Julianna Yau’s blog

I received the following email from Schmap.com today:

You’ve been sent a Flickr Mail from Emma J. Williams:

————————————————————

:: Schmap: Paris Photo Shortlist

Hi Julianna,

I am writing to let you know that three of your photos have been short-listed for inclusion in the eighth edition of our Schmap Paris Guide, to be published at the end of this month.

http://www.schmap.com/shortlist/[code removed]

Clicking this link will take you to a page where you can:
i) See which of your photos have been short-listed.
ii) Submit or withdraw your photos from our final selection phase.
iii) Learn how we credit photos in our Schmap Guides.
iv) Browse online or download the seventh edition of our Schmap Paris Guide.

While we offer no payment for publication, many photographers are pleased to submit their photos, as Schmap Guides give their work recognition and wide exposure, and are free of charge to readers. Photos are published at a maximum width of 150 pixels, are clearly attributed, and link to high-resolution originals at Flickr.

Our submission deadline is Friday, July 17. If you happen to be reading this message after this date, please still click on the link above (our Schmap Guides are updated frequently - photos submitted after this deadline will be considered for later releases).

Best regards,

Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides
www.schmap.me/ewilliams

I wasn't very interested in the offer to begin with, but thought I'd at least take a look to see what the terms are, and which pictures they were interested in.

I don't consider those to be any of my better pictures from Paris, so I'm a bit surprised they made it onto a shortlist. The TOS are pretty standard, but notably has some good wording about the images not being sublicensed and the photographer being credited for the photo.

TERMS OF SUBMISSION

THESE TERMS OF SUBMISSION (THE “TERMS”) REPRESENT A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU, EITHER AN INDIVIDUAL PERSON OR A SINGLE LEGAL ENTITY (“YOU”), AND SCHMAP, INC. (“SCHMAP”). BY CLICKING THE “SUBMIT” BUTTON, YOU CONFIRM YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS.

1. PHOTOS
The term "Photos" refers to one or more photographs and/or images licensed by You to Schmap pursuant to the Terms.

2. LICENSE GRANT
Subject to the terms and conditions herein, You hereby grant Schmap a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual license to include the Photos in the current and/or subsequent releases of Schmap's destination/local guides.

3. FAIR USE RIGHTS
Nothing in these Terms is intended to reduce, limit, or restrict any rights arising from fair use, first sale or other limitations on the exclusive rights of the copyright owner under copyright law or other applicable laws.

4. LIMITATIONS
The license granted in Section 2 above is made subject to and limited by the following express limitations:

(a) Schmap may only distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, and/or publicly perform the Photos pursuant to the Terms.

(b) Schmap shall be required to keep intact all copyright notices for the Photos and provide, reasonable to the medium or means of utilization, the name of the original author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, for attribution in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means, and a credit (implemented in any reasonable manner) identifying the use of the Photos in any derivative Photos created by Schmap.

(c) Schmap shall, to the extent reasonably practicable, provide Internet link(s) to your Photos.

(d) Schmap shall not sublicense the Photos.

(e) Schmap shall indicate to the public that You reserve all rights with respect to use of the Photos.

(f) Schmap shall continue to make its destination/local guides available at no cost to end users.

(g) Schmap shall display the Photos at a maximum width of 150 pixels.

5. RIGHTS
You confirm that You own or otherwise control all of the rights to the Photos and that use of the Photos by Schmap will not infringe or violate the rights of any third parties.

6. NO OBLIGATION
Schmap shall have no obligation whatsoever to reproduce, distribute, broadcast, or otherwise make use of the Photos licensed by You to Schmap hereunder.

7. NO AFFILIATION
While the Flickr website and/or Flickr API have been used to short-list your Photos, Schmap claims no affiliation or partnership with Flickr.

8. MISCELLANEOUS
If any provision of the Terms is ruled unenforceable, such provision shall be enforced to the extent permissible, and the remainder of the Terms shall remain in effect. The Terms constitute the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the Photos licensed hereunder. There are no understandings, agreements or representations with respect to the Photos not specified hereunder. If there is any dispute about or involving the Terms or the license granted hereunder, You agree that such dispute shall be governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to its conflict-of-law provisions. You agree to personal jurisdiction by and venue in the state and federal courts of the State of California, City of San Francisco. The license granted in the Terms may not be modified without the mutual written agreement of You and Schmap.

