Facebook Hosts 4% Of All Photos Ever Taken In History
from the the-tools-of-creation dept
For all the talk of how content creation is going down the drain due to lax copyright enforcement, it seems that everywhere we look, we just keep seeing more and more and more content creation. The latest is a report that Facebook currently hosts 4% of all photos ever taken. Specifically, it hosts 140 billion photos out of 3.5 trillion photos taken in history. Now, obviously, technology change is at work here. Photography really only showed up for real about a century and a half ago, and didn't really hit the mainstream until less than a century ago. And, of course, for most of that time it involved (sometimes expensive) film and the expensive step of processing it. Photography has exploded over the last decade or so with the rise of digital cameras, and, of course, high quality digital cameras built into mobile phones.But, really, that raises a bigger point: the tools of creation for all sorts of things have been changing rapidly and making it easier and cheaper to create content, whether it's a photograph, a song, a movie, a book or.. well... just about anything. We're being inundated with new creative works... at the same time we're being told that content creation is dying. Now, to be fair, much of the content production we're talking about is amateur production, but some of that is of fantastic quality, and is leading people into professional content creation roles. But, I guess this raises a separate question. What is the real purpose of copyright? Is it only to incentivize professional content creation, or to incentivize content creation overall? Given the stated purpose is to "promote the progress," and to provide the public with more content, I would argue the goal is to promote more overall content, and it seems that technology is doing a much better job of that than copyright.
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FFB
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Re: FFB
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Re: FFB
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You do try so very hard to pile on the FUD, though :)
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no u
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Oh ... I get it ... it's FUD for IP maximists. Their extortion racket is crumbling right before their eyes and they're all riddles with fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
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Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt ... which one or what combination of the three ... you get the idea.
I'm not holding my breath.
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See, people have always taken their own pictures, and they have shared them with their friends. In the past, they would get "reprints" to give to people, or would host (often painful) slide shows at home. None of these people needed or required copyright to create content, because, well, they were not creating content. They were just taking pictures for fun.
In modern times, people have cameras in their phones, and they take a million digital snaps of themselves. They don't need copyright to create content, because they still aren't creating content really - they are just taking pictures and sharing them with friends.
What Mike tries to do is to mix the amateur snappers of the world in with professionals, and create confusions and doubt about the needs for copyright by saying "most of the images are shot by people who don't need copyright, so we don't need copyright". It's a bullshit attempt to prove something by including a larger, uninvolved group into the mix.
Typical Mike Masnick bullshit.
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Pull the other one, it's got parrots on it.
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The patronising is strong in this one!
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Oh really. I just can't believe how insulting you are to ordinary people. YOu seem to have this idea that there is ome kind of magic quality divide between amateurs and professionals - well there isn't - there is a continuum. There used to be a quality divide between professional and amateur equipement but advancing technology has largely buried that one. The reality is that all professionals started life as amateurs and created their first (and often their breakthrough sometimes even their best) work as amateurs.
You are just trying to perpetuate a patronising, outdated "us and them" situation. Well I've got news for you. That concept is as outdated as the old British class system.
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In technical terms, they are both "content", but the difference is clear.
It isn't "us and them", but I give you credit for a nice deflection that ignores my main points. In the end, photos now are just like the music business: The tools got cheaper, more people can do it, but there is no indication that we got any more "good stuff", just more "stuff".
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Oh no - well why follow with yet another insult to ordinary people!
It's the reality that "professionals" shoot stuff for magazines, and jane public seems mostly intent on taking duck-face pics for their Facebook profile.
and the magazines are read by exactly the same jane public.
The tools got cheaper, more people can do it, but there is no indication that we got any more "good stuff", just more "stuff".
Statistically it is likely that there is also more good stuff - not as a proportion but overall.
(Plus once again you can't stop yourself making statements that insult ordinary people)
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"Statistically it is likely that there is also more good stuff - not as a proportion but overall."
Prove it. For my take, if there is any extra "good stuff", it is right up there with the monkey pictures shown on Techdirt a while back. Accidental, incidental stuff. Are you suggesting ordinary people are like an infinite number of monkeys? All that and you are up my ass about insulting ordinary people?
