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This Photograph Is Not Free

petapixel.com

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Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#151

Post by jonknee »

dchest wrote: post #139
smackfu wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the comments are fine, because the entire premise of the blog post is wrong. He should be paid because his skill as a photographer is worth money, not because he paid for a lot of expensive equipment.

He should be paid because he demands payment. This is a valid thing to do according to current laws, which allow authors to control the distribution of their "intellectual work" on author's terms (with some exceptions). Both author's skills and the cost of equipment are irrelevant . If the author decides that the cost of equipment is the pricing factor, it's his or her right. The comments here mostly point out that t…

He was also complaining about people asking for his photos for free. That has nothing to do with the law.

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#152

Post by Confusion »

mibbitor wrote: post #130
parfe wrote: post #121

Well the comments here terribly disappoint me. Clearly the photographer wants to be paid as a professional, just like anyone else here. The author should not have included any monetary figure in the article as doing so brings down the wrath of a thousand pedants with pocket calculators proving he overcharges and overvalues his work. So many people here seem to think they somehow "got him" on some straw-man price-poin…

A webapp is run as a service. You're charging people for a service you provide. That makes it very hard to copy. A photo isn't a service. It's a collection of bytes that is trivial to copy. If you want to make money as a photographer, you need to structure it in a way that means it's hard to copy. But these days, anyone can take pro quality photos with minimal talent. If he's an exceptional photographer, he should be…

You know, it is pretty easy to kill someone. That doesn't mean it's morally acceptable, let alone legal. It doesn't matter how easy it is to copy the photograph. It's still not morally acceptable or legal.

As to your second argument, that 'anyone can take pro quality photos with minimal talent': image quality isn't all that counts. In fact, it's substantially less important than composing a good photograph in the first place. Someone with a little experience can take much better photographs with a $200 camera than someone unexperienced can with a $1200 camera.

Taking good photographs is as hard as it always was. It's about artistic composition, about knowing your tools, about having enough to experience to take the shot. Ask an amateur photographer friend whether he thinks he can easily reproduce this photo. Those in my vicinity all tell me they can't. Firstly, their equipment is insufficient. A $900 DSLR won't cut it and they don't have those filters. Secondly, they would never have thought of doing it this way, with these tools. Anyone can copy. This guy has done original work. How many people have enough experience with this $200 filter to know it would be perfect for this shot?

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#153

Post by Suncho »

wladimir wrote: post #116
Suncho wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a world where, due to the continuous advancement of technological efficiency and the resulting elimintation of jobs, it's becoming increasingly ridiculous to expect people to work for a living. Society no longer needs contributions from everyone. When you get to the point where what you do on a day-to-day basis is no longer directly tied to your livelihood, what will you do? As the number of ways in which a…

I tend to agree, though this kind of reasoning followed through leads to very nasty conclusions. A fully automated world could eliminate most people, eventually, seeing them as parasites and freeloaders, but who would want to live in that? People can still contribute in lots of ways which are severely under-appreciated by the capitalist system but appreciated by other people. There will hopefully be a point at which…

I don't think you're a hopeless idealist. In fact, I'm with you. I fully believe that we're headed toward a world in which most people are sitting around all day doing the equivalent of playing World of Warcraft. But that's not a bad thing. Where others might see freeloaders and parasites, I see potential. Give everyone the opportunity to do something meaningful and some of them will. And some of those meaningful contributions might not be anything any of us ever dreamed of paying for.

The point of automation is to take care of the easy stuff, which allows us to focus on the cool stuff. I know for a fact that there are individuals out there who, even if their livelihood is taken care of, will still want to push the human race forward.

No nasty conclusions. =)

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#154

Post by lux »

parfe wrote: post #121

Well the comments here terribly disappoint me. Clearly the photographer wants to be paid as a professional, just like anyone else here. The author should not have included any monetary figure in the article as doing so brings down the wrath of a thousand pedants with pocket calculators proving he overcharges and overvalues his work. So many people here seem to think they somehow "got him" on some straw-man price-poin…

Adding to that, he's not saying he'll only license it for $6,000+, just not for free or for "credit" or exposure.

As for only charging for your expertise, use of equipment/software, and time are also things businesses legitimately charge for, so it's fair to factor those into your value as well. It may not be the best way to assess the worth of your work, but it is a part of it.

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#155

Post by gph »

dextorious wrote: post #107
jdietrich wrote: post #48

The machinery needed to produce a ballpoint pen costs the best part of $10m. A ballpoint pen costs 20 cents. Cameras are expensive. Photographs are almost worthless. Supply utterly outstrips demand, especially for shots like landscapes that have great appeal for amateur photographers but little commercial utility. Ten years ago, you could name every paparazzo working in London. They were a small circle of time-served…

"""Cameras are expensive. Photographs are almost worthless. Supply utterly outstrips demand, especially for shots like landscapes that have great appeal for amateur photographers but little commercial utility.""" Really? Then the photographer could say: if that's so, go use ANOTHER picture, because I don't fu *n supply mine. You can't have it both ways, i.e the picture is worthless AND I still insist on using it.

True, but at the same time you shouldn't be hosting your pictures on the internet where anyone can copy it if you want to charge money for it. And you shouldn't let your customers either.

If I was to place some proprietary code on a public git, or just display it on my public webpage, should I get angry if people take it and don't pay me for it? Same with music, if you place it on the internet expect it to be out there. That's the nature of the medium. And trying to fight that is stupid, even if you are deserving of compensation.

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#156

Post by alfbolide »

Works of art can have a monetary value - there is something called art market. The value is determined by how much buyers are willing to pay as well as how much the sellers are willing to sell. The monetary value of a copy of this low resolution jpeg file can only be determined by the market value. You can't use replacement value to charge theft, because when someone "steal" it from the internet, they always copy it, you don't lose your origin one and thus no replacement is needed.

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#158

Post by mkr-hn »

mibbitor wrote: post #124
SquareWheel wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And once one person uses the photo, all other copies of it need to be deleted.

A friend told me a bizarre story... His local library also allows you to borrow eBooks. Apparently they work by "expiring" after some time limit. He went in to borrow an eBook, but the librarian said "Oh I'm sorry, that copy is currently on loan at the moment". Kinda defeats the whole point of things being digital...

I would happily accept that limitation if O'Reilly made all its books available with the local library's eBook lending system. The local library system takes its limited funding and prioritizes variety over recency.

It's great if you're doing a research paper on something non-technical, but not so great if you want a current book on anything relating to computers. Even quantity-limited eBooks would solve that.

Re: This Photograph Is Not Free

#159

Post by chubbard »

The money figure doesn't matter. We could quibble over the dollar amount or the fact that even if I had all that great equipment I couldn't reproduce the photo myself. All of those pedantic arguments don't matter. The Intellectual Property value of the photo does.

I think we've reached(-ing) the point where freedom for all to publish isn't as magical as it was 5 or 10 years ago. Democracy of publishing is giving away to Capitalism of publishing. The new killer app isn't enabling people to publish or get exposure. It's a platform for getting people paid for their time and skills.

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