Why You Should Never Lose Your Digital Media 671
kkrista writes "What would you do if you found someone's digital media card from their camera in your taxi? One such individual has decided to provide the world with 227 days of entertainment. I Found Some Of Your Life will post a photo a day and accompanying fictional narrative for the next 227 days using the photos found on a digital media card left in a cab. Is it pure genius or pure evil? Who cares? Just be thankful they're not your photos."
Keep in mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Presumed copyright (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually it's purely illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
However this is also a case of copyright infringement. Works are automatically copyright to you upon creation, no registration is required. So these photos are the copyright of whomever shot them. To post them on the Internet without their permission is infringement.
If I was the person who this happened to, I'd go after the blogger with a vengence. Instead of being a good citizen and either handing it over to the police or trying to track me down and instead of just being neutral, and leaving it, they decided to be malicious.
Personally, I hope they go to jail.
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:5, Insightful)
If you found someone's driver's wallet with their driver's license and credit cards, would you go ahead and impersonate them or steal their identity? It would be an identity theft - in some ways, I think that is exactly what this guy is doing.
I shudder to think what will happen if the real guy finds out. I for one know that if my pics were put up on the net - I would certainly get very mad, very pissed and would sue this guy to kingdom come.
Leave the fun and coolness part of it - it's just not quite right, it's unethical and wrong. I do not know about anybody else, but in my book what this guy is doing is simply wrong.
Evil... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:4, Insightful)
Either (a) it's a hoax, or (b) the author doesn't realize this is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:4, Insightful)
No, and neither is this guy... he has there, for all to see, the disclaimer that this is all 'MADE UP', that what is being said is not the truth.
It's almost as if the card was meant to be left there, what with exactly one year of photos on it... almost like it was an arts project.
Or not.
It is amusing though... and from what I've seen, there's nothing there to be really worried about if they were your photos. Plus, he's now got them on the net in a professional manner for his friends to see. (and it's not like he could get off his arse to do so himself if there was a year's worth of shots on there)
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:2, Insightful)
Even on an ethical level, many people post personal pictures on a website/blog, though I don't think they go around impersonating themselves or others.
Illegal? Probably not. Immoral? Maybe. A cruel or at least embarressing joke? Yes. Made me laugh
Not at all (Score:4, Insightful)
This is one of the things that bugs me about
No, it isn't.
It's the same as the physical world and goes back to basic kindergarden eithics: "Don't touch what isn't yours without the permission of who it belongs to." This is as true for vitrual stuff as physical stuff. It isn't any more legal or morally justified to steal a CF card and publish the pictures than it is to steal a wallet and use the cash to buy yourself stuff.
Even if you don't believe in copyright, you can hardly justify the theft of the card. That's real, physical property and they deprived the owner of it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolute Scumbags (Score:3, Insightful)
I would do what I would expect any decent person to do....give it to the driver and tell him someone left this behind. I can't image the sense of violation the owner will feel once identified. The scumbags putting these up for the world to see will face civil culpability almost certainly. IMHO they also belong behind bars, but I doubt this will happen. Now I eagerly await the flurry of posts along the lines of "Hey, they forgot the memory card so they deserve their private photos posted on the internet". This is Slashdot after all.
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:4, Insightful)
Huge copyright issues and no fair use at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
His advice was pretty telling. While we had a good fair use argument, he indicated we would most likely run into legal problems anyway with model releases for people who weren't public figures, and even some politicians (like Arnold Schwarzenegger [dailyhaiku.com] hotly contest their public figure status regarding copyright.
As it is we had to go strictly with photographs in the public domain (and thankfully almost everything the federal government produces counts) or expressly granted for general use.
Posting entire found pictures (actually an entire collection), especially if used with a profit motive, with no permission from the photographer and the subjects is just asking for an incredibly brutal pounding in court.
-dameron
Still waiting for my C&D from Dick Cheney...
