TechyDad

I had a great Aloha Friday question all lined up, but it’s going to have to wait. As I was headed home, I got a call from B. She searched Twitter for #DisneySMMoms and found a tweet from a user named EsterlDode titled "#DisneySMMoms 2010 – A Not-So-Impossible" followed by a URL. Now, she recognized this as the beginning of my latest DisneySMMoms post so she clicked the link wondering what she would get. She was greeted by my webpage. Except it wasn’t my webpage.

Read more…

If you’ve checked out any of the (many) photos I’ve posted, you might have noticed that I watermark my photos. It’s subtle, but in the bottom right hand corner of every photo it says “www.TechyDad.com”.

Why do I do this? Well, as much as I’d like to assume that people are good, there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there that will grab photos off the Internet for their own use. By watermarking the photo, I’m decreasing its value to these people. (Yes, the watermark could be removed, but it’d take time and effort to do so. The photo thieves are more likely to just head elsewhere to grab some photos.)

In addition to the watermarking, I also rotate some photos (depending on which way they were taken) and resize them for the web. Unfortunately, when I have a lot of photos to process, this can be a time-consuming pain. Initially, my process looked like this:

1. Load one photo in Irfanview
2. Open up Irfanview’s Thumbnail mode
3. Select all images to process
4. Use Irfanview’s lossless-JPEG rotate function to auto-rotate all photos
5. Open up Irfanview’s Batch Conversion mode
6. Select all photos to process and conversion settings (e.g. new height/width)
7. Wait until Batch Conversion is done.
8. Open up Picture Shark.
9. Select All Photos
10. Select Watermark
11. Wait until watermark is applied to all photos
12. Post photos

You can see how this would make photo posting a pain, but each step was necessary. I couldn’t post sideways photos and couldn’t post full-res pictures either. There’s the download time issue as well as the aforementioned picture thieves.

That’s when I remembered about ImageMagick. ImageMagick is a freeware photo manipulation program that is often used on servers to, well, manipulate images. My server, for example, uses it to make thumbnails out of the photos I upload. The only problem is that ImageMagick doesn’t have an graphical interface. It is run by a series of command line statements. This is perfectly fine for a script running on a server, but not as good for a human user.

Since all I wanted to do was run the same commands over and over, and since I know how to program, I wrote a Photo Processor script. It would let me specify the directory that the photos were in, whether I wanted them resized/rotated/watermarked and even allowed me to select which watermark. This way, B could use the same script for TheAngelForever.com. My new photo processing process was:

1. Run Script
2. Copy/Paste name of directory with photos
3. Answer dialogs for resizing/rotating/watermarking photos.
4. Wait until script finishes
5. Post photos

Much easier, right?

When Monkey was born to Tarzan and Jane over at HisBoysCanSwim, I noticed that their photos of Monkey merely had some text at the bottom of them. This would be easily stripped out by a picture thief so I offered my Photo Processor script. And while I was working on it, I figured I’d post a version for everyone else out there.

The first thing you’ll need to do is install a copy of ImageMagick on your PC. In the configuration screen during setup (the one with all of the checkboxes), make sure that you check the box for “Install ImageMagickObject OLE Control for VBScript, Visual Basic, and WSH.” (See image below.)

Once that is done, download my Photo Processor script. When you run the script, first you’ll need to enter the directory of the photos to be processed (e.g. C:\Photos\My Trip To The Beach\). Don’t worry if they’re your originals, the altered versions will be saved in newly created subdirectories. After you enter the directory, simply answer a few Yes/No questions to set whether the photos are rotated and/or resized and sit back and wait for the script to do its job. To add a watermark, put a PNG image in the same directory as the script and name it “Watermark.png.”

If you have any questions about this script, feel free to post them in the comments below.

