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UK citizens may soon need licenses to photograph some stuff they already own

arstechnica.com

21–30 of 138 posts

Re: UK citizens may soon need licenses to photograph some stuff they already own

#21
I understand the reasoning of the UK government as follows:

It's important to preserve soul and essence of things. When you photograph someone, you take part of their soul; similarly, when you photograph an object, you take part of its essence. The modern technologies created lot of soul-less people and essence-less things; to restore the world to its former magical beauty, we need more protection against soul- and essence-taking.

Now, I am not an expert in psychology of governments, but the UK empire is actually quite old. We have to consider the possibility that it may be getting senile.

Re: UK citizens may soon need licenses to photograph some stuff they already own

#22
It's just what happens when most of the policies are made up by 'sponsored' lobbies -- the ones with the deep pockets.

It's completely bonkers really, most of the decisions that people care about are made up in a gray area that doesn't involve them at all; you got an office somewhere making up policies straight out of briefs they've been fed by lobbies (who feeds it to every party too, just in case)

A good recent example is Heathrow's third runway. Despite millions of people living underneath, well, someone somewhere made a 'study' that 'proves' it's a good idea, so despite the fact it impacts millions of people -- in fact, millions of the most influential and rich people in the country even (London and the Thames Valley) well, it's likely to go ahead anyway...

Re: UK citizens may soon need licenses to photograph some stuff they already own

#23
I have not read the laws but mostly likely this applied to commercial use already for years and they wanted it applied to private use.

However, it's a racket. To give an example, the happy birthday song is illegal to 'broadcast without permission of copyright holders'. But, the restaurant owner can buy a license from a copyright group for a fee.

Second example; Imagine being a school and dealing with students who submit assignments with copyrighted content. It's illegal to accept such submissions without approval. So, all schools usually have to pay for a license from copyright groups (Music, photography, video, etc).

Here's a really good article on it from Australia: http://insidestory.org.au/the-copyright-cops/ (Most, if not all copyright groups in Australia are Hollywood-based).

Here's a copyright group website: http://www.musicrights.com.au/fact-sheets/usingmusicinschool...

> How do I know if I am doing the right thing at school?

> To make using music in schools easier, there are a number of licences in place between copyright owners and schools. These are set out at the end of this Guide. A reference to (Licence # ) is a reference to the licence applicable in each instance.

Re: UK citizens may soon need licenses to photograph some stuff they already own

#24
DMCA has been used to accomplish this in the US. A man who took a photo of a star wars action figure he had bought got issued take down requests for the photos. Also relevant is that the figurine was apparently accidentally sold ahead of schedule, but still.

Re: UK citizens may soon need licenses to photograph some stuff they already own

#25

A lot of technologists here have certain dreams or aspirations they want to see materialized in their lifetimes. AGI, transhumanism, space colonization, etc. My dream is that I hope to see the emergence of a viable minarchist or anarchist society (beyond Mennonite and kibbutzim arrangements). Thus far the closest was a brief period of Catalonian history amidst a civil war.

I don't think there is still a single communal kibbutz left in Israel they all pretty much adopted capitalism and privatized their industry.

They originated more out of necessity than out of ideology (not to say that it didn't play a big part in it) as the lack of resources of the early Jewish settlers and the overall lack of development of most of the land pretty much mandated it.

I still have yet to see a viable example of a large scale communist society and I do not think one exists, communism eventually dwindles down to planned economics which pretty much kill everything. Even if you do get to the point where scarcity especially of all basic goods is non-existent at best you'll end up with Star Trek like meritocracy, and considering that scarcity would always exists at some point regardless of technological advancement I'm not even sure how much of that is achievable.

So you can clothe, feed, and keep your entire population healthy with ease using technology that's great, but as you became that advanced you also want to do other things and one thing would always hold true you will have limited resources even if your only bottleneck is time and the production capacity of your replicators which is also why I think Star Trek is pretty much a pipe dream. Eventually you'll have to decide if you want to produce food or built another Enterprise and if it's not your own family who's going to be left hungry you'll more likely than not choose to make another Enterprise than to provide blankets to the folks on the 3rd moon of Endor (and yes i know exactly what i did there ;)).

Re: UK citizens may soon need licenses to photograph some stuff they already own

#26
post #23

I have not read the laws but mostly likely this applied to commercial use already for years and they wanted it applied to private use. However, it's a racket. To give an example, the happy birthday song is illegal to 'broadcast without permission of copyright holders'. But, the restaurant owner can buy a license from a copyright group for a fee. Second example; Imagine being a school and dealing with students who sub…

I see your references are Australian, so the rules there may be different but I'd like to clarify the rules in force in the UK around your second example. According to the Copyright Act 1988 there is the idea of fair use / fair dealing, which extends to the type of academic activity you highlight. This means it is not an infringement of copyright and no notification or license is required.

https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p27_work_of_oth...

Re: UK citizens may soon need licenses to photograph some stuff they already own

#27

Won't this severely affect movies and television? I imagine a huge number of movies and television shows have at least some piece from a classic designer and I can't imagine Hollywood is going to track down who owns the licensing rights for every set piece, building, article of clothing, etc. ahead of time just to show it in the UK.

If you see a designed object in a movie the brand owner will have paid to put it there. That's why films have all Samsung devices or all Apple devices, all Mercedes or all BMW cars, all Armani wardrobes or all some other designer, and so on. Brands pay millions to be seen on screen. Hollywood knows how to tap every imaginable source of money.

Re: UK citizens may soon need licenses to photograph some stuff they already own

#28
This sounds like it'd run counter to the requirements of sellers to provide clear pictures of the products they're selling, and gives an opportunity for scammers to weasel around them by referring to this ridiculous law. What's next, illegal to describe something you own without license?

Re: UK citizens may soon need licenses to photograph some stuff they already own

#30
post #23

I have not read the laws but mostly likely this applied to commercial use already for years and they wanted it applied to private use. However, it's a racket. To give an example, the happy birthday song is illegal to 'broadcast without permission of copyright holders'. But, the restaurant owner can buy a license from a copyright group for a fee. Second example; Imagine being a school and dealing with students who sub…

I see your references are Australian, so the rules there may be different but I'd like to clarify the rules in force in the UK around your second example. According to the Copyright Act 1988 there is the idea of fair use / fair dealing, which extends to the type of academic activity you highlight. This means it is not an infringement of copyright and no notification or license is required. https://www.copyrightservic…

And even then UK fair dealing is much more restrictive than US fair use.
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