BP Photoshopping Goes From Bad To Ridiculously Bad

from the oh-come-on dept

With BP finally admitting it Photoshopped an image showing its "oil spill response center," it appears that people are finding all sorts of ridiculously bad photoshops done by BP in describing its response to the oil spill. Take, for example, the photo below: It doesn't take long to realize that the helicopter cockpit you're looking at is not actually in the air at all. In the upper lefthand corner, above the pilot's head, you can see an air traffic control tower. Oops. And, at the link above, they also zoom in on some of the panel instrumentation, suggesting that the door and ramp are open and the parking brake is engaged. Oh, and that document in the pilot's hand? Pre-flight checklist.

Perhaps BP is practicing in an effort to Photoshop the oil out of the gulf... However, somehow, I get the feeling it would leave some... artifacts.

Filed Under: fraud, images, photoshop
Companies: bp

Whether You're BP Or A Petty Criminal, Photoshopping Yourself To Look Sympathetic Probably Isn't Wise

from the just-a-tip dept

Slashdot pointed us to this fun story about a scam artist who tried to get leniency from a judge by showing him photos of charity work he had done. The only problem? He Photoshopped himself into the photos and also forged letters from those charitable organizations. Not surprisingly, the judge didn't take too kindly to it, and gave him 285 months in prison -- 50 more than the sentencing guidelines allow -- because of the attempt to defraud the court.

Of course, I was thinking of doing a post on just that, when Karl Bode pointed me to the news that BP has also been caught messing around with Photoshopped images. Apparently, the images that BP has released of its oil spill "command center" are really, really, poorly Photoshopped. After being called on it, BP denied it, then sorta admitted it, but won't explain the details. Then, to make matters worse, it got caught with another Photoshopped image.

So, whether you're a petty criminal, or a giant multi-billion dollar multi-national, perhaps you should layoff the Photoshop when trying to make yourself look sympathetic.

Filed Under: fraud, images, photoshop
Companies: bp

Amazon And Perfect 10 Settle Lawsuit; But Details Are Sealed

from the doubt-amazon-paid-much-if-anything dept

Perfect 10, the adult entertainment publisher who simply freaked out about its magazine photos appearing online and mistakenly sued Google and Amazon for finding their images (that others had uploaded) via their search engines, never seems to want to admit that it sued the wrong entities. Every time it sues a third party (it also tried suing payment processors), claiming copyright infringement, the courts end up tossing out the lawsuits (there was a lower court ruling in Perfect 10s favor that got overturned). But, on the whole, Perfect 10s track record in these lawsuits is pretty dismal. Yet it keeps on trying. Last year, a lawsuit against Amazon was dismissed after the court pointed out that Amazon was clearly protected by the DMCA.

It appears that Perfect 10 and Amazon have finally settled that lawsuit, though they aren't releasing the terms and conditions of the settlement. Given that Amazon won so handily in court, you'd have to imagine that Perfect 10 basically gave up to get the settlement. Still, it's unfortunate that the details aren't being made clear, as it would give confidence to other companies who are sued in similarly misguided lawsuits.

Filed Under: copyright, images, secondary liability, third party liability
Companies: amazon, perfect 10

Is Inline Linking To An Image Copyright Infringement?

from the i-don't-think-so... dept

Copycense points us to a writeup by a patent attorney named Steve O'Donnell about copyright and blogging. Why a patent attorney is writing about copyright is not clearly explained. Initially, since the title of O'Donnell's post was "How many copyrights does your blog infringe?" I thought the post might be one of those blog posts that reminds us how frequently everyone "technically" infringes on copyright incidentally and how this demonstrates how screwed up copyright law is. But, no, instead, this appears to be a serious "warning" claiming that most bloggers are risking the potential of $150,000 fines by using images they find online.

Copycense points out the irony that O'Donnell uses an image in the post itself and notes that the image appears to be in the public domain, but isn't sure. However, I think a bigger issue with the post is hidden in this sentence:

If you find a picture on Flickr, another blog, or somewhere else online and upload it to your own blog (or worse yet, inline link to it from your blog) without permission, you're committing a copyright violation.