Recently, two news stories caught my eye. The first involves a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The case involved a newspaper clipping service called Infopaq. People would sign up with Infopaq and specify what keywords they wanted to keep an eye out for. Infopaq would then scan in articles, find the keywords, and print a listing with those keywords, the five words before and after the keywords, where the article appeared and how far down in the article the keywords appeared. The Danish newspaper industry took exception with this business plan and sued. Infopaq claimed that since their scanning was temporary (they didn’t print whole articles out, just the 11 word snippets), they fell under the copyright exemptions. The Court, however, ruled against them.

The worrying part isn’t that they were dinged for scanning the articles. That, I would have almost expected. Instead, they were dinged for 1) using 11 word snippets and 2) clients being able to print out the snippets. The Court found that 11 word snippets were still covered by copyright law. To give you an example of how ridiculous this is, I’ll quote an 11 word snippet from the article about the ruling: “means that there is a risk that the reproduction will remain”. According to the Court, since you, the reader, could print this blog post out and keep it indefinitely, I’ve now committed copyright infringement.

Of course, I live in the US, so I doubt the ECJ could do anything against me. Still, given the propensity for nations to follow one another over the copyright madness cliff, something like this worries me. Were the “11 word snippet” ruling to be used widely, services like Google News would go dark. Simple quoting from a source (a necessary part of research and protected by Fair Use) would land one in a big, boiling pot of copyright lawsuit soup. I’m not sure what appeals options Infopaq has, but if they have any, let’s hope that this ruling is overturned.

The other story that caught my eye was the tale of Amanda Bonnen from Chicago. Frustrated with her apartment situation, she did what many of us would do: She tweeted about it. Specifically, she wrote: “Who said sleeping in a mouldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s OK.”

Now, many fine companies monitor Twitter and would have taken her complaint as an opportunity to turn bad PR into good by working with her to formulate an appropriate resolution to her. Not Horizon, though. They sued her for $50,000 in defamation damages claiming that because her Twitter profile was public, her 53 character tweet was published “throughout the world.” That’s almost $1,000 in defamation per character! Horizon probably didn’t win any PR points for their “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization” quote either.

Of course, a classic Streisand Effect has occurred. Had Horizon just ignored her, her tweet would have vanished amoung the millions posted around that time. At most, a few of her friends might have retweeted it before it faded into obscurity. (A Google Cache check shows that she had a mere 17 followers.) Instead, major news organizations, blogs and other websites have picked up the story. People are tweeting and retweeting about it much more than Amanda Bonnen would ever have been able to do by herself. Horizon should ask themselves whether suing her for $50,000 over this 53 character tweet was the appropriate action since it caused much more “defamation” than the original tweet did.

The lesson here for companies: Don’t be a sue first, ask questions later kind of institution. Work with your customers for a positive outcome. Then, even if you need to resort to ignoring the person’s problem or (as a last resort) sue them, you can point to your good faith efforts to work with them. That will soften any “big bad company suing a poor defenseless person” PR blow and you might even come out on top PR-wise.

The lesson for users: Don’t assume that what you post on Twitter (or on your blog, Facebook, etc) is just between you and a close-knit group of friends. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say into a microphone in front of a full football stadium of people. This doesn’t mean you should live in fear over being sued for every little tweet/post/update, but keep in mind that you are putting this stuff out on a public network. Don’t say “Housing Co Landlords stink” when “my landlord stinks” would suffice or when “Tried to work with Housing Co Landlords to resolve my problem, but getting frustrated” would be more descriptive.

Recently, Jammie Thomas-Rasset lost her court case and the RIAA was awarded $1.92 million for the 24 songs that she was found to have infringed. To those of you keeping score, that’s $80,000 per song.  You might wonder just how a song can be worth more than many new cars.  Well, part of the problem is that copyright fines are outdated.  The laws regulating them come from a time when copyright infringers were mainly for-profit operations.  These people would make many copies of cassette tapes/VHS tapes and sell them on the street for less than a legitimate copy.  For this offense, the for-profit operations could be charged $750 – $150,000 per infringement.