Wow.
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Wow, did you start posting facts? That's new...
Oh wait, it's just your usual unfounded assumptions and pretending your own opinions are somehow unvarnished truth. All while pretending that the content people enjoy is somehow inferior to your glorious corporate masters if someone wasn't paid to create it.
Water is wet, etc.
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"Statistically it is likely that there is also more good stuff - not as a proportion but overall."
Prove it. For my take, if there is any extra "good stuff", it is right up there with the monkey pictures shown on Techdirt a while back. Accidental, incidental stuff. Are you suggesting ordinary people are like an infinite number of monkeys? All that and you are up my ass about insulting ordinary people?
Wow.
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"Statistically it is likely that there is also more good stuff - not as a proportion but overall."
Prove it. For my take, if there is any extra "good stuff", it is right up there with the monkey pictures shown on Techdirt a while back. Accidental, incidental stuff. Are you suggesting ordinary people are like an infinite number of monkeys? All that and you are up my ass about insulting ordinary people?
Wow.
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Prove it.
The standard assumption that I would make as a scientist is that if a set X contains a subset Y and I know that X has increased in size then Y is likely also to have increased in size. It's not a rigorous proof - but then I only said "likely".
. For my take, if there is any extra "good stuff", it is right up there with the monkey pictures shown on Techdirt a while back. Accidental, incidental stuff.
You on the other hand make a whole load of assumptions with no justification whatsoever - other than whatever fits your view of the world.
you have managed to make the discussion about the least relevant part of my points.
OK tell me what your "relevant" point was and I'll address it.
btw your patronising attitude is confirmed by the way you address me - you sound like an HR manager.
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You are right up there with Mike now in making assumptions and treating them as "near facts". Your supposition would only work if the proportions of photographers remained the same between personal snappers and professional image takers. Since we can't find any surge in professional photographers (actually, it is a dying field, it seems), there is little to support your Y. Plenty of X, no Y.
Which one of my "assumptions" do you have a problem with? The assumption that most of the "new" images are duck face girl shots (or the equivilants)? Or that many of them are blurry cellphone camera shots taken in night clubs, parties, and in other locations? Prove me wrong, and try not use "likely" as your guide.
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A great many are not.
"Or that many of them are blurry cellphone camera shots taken in night clubs, parties, and in other locations?"
Many aren't and all of them have more personal resonance than any image made by a "pro" could ever have, except perhaps for wedding photos.
One of your many failings is that you immediately assume that content created by people paid to do so are more important than content created by the unpaid. It's not.
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Show me your numbers.
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That most pictures on Facebook aren't of "duck faced girls" (I've never seen one, so I'm not sure what you're blathering on about, and I've seen hundreds of pictures on there)? Or that pictures taken by people of events personal to them are more personally relevant than pictures that apparently wouldn't even be taken had an artificial monopoly not been created to profit from them (of course they are, dumbass)?
You can't even make your own assertions clear, it seems.
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And your assumption only works if you equate "good" with "professional".
It also only works if you equate the number of professionally taken images with the number of professional photographers - which is clearly untrue because new technology also enables professionals to take more images and also because many "professional images" are actually taken by people whose main profession is not photography.
I have in front of me a pile of magazines stuffed full of photographs. Every one of those images is a professional image (since the photographers are paid) but none of the photographers are professionals.
Which one of my "assumptions" do you have a problem with? The assumption that most of the "new" images are duck face girl shots (or the equivilants)?
Yes - because your evidence for that is at best anecdotal - and is contradicted by my anecdotal evidence - which is that most of the new images are nature photography.
In the absence of any hard evidence either way my statistical argument stands.
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Nope. It's a nice try to take my argument and turn it inside out on itself, but it's a failure. There is no question of good or bad, only a question of who is affected by copyright, and who chooses what they shoot as a result.
My point is addressing this:
"What is the real purpose of copyright? Is it only to incentivize professional content creation, or to incentivize content creation overall? Given the stated purpose is to "promote the progress," and to provide the public with more content, I would argue the goal is to promote more overall content, and it seems that technology is doing a much better job of that than copyright."