I don't understand how my images were selected for this project, because most of my Flickr photos, including those shortlisted, are still traditionally licenced; only a small selection of them have a Creative Commons license.

Although a few people have told me that they've also received these invites from Schmap and have allowed them to use their images, I have withdrawn my photos from their shortlist. I totally agree with this post on Thought Bubbles about Schmap, and can't help but allow my history with copyright to inform my decision. This business model (particularly considering that they didn't filter for photos that people have licenced with Creative Commons) uses photos without payment to enhance profit for their company -- not cool. Of course, Google's business model is also in that murky grey area, but a little differently. I'd argue that their image search doesn't use photos in the same way because I've never noticed any ads [yet] on their image search results.

There are tons of people who will give you "free" exposure online and offline. But most of the time, it's not worth what you're being "paid".

Incidentally, I went through my pictures and found a handful which I consider to be much better than the ones they selected:

I’ve been fairly quiet in the past few weeks because I’ve been switching to another server, but the DNS settings have been taking a ridiculously long time to resolve. Keeping the files and databases synced on two servers is a lot more work than I’m prepared to handle right now, with some of the other things I’ve got on my plate. This means I’ve missed the whole Facebook TOS media storm, and haven’t been keeping up with the various Net Neutrality issues in Canada or the “guilty on accusation law” being proposed in New Zealand.

What I couldn’t resist blogging about is something as frivolous as a meme. Only it’s not so frivolous because it hits my pet topic: copyright.

This is the original version of the rock band meme instructions sent to me on Facebook:

This project requires following the instructions below and maybe reading them carefully to understand.

1 – Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 – Go to “Random quotations”
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 – Use photoshop, picasa, or similar to put it all together.

5 – Post it with this text in the “caption” and TAG the friends you want to join in.

Of course, instruction #3 is where I have major concerns. Not all content on Flickr is licensed for use in this kind of meme. So here is my resulting album cover and revised instructions for step 3:

3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
The first image which has a Creative Commons licence which allows remixing will be your album cover.

Explorornis

Photo by aftab

Grace Wescott will be presenting Fan Fiction, Parody and Digital Civility: Getting to Fair at the next ALAI meeting in Toronto, on September 30th from noon to 2pm. I know Grace through The Centre for Innovation Law & Policy, and am very excited to hear her presentation!

Toronto Luncheon Meeting
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Fan Fiction, Parody and Digital Civility: Getting to Fair

Speaker: Grace Westcott
Grace Westcott is a lawyer in private practice focusing on copyright policy, the Vice Chair of the Canadian Copyright Institute and a fan of fiction.

12 noon – Lunch
12:20 pm – Roundtable introductions
12:30 – 1:45 pm – Presentation and discussion

Place:
Access Copyright boardroom
Toronto Star Building
Suite 800
1 Yonge Street
Toronto

Cost:
Non-members – $30.00
Members – $25.00
Creators – $20.00

Cheques should be made payable to the Canadian Literary and Artistic Association and may be brought to the meeting or sent in advance to ALAI Canada, c/o Hebb & Sheffer, Suite 304, 250 Merton Street, Toronto M4S 1B1.

Please notify us by email of your attendance or any cancellation to rita@hebbsheffer.ca by noon on Thursday, September 25.

This is old news in blog terms, but I just found out about it. Stephanie Meyer is the author of the Twilight series of vampire novels for teens. A draft of her latest book, Midnight Sun, was leaked onto the internet without her permission. According to her blog entry on her website from August 28, she’s fairly certain she knows who leaked it because “there were very few copies of Midnight Sun that left [her] possession and each was unique”.

Meyer has decided to postpone the novel indefinitely because of this, and I wholeheartedly support her decision. I was told about this by someone who is a fan of her work, and she’s absolutely devistated. Meyer was also good enough to her fans to offer her own draft of the novel on her website so that fans can read an authorized draft without having to choose between their loyalty to Meyer’s rights as a writer and the desire to read what they can of the novel.

