortunate that Lawrence Lessig via Creative Commons created a variety of licenses instead of simply sticking to a single copyleft license, but there you go. We now have his legacy where people who use any license apart from CC-SA will eventually discover they aren't worth the digital bits they're represented with.
Copyright or copyleft. Ineffective, anachronistic privilege for publishing corporations, or natural rights for individual human beings. There is no middle ground, no means of privileging one man above another.
You may well not want to confront this, but it should help you understand why what's happening is happening and why there's not much you can do about it. :-/
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Re: GPL
Crosbie Fitch wrote:
Strange. Didn't you spend a lot of effort not too long ago trying to argue that the GPL didn't apply to people who didn't agree to it?
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Re: Re: GPL
The GPL is designed precisely to thwart those who, believing in copyright, would use it to suspend the liberty of the public.
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Re: Hardly an accurate representation of my points
For example, does Flickr have options to freely display thumbnails, but put full-size images behind a restriction wall (pay wall, be on the friends list, etc)? If so, is Flickr's API making it possible to circumvent the wall for full-size images?
Or is there no such wall, and available means available - thumbnails are as available as hi-res images? What Tom quoted makes it sound like you don't mind someone viewing an image in an RSS feed, but you do ming someone taking that same image and viewing it in something else. That is an absurd notion. If that's not what you're saying, you need to describe the situation a bit better.
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Re: Re: Hardly an accurate representation of my points
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Re: Hardly an accurate representation of my points
When you upload your photos to Flickr (and keep them public) you give Flickr the rights to display your image on their website.
Flickr, created an API, so that others can use Flickr images and create all sorts of wonderful and useful applications for Flickr photos.
Flickr, does not monitor the use of the API or the compliance of API uses with the terms of service. One important thing to note in this case is that it was Myxer who took down the application (Flickr did nothing).
In terms of the copyright discussion, there is definitely a lack of public awareness and copyright around photos. Downloading copyrighted photography (even for personal consumption) is illegal - and you should compensate or ask permission from the photographer (much like how you pay for personal consumption of music and movies, or pay to have art on your wall).
I understand that there is a lot of photo theft online, and I work for a photo site that is trying to give photographers the tools to share their photos safely. The reality is that the world is increasingly online, and the photography industry needs to be able to participate online without having copyrights trampled.
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Re: Re: Hardly an accurate representation of my points
I'm not sure you're right about that. The RIAA for example has only been able to sue people who distributed (uploaded) copyrighted material, not those who only downloaded it, because it's distribution that is restricted by copyright, not consumption.
I understand that there is a lot of photo theft online
There is no photo theft online. At all. I have no doubt there's plenty of copyright infringement of photos online, but that is not theft. Theft is when someone takes something away from someone else illegally, for example if I go into your house and take your physical photo album. That doesn't happen if I download and redistribute your photo, because you still have the photo too. I didn't take anything away from you. What we're talking about may be illegal and it may be unethical (we could argue about either one in any particular case), but it is not stealing or theft.
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Re: Re: Hardly an accurate representation of my points
Thanks
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Worth repeating
> "If your work can be viewed on a computer it can also
> be copied -- and, in fact, already has been. And, if
> the copier so desires, they can then reuse it. "
I would change "can" to "will be able to", since there is a definition for "can" that implies permission and legality, which is a separate thing from technical ability.
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In this case, though, I think Mr. Goldstein has a valid complaint. The public RSS feeds are supposed to only show smaller sizes of the photos. The feeds that showed the full-res images are _supposed_ to be secured and not publicly available.
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Re: Worth repeating
Well, how do you mean that? Or, how is it that Flickr is not fascilitating this? If the complaint is that an authorized viewer is taking the 'restricted' feed and then republishing it, how is that Flickr's fault?
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Total Misread...
Wow, Tom, I think you totally misread the article. As I read it, I think that Jim is trying to say that Flickr should provide some sort of check to the license before it gives out any Flickr photo in an API, or at the very least, include the license in the feed.
This information is already marked in Flickr, so it's available, but the API/RSS doesn't seem to authenticate against that nor does it include the information in the API/RSS as far as I can tell.
Flickr should definetely do this, there is no reason not to include/authenticate the information.
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Hardly an accurate representation of my points by Jim Goldstein
But what can you expect from the whining, over-entitled "get mine! get mine! get mine!" culture that exists today. Zero personal responsibility or accountability, it is ALWAYS someone else's fault. Blame the wrong party, but whoever has the most money, and try to cash out. Way to be a complete tool. Welcome to the digital age.
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Re: Hardly an accurate representation of my points by Jim Goldstein
If someone *misuses* a service, or is able to hack/alter/get around security systems, how is that the fault of the service?
It would be great if Flickr took the time to respect the person's wishes, when it came to their images in this regard, but it simply doesn't seem to be happening. I'm sure Jim is willing to accept that Flickr isn't perfect, and that tools created aren't perfect, but I think his point is that Flickr should take responsibility for what they can do and fix that. Instead they're ignoring the issue.