Here is the rub. Mike Masnick is putting his thumb on the scale by including a significant number of people for who copyright is not an issue one way or the other.
Yes, digital cameras changed things, because they allow the average person to shoot plenty of pictures without additional costs (unless they choose to print them). Their increase in shooting pictures has nothing to do with copyright one way or the other, the increase is only as a result of technoloty, and nothing else.
Put another way, it wasn't copyright that was stopping them before, and it won't be stopping them in the future.
So what Mike is doing is playing a game. Copyright (or the lack of) isn't even part of the decision by "joe q public" to shoot images of their personal lives, or whatever they happen to see. They shoot as many images as they can afford, and with the "infinite shooting" of a digital camera, they can shoot plenty without costs. But they aren't concerned about copyright at all.
Mike likes to think of the proverbial "duck face girl" shot from Facebook as if we are being "inundated with new creative works". It's bullshit to the n-th degree to play that sort of game.
There is no connection between copyright and the additional shooting, because copyright isn't an issue for the amateur, shoot for yourself shooter. So saying that a bunch more of this sort of product is proof that copyright is somehow unwanted or unneeded is just crap.
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Do we really need or want content tha was only produced for mercenary reasons because copyrgiht existed. Personally my answer to that is no.
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The point is Mike is attempting to take a huge amount of images shot by people for whom copyright isn't an issue (one way or the other), and tries to use it as a justification for getting rid of copyright.
Content isn't only produced for mercenary reasons. Copyright is a system by which rights can be sold, allowing for the creation of images (in this case) to have a way to be sold, marketed, and used (for free if the artist so desires) in ways that are satisfactory to the artist.
Copyright isn't a license to print money. It's a structure under which rights can be transferred, applied, sold, lent, or given away, with an understanding of what those rights mean.
Mike logic is like saying "they opened a new beach, and there are now tons of kids making sand castles. So we no longer need construction workers or engineers to make houses, because we have plenty of new sand castles being built".
It's stupid logic at it's finest. I am for the life of me trying to figure out why you are defending it.
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If that isn't mercenary reasons I don't know what is.
The point is Mike is attempting to take a huge amount of images shot by people for whom copyright isn't an issue (one way or the other), and tries to use it as a justification for getting rid of copyright.
Nice parody of the point - however the real underlying point is this. Art of any quality is never produced purely because of the incentives of copyright.
However much art is enabled by technological advances and is produced as a result of those advances. Hence the explosion in writing when the printing press was invented, in music when equal tempered keyboards were devised, again when the technology of orchestral instruments improved and the piano were invented, again with the electric guitar, and again with the synthesizer and so on.
Look for great bursts of creativity being unleashed when copyright was introduced or extemded and you will look in vain.
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Even after re-reading the post, I fail to see where this was said or even implied. I suppose everyone views reality through their own filters, but making up stuff that is clearly not there is dishonest at best.
"Mike logic is like saying "they opened a new beach, and there are now tons of kids making sand castles. So we no longer need construction workers or engineers to make houses, because we have plenty of new sand castles being built""
Horrible analogy is horrible. Where do you get this crap?
"It's stupid logic at it's finest."
Yes - your logic is stupid.
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There are at least two things wrong with this statement.
1. Mike is not using it as justification for getting rid of copyright. He's saying that technology is more successful at promoting content creation than copyright is. That's not the same thing.
2. You have absolutely no idea if "copyright isn't an issue" with Facebook photos. My guess is that most people on Facebook would not like it one bit if their "duck faced girl" photos were used in a Scion ad, for example.
Content isn't only produced for mercenary reasons.
...and then every single thing you list afterwards is a mercenary reason. (Though I would have chosen the word "mercantile" myself.)
Mike logic is like saying "they opened a new beach, and there are now tons of kids making sand castles. So we no longer need construction workers or engineers to make houses, because we have plenty of new sand castles being built".
Except that under your analogy, copyright's sole purpose would be to incentivize the building of sand castles.