Without more responses like Meyer’s to copyright infringement (even if it isn’t being done maliciously), I don’t think people will ever understand its impact on the creator. Although the world of instant publishing may not be sympathetic to it, there are still some creators who put effort into getting their work as close to perfection as possible. Unfinished works are like gestating animals—they simply aren’t ready for the world yet. Throw in the complication of someone else forcing it out and…well…you can figure that out yourself ;)

I’ve been away from the copyright game for a while, so I thought it would be useful for me to reorganize some of my thoughts:

• Not all creators are equal. Their skill sets are different, their creations are different and their needs are different.
• Technology is always changing. Media and styles of creative output are always changing. A Copyright Act which speaks too specifically to technology or media (the direction toward which we seem to be headed) will always need revision and always cause problems.
• Availability of business models and intrinsic rights are not the same thing. Within reason, the business model used by a creator or business associates should not be limited by legislation. (Within reason being not in violation of human rights, anti-trust, anti-competition, etc). More specifically (and I expect an onslaught of disagreement on this, but I stand by it), a company should be free to use DRM if they choose to, and consumers are free to not buy products with DRM if they choose to. Companies use it because we still buy the product. There is no better protest than not buying their product. That being said, I don’t support the use of DRM (see the chapter “Speed Bump” in Wired Shut for why).
• The all-rights-reserved vs a-Creative-Commons-licence model gives creators their choice of how they want their work used. What we need is better definition of fair use, not more legislated exemptions and conditions.
• With new technologies for making capturing and duplicating easier and less expensive for everyone, the concept of what is being purchased and why needs serious reconsideration.

What I think is needed:

• We need a simpler Copyright Act, not a longer one. (Sadly, see Digital Copyright by Jessica Litman for why that will probably never become a reality)
• We need better public education on copyright, so that we don’t need to resort to a copyright slide ruler to figure it out. This, of course, would be easier to accomplish if the Copyright Act were simpler.
• We need better public education on art and the workings of the creative industries. As I noted before, people are shocked when they find out how much an artist actually gets from the sale of their work. In 2004, the average total income of an artist from all sources was $23,500. In 2005, the median income in Canada for all occupations was $41,401. Although average and median aren’t the same thing, and there is a year’s difference in the numbers, it’s still discouraging.
• We need to define sampling versus stealing
• We need to differentiate advertising and working for free
• We need to remember the creator

Surely everyone has seen William Patry’s final blog post. While many (e.g. Russell McOrmond, Howard Knopf, Ars Technica, Georgia Harper) are lamenting the end, Michael Geist is being very optimistic about the state of copyright in Canada.

Geist contacted me on Facebook (because the CAPTCHA on my blog wasn’t working for him) to clarify that he is not directly involved with the work done by the Vancouver branch of Fair Copyright for Canada or the BC Civil LIberties Association. There, too, he was positive about the work being done by the Fair Copyright for Canada groups (in response to my admittedly bitter characterization of the groups as mobs), and I was all but completely pessimistic and jadded.

Perhaps, as I told Geist, the work being done by the Fair Copyright for Canada groups is more legitimate than the “we deserve free stuff” attitude of many of the early wall-posters on the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group. But having removed myself from watching it progress, I wonder how much the lobbying is fair mostly for consumers rather than fair for all. As someone (I don’t remember who) already pointed out, finding a completely impartial party on the issue of copyright is nearly impossible.

This blog is less than a year old, my contribution to the copyright conversation is vastly less than Patry’s, and I’ve already reached the point where I have to seriously consider whether to continue in the direction this blog has been headed. While this is a good a time as any for me to air out my thoughts, this has been on my mind for a couple of months now.

My inital interest in copyright was purely academic, and I felt responsible for joining the political activity because few other creators were a part of it—and now I know why. The demands of keeping up with the Jonses (and the Giests, and the McOrmonds, and the Knopfs, and the Trosows) are almost impossible to fulfill when someone has a full-time job, a part-time job and a handful of volunteer commitments—as is the case for most creators (including myself).

I have never been built for being in the thick of political drama (in fact, that’s even one of the few genres of film which is unable to even secure my attention), and the past few months have confirmed that for me. It’s a good thing I never want celebrity (I’ll settle for fortune without the fame ;)), because I’m much more suited for a life behind the scenes. So I’m going to back off the politics before my fiestiness gets me into trouble, and settle back into the academic study of copyright I prefer and for which I’m better suited. I’m not sure what that means for this blog, but I’ll still be around.

