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Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

blog.ericgoldman.org

11–20 of 79 posts

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#11
post #3

Lots to comment on but this stood out: > “A lawsuit like this heightens the demand for Generative AI replacements.” Most generative AI corpora were arguably trained on copyrighted material, making the output potentially infringing.

same goes for anything you output :)

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#12
post #3

Lots to comment on but this stood out: > “A lawsuit like this heightens the demand for Generative AI replacements.” Most generative AI corpora were arguably trained on copyrighted material, making the output potentially infringing.

Ye olde double edged sword

On one hand aggressively punitive copyright claims stifle creativity and innovation in transformative art. On the other hand, generative AI reopens that transformative creativity.

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#14
> there is a dearth of evidence on the record that Messiah knowingly failed to credit the Photographer when she posted the Parker Train Photo on her blog ... Messiah merely found the Photo on Google Images by searching “army fashion,” saving the file on her computer without altering the Photo or the filename, and then publishing the Photo on her blog. She testified that at that time, she looked for a watermark, could not find one, and had no knowledge of the Photographer. She also testified that the filename, “Melvin-Sokolsky5.jpg,” was provided by the source website and she did not know it referenced the Photographer.

That’s a bit rich, isn’t it? Why did she not simply search the file name, nevermind reverse image searching the photo itself? Since when is ignorance an excuse - especially in a case like this, when claiming ignorance/negligence could easily cover for deliberate intent?

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#15
post #7

> I was struck by the fact that the blog post had 43 views. With such low stakes, how did this case make it to federal court and reach summary judgment??? Yeah, fascinating that a 43-view blog post would go all the way to the federal court like this. Surely the plaintiff often has people give up and pay because they fear the case? Otherwise the economics of chasing down copyright violations of this scale surely don't…

Years ago, like around 2000, I had a personal blog where I mentioned a local TV celebrity talking about something. The post was about 90% the topic, but in referencing the guy himself, I said something like, "this guy's cool." The local celeb had a trademarked moniker "The Car Czar," and I used it in reference to him.

I swear, on a busy week I had about 5 people reading that blog and they were all coworkers. The next day, I had a 6th visitor from Los Angeles and got excited. Who was this mysterious visitor? I found out when I opened my email and saw a C&D from Universal's lawyers saying I was abusing the trademark.

I blogged the next day, "Wtf, Universal?" and a few days later, got an email from the local celeb apologizing for the overzealous legal team. He was indeed totally cool about it.

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#16
This seems... troubling to me.

Essentially, the judge found that this qualifies as fair use because (a) publishing this with commentary is "transformative" even through "Defendants used the exact, unaltered [photo] in the blog post"; (b) "the blog post is not focused on the [photo]"; and (c) "there is no indication that [the use] impacted or has potential to impact the market or value of the Photo".

As an amateur photographer, this doesn't give me warm fuzzy feelings about posting anything I shoot online. By the reasoning here, a company (as in the commercial site here) can use my photos so long as the use is incidental and doesn't earn them too much money -- or at least impact my revenue, which is currently $0.

Heaven help me, though, should I misuse a corporation's copyrighted works, even purely personally.

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#17
post #3

Lots to comment on but this stood out: > “A lawsuit like this heightens the demand for Generative AI replacements.” Most generative AI corpora were arguably trained on copyrighted material, making the output potentially infringing.

> Most generative AI corpora were arguably trained on copyrighted material, making the output potentially infringing.

Training is not neccesarily sufficient for it to be a derrivative work, just like if you learned to draw based on famous drawings doesn't mean every single drawing you ever made is infringing.

Obviously there are cases where it could be infringing, its going to depend how close the output is to the original.

I guess it depends on how you read the post, is it saying use gen-AI to intentionally recreate the photo, something that sounds danger-zone, or are they saying use gen-ai to make some other photo suitable for purpose?

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#18
post #6
post #3

Lots to comment on but this stood out: > “A lawsuit like this heightens the demand for Generative AI replacements.” Most generative AI corpora were arguably trained on copyrighted material, making the output potentially infringing.

Except everyone who has tried to argue that in court has lost.

Has this been argued? I'd love to read some actual court decisions.

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#19
post #7

> I was struck by the fact that the blog post had 43 views. With such low stakes, how did this case make it to federal court and reach summary judgment??? Yeah, fascinating that a 43-view blog post would go all the way to the federal court like this. Surely the plaintiff often has people give up and pay because they fear the case? Otherwise the economics of chasing down copyright violations of this scale surely don't…

Economics could make sense if they outsourced the enforcement and the enforcement company gets paid regardless of how prolific the usage is. Don't know if that is what happened in this case, but seems plausible.

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#20

This seems... troubling to me. Essentially, the judge found that this qualifies as fair use because (a) publishing this with commentary is "transformative" even through "Defendants used the exact, unaltered [photo] in the blog post"; (b) "the blog post is not focused on the [photo]"; and (c) "there is no indication that [the use] impacted or has potential to impact the market or value of the Photo". As an amateur pho…

Somehow we'll all have to endure a world where you don't post your amateur photos online because you are "troubled" that you might not be able to shake down a personal stylist for incidental use on their blog.
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