Have You Been Debating What Color Some Random Dress Is All Day? Thank Fair Use
from the and-we-look-forward-to-the-eventual-copyright-fight dept
Yesterday evening I saw a tweet zip by in which some very smart people I know and respect appeared to be arguing about the color of a dress. It seemed like a weird thing, so I went and looked and saw what appeared to be a white and gold dress. No big deal. But, other people insisted that it was blue and black. Vehemently. At first I thought it was a joke. Or an optical illusion. Or maybe it depended on your monitor. But I called over a colleague here in the office, and she swore that it was blue and black. And I was 100% sure that it was white and gold. If you somehow live under a rock, here's the image:This image isn't just being showed everywhere, it's being modified, flipped, adjusted, poked and prodded as people discuss it in all sorts of ways (comment and criticism). And it's all fair use. Take, for example, our own Leigh Beadon, who put forth on Twitter a theory about why different people see it in different ways:
I think the dress is all about sensitivity to blue. pic.twitter.com/rnWD473AQ8
— Leigh Beadon (@marcuscarab) February 27, 2015
Ok, thanks to @marcuscarab for min & maxing the brightness. I still see both as white and gold, but... pic.twitter.com/pRIiTJn5yK
— Mike Masnick (@mmasnick) February 27, 2015
For those seeing #WhiteandGold in #TheDress (http://t.co/pNG9tXu5pU), @HopeTaylorPhoto ends the debate. pic.twitter.com/W7TwQJy13m
— Adobe (@Adobe) February 27, 2015
"
MT @hopetaylorphoto: #TheDress problem has been solved s/o to @Adobe and @Lightroom: pic.twitter.com/y4nzLeI2PN
— Adobe (@Adobe) February 27, 2015
And there's been no talk about copyright. Because we don't need to be discussing copyright, because this is all fair use. Last night, some were pointing out that this was such an "internet" story that it's great that it came out on the same day the FCC voted for net neutrality, but I say it's an even better way to close out fair use week, with a great demonstration of why fair use matters.
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Filed Under: blue and black, color, copyright, dress, fair use, memes, perception, white and gold
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This explains it: http://www.xkcd.com/
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Brown and blue-tinted white
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Re: Brown and blue-tinted white
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Re: Brown and blue-tinted white
http://www.romanoriginals.co.uk/invt/70931
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1163136/ Roman-Originals-The-dress-IS-royal-blue-black.html
Made by Roman, who is currently making a killing, thanks to all the unexpected, free advertising.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/blue-black-white-gold-dressmaker-its-all-green-n314096
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Re: Re: Brown and blue-tinted white
In other news, the dress is definitely not blue and black, as black isn't a color. It's a dark brown and bluish-white. The setting, lighting and exposure in the controversial photo allows you to see gold and white if you look at the entire photo, or black and light blue (I really don't see the royal blue in ANY of the pictures) if you lean in close and focus on the dress, or pull far away so that the framing AROUND the photo keeps your eyes from getting distracted.
Roman must be really loving this, as it gets their name out there to everyone, even those who normally don't think about dresses at all. That means that their name will now be what those people connect to fancy dresses.
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Re: Re: Re: Brown and blue-tinted white
Are you actually saying there is no such thing as black clothes?
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* - Yes, pedants could have a field day deconstructing my casual phrasing, but oh well.
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Love it but it drives me a bit nuts.
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yeah, it seems to be the perfect combination of color acuity and "the mind making shit up" (or, "correcting what you see to align with what you know should be true").
I bet this image also drives you up the wall....
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Magic is real !
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Re: Magic is real !
I bet this image also drives you up the wall....
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Re: Magic is real !
on the left side of this photograph is some material in the background that *appears* (i feel like a 'Fair Witness' in heinlein's stranger in a strange land) black/white...
*HOW* is that black even REMOTELY like EITHER shade shown in the dress (which i find ugly-ish) ? ? ?
further, in the upper right, you can see the overexposure where sunlight is streaming in a window which has blue-green (teal?) drapes; to *me*, it is obvious that *that* is what gives the 'white' portion of the dress its blue-ish cast to the white... again, HOW can you match any of that blue-ish color to either shade (aside from the white with blue-ish cast alluded to) ? ? ?
i have not stared at it long enough to get the colors to flip, and won't waste my time doing so...
it is a gold-ish brown and white with blue cast...
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Re: Re: Magic is real !
Actually that may be what is tricking your brain into thinking the blue is actually white.
