'The Dress' A Year Later: The Meme Has Faded, But The Copyright Will Last Forever

from the oh-come-on dept

Have you heard? Today is the anniversary of "the dress." You know the one. It was all over the internet exactly a year ago. White and gold or blue and black. It was a phenomenon. And, yes, I know a bunch of you are snidely mocking it as you read this, but shut up. It was a fun way to kill an afternoon a year ago and it made a bunch of people happy, so don't be "that person." A year ago, we wrote a short piece about it, noting that you had fair use to thank for it, because the dress was being shared widely, and that was possible due to fair use. And the timing was great, because it was fair use week -- as it is again.

One of the points I made in that post was that it was awesome that no one even seemed to bring up the copyright question, because it was so obviously fair use that no one even bothered. Except... in an article about the anniversary, at the Guardian, it mentions that there actually was a copyright dispute about the dress. The woman who took it, Cecilia Bleasdale (who also bought and wore the dress at her daughter's wedding), apparently got upset that everyone else was getting so much attention from the dress and hired lawyers to go around demanding money for it.

It was and still is difficult for Bleasdale, who is 57, and Jinks, 47, to understand what happened, still less what they should do about it. Obviously, they had created something of immense value – though they did not know how they had created it, nor how valuable it was. As the photographer, Bleasdale owned the copyright, but at first she was neither consulted nor credited by McNeill or Buzzfeed....

[....]

... Eventually, they engaged solicitors to chase up royalty payments, but the money so far collected (including from the Guardian) has not yet paid off the solicitors’ fees....

[....]

... Legal conversations are continuing with Buzzfeed. Perhaps something good may yet emerge from them.

The article also notes that the company that made the dress, Roman Originals, that sold many, many, many, many more of them than it originally expected, offered her a free dress, but she asked them for more, and they stopped responding.

That was in mid-December -- and the story also noted that the original Buzzfeed Tumblr post that made the whole thing so viral had been taken down. But I looked as I was writing this and it's back up. And then, buried deep, deep, deep in this insane oral history of the dress (and the llamas, and a few other big events from that day), Buzzfeed admits that it bought the copyright off of Bleasdale:

Cecilia Bleasdale, the original copyright owner of the photo of The Dress, had the photo taken down over a copyright issue. Earlier this year, BuzzFeed reached an agreement with Bleasdale to acquire the rights to the photo.

But this is the fallacy of copyright in action. The idea that merely taking the picture "creates value." Note that line "they had created something of immense value." But that's wrong. It wasn't the act of photographing it that created the value. There was a happy accident in the lighting that really made the optical illusion work, and what created the value was the ability of the internet to make it viral. Taking credit for the viralness because she took the photo completely misses the point. Copyright assumes that it's solely the act of creation (a quick click of a cellphone camera button in this case) that creates all of the value. But it's not. It's the actions of so many other things, including the growth of the internet and sites like Buzzfeed, combined with social media like Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter -- and the power of all of you internet users that made the photo valuable. To go back after the fact and argue that there's a copyright issue here seems not just petty, but a perfect example of the kind of ridiculousness and "ownership" mentality that copyright creates.

Filed Under: blue and black, cecilia bleasdale, copyright, dress, fair use, licensing, memes, takedowns, viral, white and gold
Companies: buzzfeed

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: We now know the "truth" (sort of) -- which is that the dress itself really is blue and black, but thanks to the lighting and some odd visual tricks it appears white and gold to a large part of the population. For what it's worth, many people report that after a period of time it switches, and that's true for me too. Late last night I took one last look (after everyone else in my family swore that it was blue and black) and I saw it blue and black. Amusingly, at almost exactly the same time, my wife suddenly saw it as white and gold. My mother-in-law suggested we both need to seek mental help. There are fights like this going on all over the internet, with lots of people trying to decipher why this image seems to work this way. So why are we writing about it here? Because it's Fair Use Week, and what a great fair use story.

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

In our internal chat, he was also submitting additional images as he played with the image. Take, for example, this one, where he played with the brightness levels:

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

And tons of others have weighed in as well. Even software maker Adobe got into the discussion:

For those seeing #WhiteandGold in #TheDress (http://t.co/pNG9tXu5pU), @HopeTaylorPhoto ends the debate. pic.twitter.com/W7TwQJy13m

— Adobe (@Adobe) February 27, 2015

" And someone else posted a helpful video modifying it:

MT @hopetaylorphoto: #TheDress problem has been solved s/o to @Adobe and @Lightroom: pic.twitter.com/y4nzLeI2PN

— Adobe (@Adobe) February 27, 2015

Vice has an amazing story in which they present the image to a color vision expert who is so stumped he admits he may give up trying to cure blindness to devote the rest of his life to understanding the dress. The folks over at Vox both insist that the color changing can't be explained and that it can be (journalism!). The folks at Deadspin say you're all wrong and the dress is actually blue and brown. Almost all of these are using not just versions of the image, but modified ones as well, to try to demonstrate what they're talking about.

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.

Filed Under: blue and black, color, copyright, dress, fair use, memes, perception, white and gold