Look, you may think the "duck faced girl" photos are terrible. But they have at least as much social utility as the Photoshopped pictures of supermodels that are used to hawk Maybelline to those same duck-faced girls.
And more to the point, they are both equal under copyright law. Because copyright's sole purpose is to provide the public with works that have social utility, they are both the types of works that copyright is intended to incentivize. Otherwise Facebook photos shouldn't be covered under copyright law at all.
So Mike's logic is entirely correct. I am for the life of me trying to figure out why you are attacking it.
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I do have some evidence for professional duckface girl shots however.
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The Real Question?
Don't get me wrong, that professional photographer had a lot of skills. That did not mean that a portion of their success wasn't due to timing, striven for, but possibly achieved by accident.
Studio work is a different skill set. But when you work with live subjects, catching that expression, is again striven for, but possibly achieved by accident.
So, the amateur gets lucky too, and produces something they are proud of, and posts it. Is their luck any different than the professionals?
The real question here is, 'Is there a difference in copyright between professional work and amateur work"? There may be, with regard to money, but the constitution does not say anything about money. It does say something about 'promoting'. It doesn't say anything about professional vs amateur. It does say something about useful. Is the cover of a magazine more useful than the photo of my significant other making a fool of themselves (it could be compelling)? Only for the magazine owner. Not the photographer, because if their shot didn't make the cover, that might close the market for the picture (it also might not). But there is the crux. The utility of a picture, it's usefulness, is in the eye of the beholder. That beholder may or may not find economic value in the picture, but that doesn't change the rights granted by the creation of the photo.
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Re: The Real Question?
This is exactly right, with one clarification: the "eye of the beholder" is the eye of the general public. Not those of photographers, magazine editors, etc.
What the other A.C. is doing, is essentially the flip side of the argument that "record companies sell fewer records because they aren't as good." That's an invalid argument, because if they weren't as good, they wouldn't be downloaded as much either.
Same in this case. If those "duck faced girl" photos didn't have social value, nobody would look at them, and nobody would take them. Their very popularity is what proves the other A.C. is wrong.
Separately, he's saying all photos on Facebook are little better than "duck faced girl" photos. It's a hasty generalization, probably based on the "spotlight fallacy." And, of course, it's utterly elitist - which is ironic, since the hoi polloi are the ones that copyright is supposed to serve.
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You seem a bit arrogant.
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I am certain that it does not.
"they were not creating content. They were just taking pictures for fun"
I fail to make the distinction. Content is content, value is in the eye of the beholder - etc.
"They don't need copyright"
It is not a matter of need, they have a copyright upon the content they created. Do you have a problem with that?
"What Mike tries to do is to mix the amateur snappers of the world in with professionals, and create confusions and doubt about the needs for copyright"
Now you are simply being delusional.
"most of the images are shot by people who don't need copyright, so we don't need copyright"
You present this as if it were a quote of what Mike typed, I was unable to find it anywhere other than your post. I find that to be very lame.
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So... let me get this straight:
You believe that photos by "amateur snappers" are not "content," and should not be covered by copyright?
That is the only possible way your argument could make any sense whatsoever.
It would make sense if you were arguing that copyright should be "opt in" rather than "opt out," which I actually have no problem with. But if anyone else suggested that, I'm pretty sure you'd say it's "typical bullshit" from a slimy freetard who just wants to pirate stuff.
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Actually, I misspoke. I should have said "opt in" rather than "automatic." It is impossible to "opt out" of copyright (you can only grant a permissive copyright license).
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Wouldn't it be so much easier if you had to apply for your copyright rather than applying a blanket copyright over everything? I mean only the professionals need it so it would easy enough for them to set up an automated process to do it.
Then rather than worrying about whether or not every little thing is copyrighted and seeking permissions to use each single piece. We would all know and know to avoid using the copyrighted work and enhancing its cultural value and instead share things that are free and open allowing culture and shared experiences to flourish.
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Have you been giving him lessons?
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What I want to know is...
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Re: What I want to know is...
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Re: What I want to know is...
