Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim • Hacker News Board

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#61

Post by RobotToaster » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 1:37 AM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #56

RobotToaster wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You may have heard that certain other countries "don't have Fair Use". This is facially true because they aren't common-law countries The UK is a common law country and technically doesn't have fair use. We have "fair dealing" exceptions, but these are stricter in than American fair use. This is in part because the laws originated from EU legislation which is normally written to suit Napoleonic law countries...

I don't think Fair Dealing is strict because it derives from EU law - what makes you say that? UK copyright legislation largely started with the Statute of Anne in 1810 (or thereabouts). I'm not sure we can blame the EU! Much of what we have now derives from ratification of the Berne Convention in the early part of the 20th Century. Although TRIPS also impacts things. The most recent changes to the CDPA 1988 derive f…

The fair dealing part of the CDPA was modified later to implement the EU Information Society Directive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_and_Related_Rights_R...

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#62

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 1:48 AM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #39

Hikikomori wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks more Soviet.

It should also be noted that if this was any time after 1943 or even after WWII, young men were in short supply in Soviet states. The young women's eagerness is what makes the photo interesting for modern eyes, but period eyes would understand that her eagerness is a nationwide phenomenon and a symptom of losing almost 10 million young men (10 million in uniform, in addition to the 15 million civilians dead which pre…

I think the Russians drafted a hell of a lot of young women into the Red Army, as well. They had women on the frontlines, getting shot up, as bad as the guys.

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#63

Post by pluralmonad » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:25 AM UTC

fsckboy wrote: post #47

bawolff wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That is how copyright has worked since forever. This isn't something new. Copyright is primarily about protecting your ecconomic rights (and attribution rights. In some countries also the integrity of the wo…

> Copyright is primarily about protecting your ecconomic rights no, copyright is about creating an economic right where one didn't exist before.

So mostly it is restricting natural property rights.

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#64

Post by crote » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:34 AM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #58

kmeisthax wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the judge was just reaching for an excuse to kill the lawsuit. The reason why Fair Use exists is because we have a copyright law, a First Amendment, and common-law courts that are empowered to legislate from the bench[0]. That last bit is important: everything the courts rule can potentially become new law that binds the hands of future courts. This means the court needs to be careful when issuing their rulin…

“life-ruining sums of money from legally careless bloggers” is deterrence. Don’t do the crime if you can’t .....

So what happened to the whole "no cruel and unusual punishments" thing?

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#65

Post by leephillips » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:40 AM UTC

crote wrote: post #64

leephillips wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“life-ruining sums of money from legally careless bloggers” is deterrence. Don’t do the crime if you can’t .....

So what happened to the whole "no cruel and unusual punishments" thing?

These are civil penalties. I wonder if the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments applies to the (high) statutory punitive damages. Any legal scholars want to help us out?

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#66

Post by bawolff » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 6:31 AM UTC

fsckboy wrote: post #47

bawolff wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That is how copyright has worked since forever. This isn't something new. Copyright is primarily about protecting your ecconomic rights (and attribution rights. In some countries also the integrity of the wo…

> Copyright is primarily about protecting your ecconomic rights no, copyright is about creating an economic right where one didn't exist before.

Copyright didn't come out of nothing, it largely evolved out of censorship regimes. Having copyright being about protecting authors economic rights instead of being about censorship or printer's ecconomic interests, was a huge step forward.

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#67

Post by ShinyLeftPad » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 6:32 AM UTC

dofm wrote: post #42

bawolff wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That is how copyright has worked since forever. This isn't something new. Copyright is primarily about protecting your ecconomic rights (and attribution rights. In some countries also the integrity of the wo…

> Copyright is primarily about protecting your ecconomic rights One of those economic rights, somewhat inconvenient to your argument, is charging for editorial usage. The entire function of what remains of the stock photography economy relies on the basis that usage can be billed for. Not sure how else a photographer is ever going to earn money. If we get to "it's not as if you were making money out of it before" as…

I think it is obvious that legal system is adapting to new interests of megacorps. Some time ago they were super pro copyright, but now it's a big big problem for them.

> The blog post is transformative because “the Parker Train Photo is part of a broader work as published in the blog and accompanies fashion guidance, rather than being part of an anthology of the Photographer’s work.”

It reads like it's from parallel universe

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#68

Post by bawolff » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 6:33 AM UTC

RobotToaster wrote: post #48

bawolff wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That is how copyright has worked since forever. This isn't something new. Copyright is primarily about protecting your ecconomic rights (and attribution rights. In some countries also the integrity of the wo…

>Its not meant as a way for you to fully control what happens to your creative output. Most countries deal with this under moral rights[0], but these aren't really protected in the USA. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights

Even countries with strong moral right regimes usually have quite significant limitations on what they protect. Typically its about ensuring credit and making sure the work is presented in a way that preserves its integrity. Although there is significant variation between countries.

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#69

Post by dofm » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 6:39 AM UTC

ShinyLeftPad wrote: post #67

dofm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Copyright is primarily about protecting your ecconomic rights One of those economic rights, somewhat inconvenient to your argument, is charging for editorial usage. The entire function of what remains of the stock photography economy relies on the basis that usage can be billed for. Not sure how else a photographer is ever going to earn money. If we get to "it's not as if you were making money out of it before" as…

I think it is obvious that legal system is adapting to new interests of megacorps. Some time ago they were super pro copyright, but now it's a big big problem for them. > The blog post is transformative because “the Parker Train Photo is part of a broader work as published in the blog and accompanies fashion guidance, rather than being part of an anthology of the Photographer’s work.” It reads like it's from parallel…

I know! Totally bizarre —- I think photographers' trade groups are going to have to seek some kind of clarification on that, because it's the end of the profession in the USA otherwise. Bonkers.

Re: Blogger defeats photographer's copyright claim

#70

Post by dotancohen » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 9:26 AM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #62

dotancohen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should also be noted that if this was any time after 1943 or even after WWII, young men were in short supply in Soviet states. The young women's eagerness is what makes the photo interesting for modern eyes, but period eyes would understand that her eagerness is a nationwide phenomenon and a symptom of losing almost 10 million young men (10 million in uniform, in addition to the 15 million civilians dead which pre…

I think the Russians drafted a hell of a lot of young women into the Red Army, as well. They had women on the frontlines, getting shot up, as bad as the guys.

I had absolutely no idea!

Any old Russian woman (I mostly know Russians, not many from other Soviet states) will tell of the shortage of men. I never heard of the women on the front lines, I'll ask about that. I'm afraid we don't have much time to learn these things any more.