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Oh, me! I know the answer!
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Re: Oh, me! I know the answer!
I'm with ya on that.
Although, Brian Williams just reported that the dress originally belonged to him and he sold it to Bill O'Reilly years ago.
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Clearly at least one group is not interpreting the art in the way the artist originally intended. The artist needs to sue somebody for their defamation caused via infringement.
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Aside: I had the same experience Mike did - no doubt gold and white then later blue/black with no going back. It is one of the weirdest optical tricks I've ever experienced and made me think the internet was being epically punked.
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I figured it might have been some kind of animated gif or something that slowly turns colors. But it seems there are only two distinct pictures, not a continuous color shift. I've seen both sets of colors (one a reduced size on a news site), I should have saved them for safe keeping.
Looking at the page code, there are two JPGs where the image is located, (but only one picture is shown in the browser) so I don't understand that. Maybe the site just switches them out. Whatever.
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The answer is photography
The picture was taken with the sun shining towards the lens. A light source that strong shining at the lens will always mess with the colors.
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Re: The answer is photography
If it was only the light then everyone would see the same "wrong" colors.
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Re: Re: The answer is photography
Here is a link to a picture that also shows colours being distorted by your brain.
https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/possibly-the-best-optical-ilusion-i-have-seen- all-year/
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It looks like
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My take... it's fuking ugly and who cares? Next.
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Huh.
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With this you can side step all of that and just point out that technically the photograph is under copyright, but fair use allows all these articles to be written with the original and remixed images, immediately - no waiting for some gatekeeper to give each and every newsie, blogger, and facebooker permission to make their point. Take out all the pics and the articles would be very hard to follow - you would have to go back to the original pic, and could only imagine the photo manipulations.
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Bad cameras
This is a classic example of a horrible cell phone camera destroying the image. It severely overexposed the photo, making what was actually a dark blue appear to be nearly white, and what was black to appear to be yellow/gold.
A good camera (cell phone or otherwise) wouldn't have done this. Cell phone manufacturers need to step up their game.
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Re: Bad cameras
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Re: Bad cameras
It's also possible someone messed with it in post, for example changing the color balance.
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Did a local test and here are the results
Son in law - white and gold
Daughter - Blue and black with some brown thrown in
myself - white and gold
I only have my grandson and my wife to check now.
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Ghost hunt...
What gives it the blue sheen is the ambient post-dusk lighting coming through a window. Why I think it's white is because of the highlights in the creases. (google any image of silk and you'll see the highlights on creases varies greatly) While the gold areas I think should be pretty self explanatory unless your monitor is not calibrated.
All in all, this feels like a witch hunt.
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Re: Ghost hunt...
You did something similar to this and came up with areas that are white? https://twitter.com/Adobe/status/571123202568491010/photo/1
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Interesting fact
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Wow, talk about a joke
Fair use isn't required nor is it part of the plan, the image was released with full intention of it being copied, modified and shared, more like a creative commons license. Permission was granted up front so nobody had to use the affirmative defense of fair use.
I know you are trying hard to push fair use, but try to use better examples. This one isn't very good and shows you to be desperate for examples and lacking in actual content to prove your case.
(oh yeah, fair use is an affirmative defense, because it only kicks in when you say "yes, I know it was copyright but..." that but is the start of an affirmative defense. No matter how many times you try to frame it the other way, you will always be wrong).
Carry on, see you all in a couple of months.
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Re: Wow, talk about a joke
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Copyright in the US is automatic.
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The only way it might not be copyrighted is if there is no person who took the photo (a la the monkey selfie). There seems no reason to think that could be the case since it was a mother showing her daughter the dress she'd bought. Clearly she took the photo of the dress on purpose, so she holds the copyright on it*.
* even if it were a work for hire, which is an absolutely ridiculous suggestion, somebody would hold the copyright, even if it isn't the photographer
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The entertaining aspect of the story isn't whether copyright is in play. It's that no one has, as yet, crawled out of the woodwork screaming that it should be.
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I imagine he didn't feel the need because the Techdirt audience is generally at least somewhat familiar with copyright issues, enough to understand that copyright in the US is automatic, and thus the photo is copyrighted. If he took the time to fully explain every single detail of every issue he writes about it would be a boring blog.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wow, talk about a joke
The fair use part is our discussion of the picture on a variety of platforms, sharing and modifying it, and all without seeking permission or getting a license from the rightsholder.