First of all, that's not necessarily true. Obviously it depends on lots of other factors -- but I really question the parenthetical. Would inline linking (usually called "hotlinking") to an image be copyright infringement under any circumstance? I understand that it's considered rude and generally frowned upon in internet circles (and, in some cases the hoster of the original file will "get back" at the hotlinker by changing the image to something different... and potentially nasty). But is it copyright infringement? Technically, a hotlinked image is no different than a link to an image. The difference in code is minimal. The image itself is never "copied" onto your server. All you are doing is telling a computer to go visit the original version of the image, which was put there on purpose.

We've had similar discussions in the past about whether or not it could be copyright infringement to embed an infringing video on your site -- and the situation is basically the same with hotlinked images. The content still resides on the original server and is not copied to the new server at all. If the content itself is infringing, then perhaps there's a (really, really, really) weak case for contributory infringement, but in O'Donnell's post, he seems to be implying that even hotlinking to an authorized image would be copyright infringement, and I just don't see how that makes sense from a technological or legal perspective at all.

Filed Under: copyright, hotlinking, images, inline linking

Unblurred Google Satellite Images Is The Equivalent Of Yelling Fire?

from the say-what-now? dept

Earlier this month, we wrote about how a politician in California, Assemblyman Joel Anderson, was looking to force Google and other providers of online mapping/satellite offerings to blur images of schools, churches and government buildings. News.com ran an interview with Anderson, where he attempts to defend his proposed legislation as a matter of public safety. He claims that there is no good reason why anyone would need to clearly see these buildings online, and that it can only be used for bad purposes:

Who wants to know that level of detail? Bad people do.

Apparently, Anderson is the final determiner of what good people do and what bad people do with online maps. Then, when pushed on the fact that forcing companies to blur images of public locations might not pass constitutional muster, Anderson claimed that it was the equivalent of yelling fire:

But since when do you have a First Amendment right to yell fire? This falls under the same category.

I'm curious how that's anywhere near the same category. One is deceiving a bunch of people with an alarming false statement, where the resulting response can put people in danger -- and the other is an accurate representation of a building. Am I missing something?

Filed Under: blur, images, joel anderson, maps, terrorism
Companies: google

Germany Finds Google Images A Violation Of Copyright Law

from the needing-safe-harbors dept

US courts have recognized, reasonably, that an image search engine like Google's is not infringing on copyrights when it displays thumbnail images as a result of a search. However, it appears that German courts are not quite so understanding. Two new rulings in Germany say that thumbnail images are, in fact, copyright infringement. The German court's reasoning was: "It doesn't matter that thumbnails are much smaller than original pictures and are displayed in a lower resolution. By using photos in thumbnails, no new work is created." While I'm certainly not as familiar with German copyright law as I am with American copyright law, this statement still doesn't make that much sense.

The purpose of copyright law shouldn't just be concerned with whether or not a new work is created, but the purpose of what's being done. So it's difficult to see, for example, how a thumbnail that links to the original can possibly do any harm. If the "artist" behind an image doesn't want it found in Google, don't put it online. If the complaint is that someone else put the image on Google allowing it to be indexed, that's not Google's fault, but whoever put it online. Suing Google makes little sense -- and a judge finding against Google makes even less sense. Google has made it clear it intends to appeal, but it's troubling that a court would rule this way in the first place. It suggests, at the very least, a less than complete understanding of how an image search engine works. It also should raise questions about whether or not this ruling effectively makes any sort of inline hotlinking of images copyright violations as well.

Filed Under: copyright, germany, images, thumbnails

Singapore Firm Claims Patent On Hyperlinked Images

from the oh-please dept

Ah silly patents. Remember back when British Telecom thought that it held a patent on hyperlinks? And then there've been multiple different patents claiming ownership of the idea of putting an image on a website. Well, it appears that a company in Singapore has recently merged the two ideas into its own patent, and boy, is it ever ready to sue just about everyone. Slashdot points us to the news that Singaporean image search firm Vuestar Technologies claims to hold a patent on linking images from a website to another site and is sending out threatening letters to a bunch of websites. No one has linked to the actual patent so it's difficult to see what it really covers -- but the idea that a recent patent would cover the concept of linking images seems preposterous.

Filed Under: hyperlinks, image search, images, patents, singapore
Companies: vuestar technologies