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Re: Hardly an accurate representation of my points by Jim Goldstein
Sure, if it's a case of Flickr leaving the door open. If thats how it turns out, then yes, they need to fix it. But just because someone can get around security and misappropriate content isnt the fault of the service. Do you blame GM when someone picks the lock on your car? No, you go after the person who did it. Thats the distinction I was trying to make. Mind you, if Flickr built a lock that only works some of the time, then yes, thats their fault. Otherwise I'd suggest maybe dont use Flickr. No one is forcing you to. If it's inadequate, then you have to decide to either not use it at all, or if you really feel you "need" all the other features it offers, then you will just have to live with the drawbacks. Photographers got along just fine before services like Flickr. Adapt, deal, or die.
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All this copyright BS
So quit crying and do not put anything online that you want control over.
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Jim, you're eliding the difference between something being "technically difficult" and "technically impossible". If a given resolution of a photo is available to the public *anywhere* on Flickr's site, then it can be retrieved programmatically -- and there's no point in crippling the API or RSS feeds in an attempt to obscure that fact.
Contrary to what you seem to be claiming, Flickr does not seem to be providing higher-resolution versions of your images through its system. For instance, this photo's URL (http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3090/2645537024_3429dd9e13.jpg) can be easily retrieved from the page HTML -- this is an unavoidable feature of HTML -- and alternate sizes can be viewed by adding _s, _t or _m to the filename (prior to .jpg). This is standard behavior for Flickr. However, the _b and _o versions for larger sizes don't work -- just as one would expect. Flickr allows the size publicly available on the photo's page, because if it's available there, it may as well be available everywhere: there's no stopping the downloading.
Those claiming that the API doesn't deal with privacy or licensing settings are incorrect. An authentication token is required to access any photos marked as private -- this token provides the same security as the Flickr website's login system. Similarly, the Flickr API explicitly provides methods for getting and setting photos' license information. These settings do not affect whether the photo appears in RSS feeds or API queries because, again, if the photo is publicly available it's nonsensical to exclude it from such searches. Doing so would simply foster confusion in an attempt to provide the illusion that the assets were secured. You are still perfectly able to control whether a photo shows up in RSS and API queries -- that's what the privacy setting is for.
Making your photos viewable on the internet is an all-or-nothing proposition (yes, even with Flash). Your options are to make your photos private or upload only lower-resolution, watermarked or otherwise degraded shots. I'm not saying this because I'm unsympathetic to your wishes or the right of photographers to control the use of their work; I'm saying it because it's simply a fact of how the technologies powering the web work.
I appreciate that the logic underlying this system may not be intuitively obvious to everyone. As someone who's both written numerous apps utilizing the Flickr API and RSS system and as someone who's familiar with the technical limits of DRM, I hope you will believe me when I say that the Flickr API has been designed intelligently and, from a security standpoint, handles licenses and privacy in the only coherent manner possible.
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Dear Mr. Goldstein
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Instead of arguing over who is at fault, I Flickr- as a service provider attempting to improve their service, not necessarily as someone trying to correct a wrong- should just build better licensing mechanics into their API. If the person who built this portrait was able to pull only pictures where permission was given for reuse then this issue would have been avoided completely.
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Not an issue of copyright!!!
This is not an issue of people hacking Flickr, and this is not a copyright issue, at least not at the core.
Sure, if it's a case of Flickr leaving the door open. If thats how it turns out, then yes, they need to fix it.
That's exactly what I see the issue to be. Flickr has created a tool and given the impression of security but then doesn't meet it's end of the bargain.
Flickr is telling people that the door is locked, but this only applies to the front door, meanwhile, the backdoor is wide open.
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Today If
Under today's current law here in the USA it is.
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Re:
© is Alt+0169 for anyone that wants to use it. It's fun. ©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©© ©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©© ©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©© ©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©© ©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©© ©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©© ©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©© ©
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Quick note from Myxer
Hey, all. These discussions are really interesting to me, and not just because I'm the CEO of the company that prompted Jim's post in the first place! I'm also a huge Flickr fan, an avid follower of CC and Lawrence Lessig, a believer in web services, a member of the EFF, and in general someone who is really fascinated by the way the zero distribution costs of the internet are having such a profound impact on so many people.
One minor correction I'd like to point out is that Myxer never attempted to sell any photos from Flickr; we facilitated the distribution of publicly-visible photos hosted on Flickr to mobile phones.
In any case, I've made a post on my blog at http://mykwillis.wordpress.com that goes into a bit more detail about exactly what our 2-3 day integration did (and was supposed to do), and what we plan to do going forward. I'd be happy to discuss the matter with anyone who would care to contact me.
Best,Myk Willis
Founder & CEO, Myxer
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It's not that hard to figure out
If you want to make money using something I've created, then I'm due a cut, unless I give you explicit permission other wise; and the type of copyright I assign to my work is indicative of whether or not I expect remuneration.
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Copyright infringement
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