Re:Actually it's purely illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, the copyright infringement case would be difficult to make. Granted he is infringing on someone else's copyright, but he is not doing it for financial gain. I don't even see ads on the page (aside from a blogger banner at the top). Also how would somebody assess the value of these pictures. Criminal offenses for copyright infringement don't occur until the infringer has caused a significant amount of financial damage (a few hundred thousand dollars IIRC). I would be hard pressed to believe these pictures are worth that much.
If I was the person who lost the card, and I found out about the site, and if I were angry about it, I'd get a cease and desist letter sent and prove that I was the owner of the card. It's likely the blogger would close the page and return the card. The end result of this is the guy who lost his card would get it back, and the site would go down if the owner chose to do so. This would not happen if the site was not getting this much publicity, and may infact become the best chance for the owner to get his card back, along with some measure of internet immortality.
Personally, I hope the owner of the card gets it back and doesn't mind seeing the blogger continue his series.
Re:Actually it's purely illegal (Score:1, Insightful)
Where did you get that idea?
Possession of stolen property is illegal, even if you weren't the one who stole it. But if someone gives up possession of it, by accident or purpose, there's no theft involved. Many people do what they can to return it to its original owner. But there's no obligation to do so. Kindness is not - and should not be - required by law.
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:4, Insightful)
But why do people think they deserve money for something like this?
Distributing copyrighted works without permission, especially unpublished copyrighted works straight out of a camera, can result in severe statutory damages.
Re:Not at all (Score:3, Insightful)
And I hate the mentality that all laws should be followed to the letter, and anyone who doesn't, should be executed immediately.
There is grey area in the world, and a LOT when it comes to high-tech issues... Technically, it's a federal offense if you do anything unauthorized on someone else's computer, but what if it's a friend of yours, who you are playing a prank on? Why is it that when you do the most trivial of things on a computer it becomes a serious crime, while pranks in the physical world wouldn't even be serious enough to get the cops to drive to the scene?
You mention posting source code. I have to wonder what's so horrific about it. the only thing it really does is to give skilled programmers the ability to modify a program their purchased, which is legal AFAIK. It's not as if anyone can start selling their own versions with that source code, and it's not as if anyone's customer base is going to be compiling a project from source, rather than buying the boxed product. So, I fail to see where the massive harm is. Maybe it should be illegial to do that, but I can't believe what a serious crime it has become.
There are lots of contradictions like that in current laws. It might be legal to download music, but illegial to share it... Well if nobody shares it, nobody can download it. It's illegial to publish a program to crack copy protection, but legal for an owner to use that illegially published tool to make backups of their program.
As far as insecure boxes go, the laws are Stalin-eque... You can't even port-scan a machine legally anymore! Using the latest known exploit to break-in, then wasting the person's bandwidth (or anything else) would not be cheered-on by anyone on
The moral of all of this? You should really try harder to differentiate more than just "legal and illegal". There are many things illegial that are ok, and many things legal that are very bad.
Because thats all people understand (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:1, Insightful)
Come on people, help me out. FreeIPods.com [freeipods.com]
The "greed" of the subjects of these photos is pure speculation on your part.
Your greed, however, is very evident. You're begging us to join in a pyramid scheme with your sig.
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously you are not from California.
Help my Slashdot Conscience! (Score:2, Insightful)
Do I condemn this transgression on someone's privacy, or do I support it because there's a Tri-Delt being exploited?
Disappointed (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes the guy who found the card should attempt to find the real owner, what better way? If he posted a few pics on the net, it would never get enough notoriaty to be found. Its a memory card, its not like there is an address and phone number on it. The cabby wouldn't be able to find the person, the person I'm sure doesn't know where exactly they lost it, and wouldn't be able to remember the cab companies name either. The cops would just junk it. This is the only way the real owner can get his pictures back.
Yes, in a way this is copyright infringment, but geeze, for a place that is sooo against musicians being able to keep people from copying things they actually make money off of, this guys pics seem like a bizarre hypocrisy to try to protect. It's not like he's a pro, or that he was gonna sell these pictures for money.