Or in the early digital days even, where not everyone in the world bothered to print or publish on the net.
A photo is a photo, whether snapped by a monkey, a kid, an amateur/hobbyist or a professional photographer.
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duh, that's because promoting/incentivization was never the goal of copyright no matter what the shills butter it up with, they just use the whole "protecting artists/morals" bullshit to get people to get all sentimental and sign up
it was pretty much just a tool for cenorship, monopolization & control and it still is to this day, that's never going to change
what can change is the world by giving itself some ex-lax and disposing of the nasty black tsunami that is copyright
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& to convince people that they can't live without it, that the world would end the moment it was removed
sad that so many have fallen for the old "salesman tactic"
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Funny numbers.
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Re: Funny numbers.
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Re: Re: Funny numbers.
(And using the word literally correctly, for once :P)
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Pressing a button on a digital camera is easy...
I say quality of anything goes down with quantity. Just look here where clowns nip in with ad hom one-liners to merely contradict. Takes no effort to post a cliche, nor is it "real" or effective, it's just noise.
Seems to me that all of society is coming to resemble a movie set, just facades, enough to fool the eye from one angle, empty behind.
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Re: Pressing a button on a digital camera is easy...
"the resulting image will be nearly worthless,"
Does it matter whether the pix are worthless? Self portraits taken via a cell phone and mirror .... so what.
"if so many people had carried film cameras, they'd have gotten good shots too"
Film vs digital photos ... you obviously do not know what you are talking about.
"I say quality of anything goes down with quantity."
Any real data to back this up?
"Just look here where clowns nip in with ad hom one-liners to merely contradict. Takes no effort to post a cliche, nor is it "real" or effective, it's just noise. "
That is proof right there, by golly. I'm convinced - not.
"Seems to me that all of society is coming to resemble a movie set, just facades, enough to fool the eye from one angle, empty behind."
Nothing new there - it's been that way for some time. Welcome stranger.
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Re: Pressing a button on a digital camera is easy...
FYI Someone has been using your account and actually reading before posting.
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Re: Pressing a button on a digital camera is easy...
And I say you are eliding toegether several different concepts in an incorrect way in order to make an erroneous point.
The truth is that when overall quantity goes up the quantity of good stuff also goes up - but rather slower - so the average quality goes down a bit.
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Re: Pressing a button on a digital camera is easy...
I'll take my photo of me with John Landis or my photo of my niece and nephew over anything a so-called "pro" can take, thanks very much.
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Re: Pressing a button on a digital camera is easy...
Mike seems often to confuse quantity and quality, confusing huge increases in amateur production of images, music, movies, whatever with actual increases in content anyone really wants.
We could have 10,000 Sita Sings The Blues for the price of a single Avatar, but I know which ones people would want to see.
A diamond is a diamond, a ton of dirt is a ton of sirt. Doubling the amount of dirt still doesn't get you any more diamonds, just more dirt. If you are measuring "total tonnage", perhaps we have had progress. But in meaningful terms, we still have only one diamond.
An near infinite number of monkeys mostly produce a lot of monkey shit. It's the nature of the game. Mike apparently likes monkey shit.
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Re: Pressing a button on a digital camera is easy...
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So, while the purpose of copyright should be to "promote the progress" by providing more content overall, I'd argue it can't extend beyond the (semi-)professional sphere because the idea of restricting distribution of infinite goods is antithetical to content in the attention economy.
I think.
* Though there are plenty of reasons why it could decrease it.
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Like commercial television, commercial radio the bulk of professional sport (via sponsorship) etc etc
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Are you suggesting that only "professionals" should be afforded copyright upon the content they create? That is messed up and certainly would not stand in a court of law.
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What I'm suggesting is that, for most people, copyright is not necessary - and can be deleterious - in providing an incentive for producing new content. They take the time to post pictures on Facebook in exchange for attention, not with any expectation of remuneration.
One possible solution would be to move back to a model where copyrights have to be registered. Then people could self select: those who believe their work has commercial value will do it, those who don't, won't. Though I can see problems with that too (giant databases, integrating with sites and services, etc.).