Without fair use, a lot of us would end up being charged with infringement. NOW do you get it? We need fair use so we can discuss the color of dresses without getting nastygrams demanding that we settle or end up in court.
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Re: Re: Wow, talk about a joke
To be fair, we're also assuming that we all actually exist, and aren't just figments of an overactive imagination on a mite crawling on your skin.
But, there are some things that normal adults can assume when in conversation with other normal adults who aren't trolling.
That the image is covered by copyright is one of them. That you're a troll, apparently, is another.
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Re: Re: Re: Wow, talk about a joke
As for the observation that a copyright has been assumed, how quickly you forget past articles by the principals here declaring the need to properly establish the existence of copyright before attempting to assert legal rights.
Be honest for a change. You wanted to rail against a body of law whose existence you disagree with, and what was happening with this photo seemed like a good opportunity. Problem is the article would fall a bit flat if it turns out that the photo is not subject to copyright.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Wow, talk about a joke
When there were reasons to think there was no copyright, yes. For example, something was old enough to be in the public domain, or had so little creative aspect as to be uncopyrightable.
Problem is the article would fall a bit flat if it turns out that the photo is not subject to copyright.
You still have completely failed to provide any rationale for why this photo might not be copyrighted, even after having it explained to you repeatedly why there is every reason to think that it is. As Mike said, that is something a troll would do, not someone looking for honest conversation.
Be honest for a change.
Now that's rich.
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So your argument is that because the photo was taken in Scotland, the argument that US sites reposting/transforming it for commentary is no longer fair use? You really want to stake out that ground?
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Rather than try and replicate it, let me say simply that a work being accorded rights under US copyright law is not as automatic as many here appear to believe. For example, a work's national origin (17 USC 104) is an important factor. So, yes, it is important to ascertain the origin of an example to be used in a fair use article because fair use depends upon the applicability of US law.
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Re: Wow, talk about a joke
Fair use isn't required nor is it part of the plan, the image was released with full intention of it being copied, modified and shared, more like a creative commons license.
Did the original post contain a notice that it was licensed under CC or similar? If not, then it was copyrighted with all rights reserved (because that is automatically what happens in the US). In that case, without fair use, copying and distributing it would be copyright infringement, regardless of what is going on in the copyright holder's head. That is Mike's point (as I understand it anyway).
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Re: Re: Wow, talk about a joke
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2971409/What-color-dress-White-gold-blue-black.html
Con trary to what Whatever claims, the people who sell the dress had nothing to do with this photo. Some woman bought the dress for her daughter's wedding. She's the photographer that took the picture. The purpose being to let her daughter know what dress she'd bought. Her daughter and soon to be son-in-law disagreed over the color of the dress, and put the picture on Facebook, where their friends disagreed on the color. From there one of their friends posted on tumblr to see what their followers thought. At which point the picture went viral and went to far too many people who seem incapable of firing up image editing software, or googling 'optical illusions involving color'.
At no point was there ever a license granted, or an intent that people would repost and edit the picture. Just a mom to daughter "here's the dress I bought", daughter to friends "what color does this look to you?", one of those friends to the world "what color does this look to you?".
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...lies truth and reality. He's not only one of the more pathetic local trolls, he takes great care never to accidentally say something accurate.
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Re: Wow, talk about a joke
It wasn't put out by the company selling the clothing, so...
And, even if it was, if they didn't put a license on it, even they were relying on fair use.
Fair use isn't required nor is it part of the plan, the image was released with full intention of it being copied, modified and shared, more like a creative commons license. Permission was granted up front so nobody had to use the affirmative defense of fair use.
Except no such license was ever mentioned. It was not released with this intention at all. One woman posted it, asking people for thoughts, and then everyone grabbed it.
In short, you're wrong.
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There's no doubt obama and the corporations are going to get their way and sign fast track and TPP so that means the end for most things corporations feel like are taking money away from their poorly made media even if the fair use item is purely free. Am I wrong?
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Was curious why the original image is so far off of the real color.
As for seeing the image above (gold/white) as gold/white vs black/blue; I see it gold/white all the time, except just for a few seconds when I thought i'd accidently changed the original then realized i'd just seen it different. Kinda spooky. :P Cause it did switch on me just that once with no editing.
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I usually don't wear dresses, but when I do, I find it is usually because i've been drinking dos equis.
If I were drinking and found my way into this dress store; I'd prefer the gold and white, and not terribly fond of the dark blue/black.
Roman needs to offer it in that color and after this big moolah they rakin in they probably will offer the gold/white color print.
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