People here posting that this guy should be put in jail, or fined, or sued... well just chill out. He's having fun, I had a good laugh, and its actually possible that the real owner will get his pictures back, whereas if the poster didn't post them in this manner there is basically 0% chance that would happen.
Maybe your just wrong? (Score:1, Insightful)
Secondly, lets assume they are copywrited works. The blog is a parody of those pictures. Seems to me that it would constitue fair use of said pictures.
Its harmless fun. If you don't like it, don't visit it.
Re:That's a little more grey. (Score:5, Insightful)
They may be posing, but not for you. They have a very strong case against the blogger.
Additionally, most of the pictures are in public. There probably isn't a whole lot of expectation that your picture won't be taken/distributed if you're posing for a picture in public.
There is a very reasonable expectation if you don't see any unauthorized photographer close to you. We are not talking about spy cameras here, these are decent quality pictures taken either on private property, or with flash in darkness.
Re:Actually it's purely illegal (Score:1, Insightful)
In this case, the correct thing to do is to give it to the cab driver. The illegal thing to do is to take it and post the contents on the web.
Re:You could always DMCA the bastard. (Score:2, Insightful)
Problems with this blog:
I guess it's funny unless it happens to some Open Source product.
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand being mad, wanting an apology, and wanting the blog aken down, and maybe criminal proceedings if any laws were broken. But why do people think they deserve money for something like this?
They deserve to ask for punitive damages [wikipedia.org] to punish and deter people from commiting these kinds of acts. And an extreme amount of public exposure can bring all sorts of problems like stalkers and death threats. There are a lot of loons out there that will target someone simply for being well-known publicly. Someone in that kind of a position will need security. Who is going to pay for it? If a person receiving a great deal of public exposure isn't someone like an actor who actually recieves an income relative to that exposure, then what financial recourse do they have to protect themself from the reprocussions?
What have they lost?
They have lost their privacy. Having pictures posted on the internet against one's will is an invasion of privacy, especially if it gets Slashdotted. Remember the Star Wars Kid [wikipedia.org]? He and his family weren't too happy about all that and took the parents of the kids that put his video on the net to court. They didn't want any part of the internt cult status the practical joke had given him and would have preferred not to have him humiliated with that kind of exposure.
Even if these photos are taken down by the poster, they could already have been copied and circulated around the net, just like the Star Wars Kid. And just because you're not doing anything wrong in a photo doesn't mean your privacy should be left to others to toy with and take away. Isn't privacy a fundamental right?
Mental suffering?
Something like this can indeed cause mental suffering. Have you ever heard of social phobia [wikipedia.org]? It is a very real anxiety disorder, and someone with such a condition could be severely traumatised if they had their privacy invaded with all the internet as an audience, even if the photos were innocuous.
What if a photo of yourself in an embarassing situation had been circulated on the net without your consent? A practical joke between friends is one thing, but letting a worldwide audience through the internet see it is another and can cause extreme humiliation and mental suffering.
Finding the owner back (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know about how it works where he is from, but in my town, there's a good chance that you pay the cabbie with a credit card. Also, the card was probably lost the same day or the day before, so there is a chance that the cabbie could remember a face or an address.
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, that's a statement. Too bad you weren't born in the 15th century, the Spanish Inquisition had a perfect job for you.
Re:Disappointed (Score:1, Insightful)
It concerns me that as the country I live in tends to follow the trends set in the USA that that will start happening here.
The moment anything interesting happens people look to see who they can sue. How much money can they make out of it etc.
I thought the Slashdot crowd would be more focused on things like originality and technical innovation, but it seems that they are just like the impression of the rest of the United States that I get: overly focused on the negative aspects of life.
Wake up and live people!! Worry about who you can sue another time!
Re:Disappointed (Score:2, Insightful)
Proof it's a hoax (Score:1, Insightful)
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/65/1386/
the girl on the left has a "I love Linux" button with 3 Tux.