I started to test Postalicious for Word Press, but it didn’t work yesterday. Here are the links I tried to post, and keep your fingers crossed for it working tonight!

• Judge: posting shock jock clip to the web is “fair use” – Copyright meets censorship and politics again
• Patent Office finds voice, calls for software patent sanity
• Privacy for the next decade, not next week
• A new era in defining and applying fair use norms – Tackling fair use from a different angle
• Why scholarship around digital copyright needs ethnography – Re-thinking the approach to digital copyright
• FreeDocumentaries.org – Free indie documentaries. Sweet.
• Google’s problem with permission – John Degen asks “Why didn’t Google talk to writers and publishers before they started scanning?”
• Legal Torrents – Finally, someone trying to get ahead of the game. Via MAKE blog.
• Howard Knopf: Is Torture by Music a “Performance in Public”? Also see Suzanne G. Cusick’s paper on Music as torture / Music as weapon and Knopf’s follow-up.
• Nintendo no friend of homebrew market, sues DS cart makers

I’m getting closer to that magical number of 0 unread blog posts. I’ve brought the number down from 1000+ to 233 (but will probably jump back to 500 tomorrow). Here are some more highlights:

• Apparently, one-third of us copy DVDs. While this may be part of the reason for declining DVD sales, I suspect services like Netflix, Zip.ca and iTunes are part of it too.
• Counterfeit Chic on the complications of knitted characters
• Senate Considers Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008
• John Degen on “free” vs “free”
• John Degen points to Grace Wescott‘s excellent essay Friction over Fan Fiction. Particularly of note is her summary of fan fiction’s possible impact on the value of authors licensing subsidiary rights. (disclosure: I know both John and Grace offline)

There’s also a ton of stuff on ArsTechnica, and just doesn’t make sense for me to link to all of it here. If you’re curious about which I liked, check out my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia. I didn’t tag them with Ars, so it’s everything bookmarked today from “Bell’s P2P traffic issues “easily and inexpensively solved”" to “DRM still sucks: Yahoo Music going dark, taking keys with it”. I found another possible Ma.gnolia plugin for WordPress and will be testing it soonish so that I don’t have to duplicate bookmarking and linking efforts.

My studio is finally functional again, and I spent the last weekend working with the Communications Coordinator at CARFAC Ontario to completely redesign our website. This weekend, I am determined to get much sculpting done and finally get caught up with my blog reading.

Copyright

• Canadian Conference of the Arts: Bill C-61 – The Devil is in the Details: Revisions to the Copyright Act Finally Unveiled
• Canada Conference of the Arts:  Copyright Reform: from balancing competing interest to establishing a market-place approach to rights?
• Digital copyright: it’s all wrong (Australia)
• Quebec court orders popular downloading website to shut down
• Chinese village masters the art of reproduction
• EBay not responsible for phoney merchandise, court rules
• NDP candidate to make copyright a byelection issue in Guelph, Ont.

Art

• Art Gets Entrepreneurial
• Staff puzzled by National Gallery chief curator’s sudden exit
• Macedonian dig turns up ancient Venus marble
• Czech artists who staged fake blast could face new trial
• NYC implements new rules for film shoots

My studio is very close to completion, and I’m struggling to catch up on my emails and blogs. Here are some things that have been sitting around for weeks (with, according to Google Reader, 1000+ posts to be read):

Conferences

• Presentations from the conference on Education, Culture and the Knowledge Economy are available online (my notes are still sitting on my EeePC)
• Session materials from the Technology in the Arts Conference are also available (my notes here)

Copyright – Canada

• Not all sides are represented in debate on copyright bill
• Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights Letter Wizard for C-61 Updated To Include Hardcopies & Personalization, plus their summary of media reactions
• CBC’s Search Engine Copyright Quiz: “what if I ________: is that illegal?”

Orphan Works bill in the US

• The Art Newspaper on the Orphan Works bill
• Counterfeit Chic on the Orphan Works bill

C-10

• Alberta considers tax credits for film production

• Arts subsidies ­– Why do we need them?

Tech

• NDP calls for net neutrality

• Bill C-555