This is all well and good, but today’s infringer is more likely to be a home user with no profit motive behind their infringement.  They might not even know that they are infringing on copyrights.  They just heard from a friend that they could get free music by downloading Kazaa/BitTorrent/etc.  They might not have even been aware that the program opened their hard drive’s music folder for the entire world to see/download.  Now, I’ll agree that ignorance of the law shouldn’t be too much of a defense, but the current fines seem excessive even if they shared out their music directory willingly.

Let’s explore just how that $80,000 works out.  The first point to consider is that Jammie Thomas-Rasset wasn’t charged with downloading music.  Despite what the media keeps reporting, people are charged with sharing songs out, not downloading them.  This isn’t to say that downloading songs without the permission of the copyright holder is legal, just that it is hard to detect/prosecute.  So we’re not really talking about $80,000 per song but an $80,000 fine for the copies that are assumed to have been made and lost sales that are assumed to have happened because Jammie Thomas-Rasset’s MP3 file was shared out online.

For the sake of argument, I’ll make the big assumption that each download made from her shared copy is a lost sale.  In reality, I don’t believe that every illegal download is a lost sale, but let’s run with the 1 copy = 1 lost sale figure for now.  Given that the average price of a song online is $0.99, the $80,0000 per shared file works out to 80,808 copies made. Now, I haven’t seen any claims by the RIAA as to how long those files were shared out, but I don’t think that any residential file sharer is going to share out over 80,000 copies in any reasonable length of time.  Any formal study of the average number of song downloads per file sharer would run into the same copyright difficulties that Jammie Thomas-Rasset did.  In addition, as I said before, every illegal download isn’t a lost sale.  Some people, absent the shared file, would buy the songs, but song wouldn’t.  Some people will even buy the song after sampling it via an illegal download.  The illegal download to lost sale calculation is murky at best.

I don’t belong to that segment of the "Information Wants To Be Free" movement who thinks that everything should be put online for free for anyone.  I definitely think that some fine is needed for people who share copyrighted content out without the copyright owner’s permission.  However, over 80,000x the value of the uploaded material is unreasonable and leads to bankruptcy over a civil offense. 

So what should the laws be changed to?  Well, I think that a reasonable amount would be 10x the equivalent purchase price of the item.  In the case of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, her 24 music files would be "worth" $0.99 each (iTunes price).  Ten times that figure would give her a total fine of $237.60.  This is much smaller and yet it isn’t insignificant.  Losing $240 can be a financial sting that makes you take notice.

For larger file sharers, the penalties would rise, but not to bankruptcy levels.  The RIAA initially accused Jammie Thomas-Rasset of sharing out 1,700 files but limited their court claims to 24 files.  Had they gone after all 1,700 and won, my proposed fine would total $16,830.  This would be a huge financial hit, but one that she would be likely to recover from eventually.  They could set up a payment plan and she would need to tighten her belt, but it would be doable.  The equivalent verdict that the jury awarded would have been $136 million.  This would have just driven her deep into bankrupcy.  (The $1.92 million might just do that anyway.)

Our copyright laws need serious updating.  In no other area do you not have to prove specific damage amounts to get a ridiculous level of return on your product’s worth.

I didn’t intend to do another Facebook/Breastfeeding post so soon, but a new wrinkle in the whole controversy just occurred. Facebook recently changed their Terms of Service. Previously, they claimed rights to use your content as they see fit, but you could terminate those rights by having your account deleted.  Now, not only can they use your content if your account is closed or deleted, but they can sublicense your content as well.

How does this impact the Facebook/Breastfeeding controversy?  Well, suppose a mother uploads a photo of herself breastfeeding.  Facebook, regarding this content as sexually explicit, deletes the account.  However, Facebook retains rights to all content uploaded, including the breastfeeding photo.  Facebook can now sell that photo to a stock photo agency who can sell it to someone else to be used in an ad campaign.  This mother might find her nursing photo being used to advertise baby formula.  Imagine the outrage the mother would feel to see herself in the ad with the tag line "It’s just as good as mother’s milk."

