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

arstechnica.com

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

#81

Post by buserror »

djhn wrote: post #76
buserror wrote: post #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 exa…

Any good links on the Heathrow vs. Gatwick campaigning and lobbying effort?

There are quite a few articles about the report ([0] for one of many of them) -- the lobbying efforts themselves are not generally made public anyway, but heathrow hasn't been particularly subtle about it -- It's at least the third or perhaps fourth 'consultation' on the subject. When it get refused, they just try again a bit later.

However there are concerted efforts to buy/silence the people most affected -- there's a proposal to buy houses are significantly over the market price for example for people 'most affected' -- however there is no mention of the millions of others in a circle of 15+ miles that are also affected.... let alone the fact they can't just collectively say 'no' like you'd expect in a democracy, for example.

[0] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ad2918a4-6972-11e4-9f65-00144feabd...

Disclaimer: Beside the fact that I'm affected by this particular topic, I'm not an expert on it. The industry lobbying applies to many other topics tho, like planning permissions etc.

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

#82

Post by snsr »

im2w1l wrote: post #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.

I was reminded of that incident as well.

I think it's also worth noting that this was an illegal use of the DMCA. I'm of the mind that there should be liability for claimants knowingly misusing the DMCA to censor others.

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

#83

Post by panglott »

im2w1l wrote: post #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.

The difference is that in the US, if it was a picture he took himself, he was the actual owner of the copyright. The complaint was in the wrong if they simply confused their image with his.

It is unfair, but based on the inequality of legal resources, not because some third party owns a copyright on a picture that you take yourself.

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

#84

Post by robk »

buserror wrote: post #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 exa…

There are also millions of us who would rather fly Heathrow over other local airports and support the expansion. This isn't all astroturfed support you know.

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

#85

Post by ptaipale »

wildefyr wrote: post #3

Yet again I am ashamed of my government.

I think you don't need to be, because it seems arstechnica is misrepresenting the proposed change.

This kind of sensationalist activism is all too common, but my understanding is similar to blowski's above:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10730178

not about photographing, but about publishing, particularly in commercial purpose, pictures of actual works of art.

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

#86

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

js8 wrote: post #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 e…

The UK is a leading member of the Church of Capitalism, so "soul" actually means "ability to profit from."

When you photograph a cultural object, profiting from it without the creator's permission is very, very sinful, and an outrageous attack on the concept of Eternal Profitability and Financial Immortality.

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

#87

Post by briandear »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #60
simonh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact for example Apple has confirmed repeatedly for many years that they don't pay for product placement.

They do pay, but they pay in hardware. They have dedicated staff to promote product placement and according to a Hollywood movie maker, "Apple won’t pay to have their products featured, but they are more than willing to hand out an endless amount of computers, iPads, and iPhones". It is actually a very unethical practice if you think about it in monetary terms. Rather than paying the film company above the table like…

That's not any more unethical than Bacardi showing up at a bar and handing out Bacardi shirts for the staff and free rum to the patrons.

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

#88

Post by Olap84 »

roywiggins wrote: post #5
WalterBright wrote: post #4

This may run head on into the ubiquitous surveillance state. After all, you can how prevent anyone from legally photographing you if you wear some classic designer objects.

It'll end up being enforced on publication, I'd guess. So if you photograph an object and publish the picture, someone can come after you for money. Or, in this case, if you published a book last year, they can sue you for distributing it. Which is insane, but that's what you get with retroactive copyright extensions. Nobody actually cares whether you took the photograph, it's whether you published it.

But when you can request a copy of a cctv video, does that not become publishing? Seems very wooly to me.

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

#89

Post by buserror »

robk wrote: post #84
buserror wrote: post #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 exa…

There are also millions of us who would rather fly Heathrow over other local airports and support the expansion. This isn't all astroturfed support you know.

Oh, by local you mean you don't live in Windsor, Datchet or any of the other places directly under the flightpath then, where you can't actually /talk/ outside because there is a plane every 30 seconds? And these aren't even the closest to the airport.

Oh and as for takeoff, it's and even larger area as the planes don't climb before making their turn, they climb /after/ turning over 20+ miles of densely populated area to save fuel.

Oh and there's night flights, so forget it if you want to open a bedroom window in the summer...

Quite frankly, I wouldn't mind going to gatwick, personally.

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

#90

Post by brlewis »

panglott wrote: post #83
im2w1l wrote: post #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.

The difference is that in the US, if it was a picture he took himself, he was the actual owner of the copyright. The complaint was in the wrong if they simply confused their image with his. It is unfair, but based on the inequality of legal resources, not because some third party owns a copyright on a picture that you take yourself.

They would argue that the photograph was a work derived from the creative work of the figurine.
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