I resent your characterization of unfairness - if not for that I might have not posted what I prepared. Which is why I post this here. The remainder of the "you" references are aimed at the author of the article (that's what you see if people here would read and critically think about the page that appears after clicking). Apologies for slashdot's pasting being retarded.
"This article in Wired advances the idea that humans are losing the copyright battle against machines because the fair use laws are tilted against them. The writer wanted to include photos in his book, but the licensing fees were too high. The aggregators, though, like Google, are building their own content by scraping all of the photos they can find. If anyone complains, they just say, 'Fill out a DMCA form.' Can humans compete against the machines? Should humans be able to use the DMCA to avoid copyright fees too? Should web sites be able to shrug and say, 'Hey, we just scraped it?'"
Because many of those people â" and websites â" are notoriously loose with reusing images, and they like to hide behind the blithe view that itâ(TM)s all âoefair use.â
Fair use is fairly clearly laid out, and things like lolcats or other image macros can be considered parody. There is an article in Ars Technica which reproduces the image to illustrate what is the subject of the lawsuit. The lawsuit was ridiculous because the plaintiff had followed proper DMCA takedown, the site complied, then the plaintiff registered the copyright formally and sued Buzzfeed for the infringement of other sites that had subsequently used the photo. In other words the lead-off of this paragraph points to a baseless suit.
This example also shoots the argument in the head. BuzzFeed might as well be a web site with a single editor, author, owner, creator, and janitor. DMCA takedown would have been just as effective, unless the janitor AKA DMCA contact was out that day.
Was BuzzFeed a machine that included the image? Or was the article written by a human? The answer is that this is an exceptional case, and it makes no difference, because the plaintiff wrote the lawsuit and filed it with no legal advice. I can be sued for farting in the state of Wisconsin, despite never having set foot there. The case will likely be thrown out as soon as I submit my response to being served, which is "I was never there, and plaintiff will have to prove that I was, so good luck with that"
Some algorithm assembled the photos and itâ(TM)s enjoying a nice little loophole.
Okay, support that statement.
If I included photos, I needed to share my royalties with the photographers or risk a punitive copyright lawsuit. As a creative worker, I understood sharing with the photographers. And the pictures would really add depth to the book.
You're writing a book? That will be published and people will maybe pay money for? DMCA offers no protection for that. Is that your point, that DMCA offers safe harbor for individuals OR machines, but not for book authors?
one friend told me flat out that if he wanted the pictures, he would just go to Google. And he was right: All the photos were there.
Oh, the book is online, and your book isn't.
The automated machines have me and the photographers beat. Aggregators â" whether listmakers, search engines, online curation boards, content farms, and other sites â" can scrape them from the web and claim that posting these images is fair use
Nope, not even correct. BuzzFeed claims its use is transformative, but that doesn't mean they can scrape them and call them fair use. They have a DMCA waiver, and a baseless lawsuit to defend. How much in legal fees will it cost them? More than your royalty fees of $10,000? Probably, if they want to go with that argument. They will likely go with the DMCA takedown request and response, and spend a few hundred. An automated machine did not create buzzfeed's 30 funniest headers, and you can't support your argument on horseshit.
Anyone who searches for âoeDeath of a Salesmanâ gets search results with a nice sidebar filled with a few facts and some images that Google scraped from websites under fair use. In this way, they can do things that I, a lowly human, canâ(TM)t do. And while I had to pay $10,000, they could âoegetâ them for free.
Google did not write a book and select specific images to illustrate the points made. Google is not reproducing images in print, which was kind of important when you look back at copyright law. I think your complaint is that being in print makes you subject to the laws of print, and being online makes people subject to online laws where things happen more quickly and more easily.
The market therefore punishes the people who try to do the right thing by the photographers. If I raised the price of my book to pay for the images, even more people would choose the book âoewrittenâ by Googleâ(TM)s computers
Do you see now how that conclusion is oh, so very wrong?
Is there recourse? Well, if the algorithm violates a copyright, owners can fill out DMCA takedown forms. But itâ(TM)s an onerous process that canâ(TM)t match the scale of the breach, because it pits human against machine. The aggregatorsâ(TM) machines scrape the web day and night but humans need to fill out the forms in their waking hours.
No, you clearly don't. Because if a human violates a copyright, the DMCA is still an option. In fact, it will offer relief much more quickly than getting a settlement from you and/or blocking publication of your books.