What would the mother’s options be?  Pretty limited.  She could try to sue Facebook, but she likely wouldn’t get very far.  You see, that same Terms of Service also states that you’re agreeing to Mandatory Arbitration.  In short, she will have to travel to a state that the company chooses, face an arbitrator chosen by the company, who likely rules in favor of the company over 90% of the time, won’t be able to subpeona any documents from the company, won’t be able to appeal any decisions to a real court, and – even if by some quirk she wins – won’t have any legal teeth to get any money from the company.  In other words, Facebook has all but declared themselves the winner if you decide you want to challenge them legally.

This might solve the "Breastfeeding Photos on Facebook" controversy, but not in the expected way.  I don’t know why anyone (especially breastfeeding mothers) would want to upload photos to Facebook knowing that those photos could be sold by Facebook to some other company for any possible use without any compensation or recourse given to the user.  Perhaps it is time for another social network, one with better Terms of Service and better operating practices, to rise up and displace Facebook.

I’m very interested in the subject of Copyrights and the Public Domain.  I happen to believe that the length of copyrights have been extended way too far.  When the Constitution was written, copyrights lasted for 14 years.  After that, you needed to apply for a one-time renewal of 14 years.  Over the years, Congress extended copyright terms and made the renewal automatic.  As it stands now, a work copyrighted by a single individual stays under copyright for 70 years after the author’s death.  A work copyrighted by a company stays under copyright for 120 years from the date of publication.

To give an example of how long this is, take this blog post here.  It is under my copyright and will be for 70 years after I die.  I’m 33 years old as I write this.  Let’s assume that I live until 83 (to give nice, round numbers).  This means that this blog post will remain under my copyright until the year 2129.  Of course, I won’t be around to see the copyright run out.  Assuming each of my children (and their children, etc) have their own children at age 30 (again, to keep things nice and round), this blog post will go out of copyright when my great-great-great-grandchild is 5 years old (NHL’s current age).

Why is this a problem?  Well, for one thing, copyright was designed to help encourage innovation.  You get a temporary monopoly on your created work and in exchange the work passes into the Public Domain after a short while.  The temporary monopoly acts as a financial motivator and the Public Domain helps inspire new works.  I’ve had no problem arguing the first part:  How does having my decedents retaining ownership of something 70 years after I pass away motivating me to create new works?  Am I going to rise up out of the ground zombie-style and create new blog posts?  (Latest Post: BRAAAAIIIINNNNSSSS!!!!!)

The second part, however, has eluded my argumentative skills.  I know that a rich Public Domain is important but was never able to fully argue why.  And, more troubling, I’ve been confronted more and more with people who question why we need the Public Domain at all.  Why, they argue, can’t copyrights last forever?  After all, your ownership of your house doesn’t expire and can be passed down to your children.

The immediate argument that came to mind was that, as a work gets older, it gets harder to track down the owner.  There are some video games from the 1980′s whose copyright ownership is unknown.  How could we hope to track down the proper owner of Romeo and Juliet after over 400 years?  Besides this argument, however, I couldn’t come up with a coherent argument for the existence of the Public Domain.

Then, one night, it came to me from the most unlikely of sources.  I was reading NHL his bedtime story, Magic Tree House #30: Haunted Castle on Hallows Eve by Mary Pope Osborne.  We had finished the story itself and were reading the Notes From The Author when I came upon this quote:

Old tales and poetry from around the world are a constant source of inspiration for storytellers. Creating something new from something old allows us to link hands with people of the past. Or, as Morgan le Fay once said to Jack and Annie (in Magic Tree House #16, Hour of the Olympics), "The old stories are always with us. We are never alone."

