Listen Up! Protect Your Rights or Else.
Damon Chang was sloppy and chose what I believe is the least restrictive Creative Commons license (Attribution Only). It is the default on Flickr but that’s no reason to be sloppy, lazy, slothful, or ignorant. Quiet simply, that’s what he was. Being ignorant of the law, contracts, agreements, etc. is again the avenue of the lazy and dumb-minded. And now he’s suing which demonstrating his litigious nature; all of which are a horrible problem in the US. And are we to believe that Chang, a film maker which he claims himself, somehow doesn’t know about rights and how they relate to creative things like photos and film? Did he forget that Justin Ho-Wee Wong, the actual photographer that took this photo, owns the rights to the photo and therefore Chang misappropriated his ownership of the photo by posting it and assigning the Creative Commons license himself?
Bull shit. I’ll concede that Wong probably happily allowed Chang to post it not thinking about the licensing terms. And Wong is probably not going to sue Chang about it given they are friends.
First, it is questioned whether Virgin Mobile appropriately attribute the photo. I’ve read and seen that there is “photo is from flickr.com/photos/chewywong” in small print at the bottom of the picture in the print ads. Linking to a profile on Flickr does give a unique identifier for him. He’s not Bruce Weber so having something better than “Photo by Damon Chang” is much better. Both his location in Fort Worth and a way to contact him with FlickrMail is in his profile. This seems reasonable to me…but then Damon misappropriated that he took the picture.
Chang waxes on about Virgin Mobile not contacting him. While that might have been a nice thing to do, its not required by law or license.
So the only interesting and questionable area in my opinion (yes, I’m a layman) was that Virgin Mobile might not have gotten permission to use the model’s image. The “model” is Chang’s niece Alison. The ad in question appeared in Australia and their laws should be considered in regards to model rights in advertisements. So regardless of the licensing mistake Damon Chang made, Alison Chang may have a case. This is discussed by the person who took a picture of the poster down in Australia.
My opinion on the rest of the Chang claims about Creative Commons having a duty to them and “breached this duty by failing, among other things, to adequately educate and warn him … of the meaning of commercial use and the ramifications and effects of entering into a license allowing such use.” Grasp…strain…waaaa…waaaa.
Bull shit.
Its plainly available at http://creativecommons.org and on Flickr. Here’s some of what was available to Chang:
- Once you upload a photo to Flickr, you can set a photo’s license with the visible and easy to see link on the right of the photo page. You can also change licensing of many photos using the batch feature on Flickr and choosing Permissions/Change licensing.
- Licensing defaults on Flickr which give links to the below.
- An easy step by step wizard.
- Clear description of the specific license Chang had.
- A section of frequently asked questions, FAQ.
The family is suing both Virgin Mobile (ok, give it a whirl) and Creative Commons. The latter is…what’s the word…come on come on…BULLSHIT. Creative Commons is innocent in this situation. They did legal research and published a no-cost license that people can freely use. Chang used it (incorrectly since he wasn’t the photographer). And now Chang wants to sue them because he’s an idiot. A film making idiot who doesn’t know about copyright and licensing yet makes films.
Several other news sites have their own comments such as The Register, WTOP, and Houston Chronicle if you’re interested.
Oh…and an update on my fourth amendment civil rights broken by the New York Police Department (NYPD). I called two law firms in Manhattan specializing in this. Both gave identical answers. Yes, my rights were probably broken and we would probably win the case. However, cost of prosecuting the case would be more than the compensation that I would receive in the judgment. It is in the NYPD’s favor to search without warrants. They can say things like, “I don’t care, I’m doing one [intrusive body search] anyways.”
So how do you cause change? You inflict pain. Its sad, but pain is still our society’s tool. We take away their money with levied fines. We take away jobs. We send people to prison. In this case though…no fines…no court action. The NYPD can continue to break our civil rights again and again and there is no court means to stop them unless I was “harmed more” like being jailed and held there for two days. The NYPD violated my fourth amendment rights and harmed me, a citizen of the US. It was small harm, but harm nevertheless.
I do have the New York Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) and they have issued complaint number 200712794. I’ll update you all with progress as I hear of it from the CCRB.
Tags: Legal, Photography, Police, Rant, Rights