So this guy finds the pictures, posts them on slashdot and it happens there are pictures of the only woman in the whole world with a Tux button. Yeaa, right...
Or Linux is really making progress on the desktop.
Besides, he says they are cute, and they are not, so he must know them, even probably dating (or hoping to) one of them.
The American Way (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think this is funny ... (Score:4, Insightful)
With more then 200 photos ranging along a year's time one could easily gather some clues which could lead to 1. the owner, 2. someone who knows the owner.
Instead of doing some research and making someone happy for finding the lost pictures, this guy places them widely available.
I wouldn't sue the guy for doing this. I would kick his ass flat.
Why alert the world to your APRIL FOOL JOKE!!! (Score:1, Insightful)
Are you people all idiots? This site smells suspect , 10 seconds of investigation yields.
perl -e 'use DateTime; print DateTime->today->add( days => (227 - 34) )->strftime("%B %d") . "\n";'
April 01
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:2, Insightful)
The idea of sending a person to prison is to give him an education, show him where he was wrong and make him an usefull contribution to society. Your view is plainly inhuman and wrong.
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:1, Insightful)
It's fun to watch Slashdot be morally indignant about both sides of an issue. If there was some way to financially gain from having these pictures I think we would see a whole argument. Something along the lines of "Information should be free!"
Asymmetric laws *can* make sense (Score:4, Insightful)
This might be a stupid idea; or it might not.
Since they are two sides of the same coin, the act we wish to prevent is basically downloading/sharing. Making one illegal, but not the other shifts the emphasis of responsibility for the 'combined act' onto one party. This may be more practical in terms of law enforcement (better to prosecute one sharer than many downloaders).
In other cases with similar 'contradictions', such asymmetry may have the effect of protecting one party (e.g. if you simply made it a crime for an underage child to have sexual intercourse with an adult, you may be setting up the situation where a 14-year old is in danger of being blackmailed by a 40-year old, for fear of prosecution; and criminalising the 14-year old would almost certainly go against the spirit of the law).
This is news? (Score:1, Insightful)
Offtopic Answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, one is deterrence. You hope that, by instituting undesirable consequences for a particular behavior, you'll discourage people from doing it. Another purpose is punishment -- to correct a single individual's behavior by imposing said consequences. Yet another purpose is to provide some relief for the victim, his/her family, and society at large. To put it another way, society exacts retribution in order to prevent vigilantism.
How to get your digital card back (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh fucking please (Score:3, Insightful)
Now maybe if he was running Linux and Apache on a Dreamcast, with an ISCSI hard drive over the DC's broadband addapter (which is basically an Ethernet card), now _that_ would be technical innovation.
But "oh look, I can post pics on the net" stopped being new and original some 20 years ago. Any kiddie can just use pre-made software they don't even understand to get some text and pics on the net. Heck, nowadays you don't even need to know HTML to do that, as the software will do that for you.
So _all_ that is left is an asshole who thought it would be cool to (A) steal someone else's property, and (B) violate their privacy using the whole Internet as an audience.
And you know what? Even _if_ there was any technical innovation in there (but there isn't), there is no ammount of it which can justify the evil act. There are better way to showcase _any_ technical solution than raping someone's privacy.
And I'm not in the USA, and I too thought I'd sue the hell out of the fucktard.
Now _I_ wouldn't necessarily want his money. I'd just want him hurt so badly, people would cringe at the mere thought of such a stunt for the next 100 years. I'd want the asshole impaled and left there to bleed and die over several hours.
But since that's not an option, I'd probably sue for such a sum that he'd never see the end of the tunnel for the rest of his life. Then donate the money to some charity. Because, as I've said, I don't want his money, I just want him in a world of hurt.
Re:You could always DMCA the bastard. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thank you sir, may I have another photo publish (Score:2, Insightful)
This was supersceded by the Berne Convention; declaring copyright is no long necessary.
IANALBIPOOSD