That was it.  If we allowed the Public Domain to become extinct, we’ll lose touch with that link.  Yes, new stories will be created, but there is something to be said for using old ideas and putting new spins on them.  Disney (one of the big proponent of extending copyright terms) has made many successful films off of stories in the Public Domain.  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Pinocchio, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Alice in Wonderland, and The Jungle Book were all in the Public Domain when Disney released their movie versions.  Copyrighted works aren’t physical property.  They should be allowed to pass into the public’s ownership after a short period of time so that the public can use those works to create new works.  Thank you, Mary Pope Osborne, for putting it more eloquently than I ever could have.

On Sunday, I reported about Toyota claiming to own all photos containing Toyota automobiles.  I also posted the story to my photography forum (same one that the Wandering Gnome came from).  Someone there (in a roundabout way) got a response from Toyota’s legal department.  Here’s the response:

Response (XXXX) 11/18/2008 04:34 PM
Thank you for contacting Toyota with your comments and concerns regarding the use of vehicle images. The letter asking the DesktopNexus site to remove all images featuring a Toyota, Scion or Lexus vehicle was the result of mis-communication at Toyota, which we regret.

Copyright law protects the creative work product of artists, photographers, and other creators. Toyota respects these rights, including those of photographers who work with Toyota. Toyota purchases the rights to the images it posts on its sites, and welcomes public use of those images where we have the rights to give. However, this permission is limited to editorial or personal use, not commercial use, such as advertising any products or services. That’s because the photographers – not Toyota – retain the rights to any commercial use, and we cannot give permission to use those images for that purpose. In response the concerns raised by DesktopNexus, Toyota is working with photographers to determine what images may be used for non-commercial purposes, and what we can do to provide broader access.

We hope you will understand and appreciate the legal constraints we face.

Toyota also welcomes interested members of the public to use their own images or photography of Toyota’s vehicles, and we confirm that we have no objection to this use.

We appreciate your interest in our products.

Toyota Customer Experience

I am glad that they’ve backed down from the "all your car photos belong to us" stance, but their reply sounds too much like:

We found a couple of legitimately infringing photos on your site but rather than give you specifics we decided to be lazy and just order them all down. We figured you’d just roll over and take it, but then you had to spread the word. Now we’re facing a ton of bad PR so we’re going to limit our claims to just those originally infringing photos.

This is probably overkill now, but I took these photos intending to post them in protest of Toyota’s stance.  I don’t want them going to waste, so here’s my Toyota automobile.  (The dent was from someone in my office’s parking lot using my car as the signal that they backed up too far.)

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

I’m going to take a break from the Charleston series to present this "breaking news" article:

There’s this website called Desktop Nexus that allows users to post photos for other people to use as their desktop images.  Apparently, Toyota recently decided to order Desktop Nexus to take down "all wallpapers that feature a Toyota, Scion, or Lexus."  Toyota has used a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) notice to frame their demand, so they’re clearly claiming copyright over photos that contain those cars.

When pressed for clarification (since some photos could be legitimately infringing and some might not be), the site’s owner was told "all images featuring Toyota vehicles should be removed, even images with copyright belonging to others."  (He was also told that a specific identification of photos Toyota is claiming infringe on their copyrights would involve time that would be billed to Desktop Nexus – something that Toyota is legally obligated to do if they want to file a proper DMCA notice.)

According to Toyota, if I posted a photo of my Toyota automobile on here (or on my personal blog or anywhere else), Toyota could sue me for copyright infringement.  It wouldn’t matter that my car is completely my own (completely paid up).  Since Toyota once put the car together, they claim to own perpetual rights to how that car is represented photographically.

If Toyota gets away with this, where does it end?  Can Coke sue me if a coke can appears in a photo online without their permission?  Does Old Navy sue me because my photo subject happens to be wearing an Old Navy shirt while posing for a photo?

Here’s the article on TorrentFreak.com: http://torrentfreak.com/toyota-claims-ownership-081114/

Look for a photo of my Toyota car to appear on this blog soon as protest.  I call on all Toyota car owners to post photos of their cars to join in the protest.  Non-Toyota car owners can snap a photo of the nearest Toyota car.  Be considerate, though, and don’t show anything "personally identifying" about the vehicle like license plate number.