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And if a work is not registered then anyone else is free to use it as they please. This potentially, could be a bonanza for publishers and disastrous for professional photographers. Sounds like a land grab to me. I recall an attempt to claim copyright upon all user contributions to a particular social network, don't remember which one - what ever happened to that?
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There would certainly be potential for publishers to exploit ('exploit'?) others' content, but I'm not convinced it would happen very often. If I want to get a picture for a book cover or a website I'm much more likely to head to iStock (or pay a photographer if the project requires it) than to go trawling through Flickr, sxc.hu et al. on the off chance they have a suitable photo I can use for free - because my time's worth something here too and I'm prepared to pay for the convenience of getting what I want quickly. I'm sure there would be occasions where it would happen, much as people's snapshots sometimes make it onto the front page of newspapers, but most of the time it doesn't.
Professional photographers wouldn't be affected by this as they would presumably register copyright on their photos.
A halfway house may be to stick everything under a CC BY-NC licence (or something) by default, though then you'd run into the problems discussed by Nina Paley on her blog (title: Paley & Doctorow argue over Non-Commercial licenses).
Another question is whether this exploitation / 'exploitation' would really matter. Copyright is supposed to be about promoting the progress, not censorship. It may be weird to have your photo unexpectedly gracing the front of a book, but has it really cost you anything?* Has it cost society anything? I'd argue that for nearly every photo taken the chances of them being picked up and used is pretty much zero, so you wouldn't have lost out by being on that book cover.** Society has gained a new book with a cool cover and, who knows, maybe you can sell some t-shirts off the back of it. :)
Thanks for the conversation about this - it's forcing me to think through the ideas more and see if it still holds up...
* Yeah, sure there are privacy / publicity rights issues here too, but that's separate from copyright.
** I know you've lost out on being paid for use of the photo, but the prospect of such a payment didn't incentivise the creation of the photo and nor is it likely to encourage you, as an amateur / occasional photographer, to take more pictures in the future. Furthermore, had it not been picked up by the publisher, it would have languished on Flickr with hundreds of others in your account.
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'content' creation
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Logic fail
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Also...
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It's Saturday morning
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Re: It's Saturday morning
I'll hope you don't start making comments about how I apparently have nothing better to do on the beach than browse the internet though, it's embarrassing :S
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- one picture a second for a year => some 32 millions a year
- for 80 years of life you live some 30 thousand days or a bit more than 2400 months
- 200 pictures a day to documents your life => less than 6 millions pics
- I have some 40 thousands pictures, if I were to watch my set for 6 seconds a piece it will take me almost 3 days of non stop viewing
Mind you, probably less than 1% are truly worth watching...
What are you numbers?
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All of history?
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Off Topic_Whale Shark
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Re: Off Topic_Whale Shark
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people runing away from FB
all going to google plus, but some of them are addicted to
facebook apps and games
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real photos or just trash?
I bet 90% of them are myspace camwhoring-attentionwhoring type photos.
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Re: real photos or just trash?
For example, in a weeks I'll be visiting the US for my first ever trip to New York. While there, I'll almost certainly take numerous photos that will end up on Facebook.
Are these photos going to compete with the new edition of Lonely Planet? Of course not. However, they will be far more valuable than those generic pictures both to myself and my friends on Facebook. Nobody's going to get rich from them, but they're going to be more valuable than any "professional" photos ever could be, at least among their intended audience.
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Really ? nice number!
who did the count? grandpa on Jack Daniels?
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Better late than never
However these equitable terms are not the ones we currently operate under; which is why they do not fulfill their job for either the elite who regularly wield this as their sword to rob the masses, nor those who are unable to lift the heavy blade to protect their modest expressions.
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Purpose of copyright
It's not for guaranteeing an income stream to great grandchildren of authors nor anything else.
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Re: Purpose of copyright
That this clause empowers Congress to grant the privilege of copyright (viz the Statute of Anne) is simply indoctrination. It's mere mantra - falsehood as if fact.
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Accurate, but you need scanning to get the rest
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Same as it ever was.
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