#7 - PHOTO THEFT ... & MUSIC, briefly

I begin SEVEN DAYS IN A ROW listening to tracks off the new Between the Buried and Me Coma Ecliptic, which will be released next month. It made me wonder how many of you clicked on the highlighted "RESURRECTION" that ended my #1 blog of the same name and were assaulted by the brutal American metal of Lamb of God. Anyway, more about music another time.

With this blog I tackle the issue of intellectual property theft - specifically, stealing other people's images and using them as your own. This is a personal and philosophical issue and, while I am opposed to ALL intellectual property theft, I will agree that there are degrees of how heinous each infraction might be.

I am bombarded with Faffbook friend requests every day. I try to accept as many as possible and then immediately unfollow all but the few so they never invade my News Feed. However, I have some ground rules. Generally, you must have a minimum of 25 mutual friends. I do relax this requirement if it is obvious that the majority of your posts are arachnocultural related. I also have a soft spot for hot chicks ;) I don't accept any that have less than 10 mutual friends, people with obvious pseudonyms, or people whose names are Chinese characters. Call the last one xenophobic, but experience has taught me that few of these will be desirable "friends".

Yesterday I got a request from someone with only one mutual friend. His profile pic was a tarantula so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and quickly scanned his home page. Three posts down I discovered one of Jason Newland's image posted with no photo credit or mention that the image was not the poster's. I forwarded the info to Jason for him to do as he pleases.

Now this particular example of photo theft illustrates a few points I'd like to make. First, it is improper/illegal/immoral/douchery, etc. to download and post. I'm no attorney and won't argue copyright law. I'd rather focus on moral human behavior. The image in question was one of Jason's many of the stunning Theraphosinae sp. Panama. The poster obviously was taken by the beautiful species and his post was simply to say that it was at the top of his wish list. All that he had to do was add "Photo Credit: Jason Newland" or, BETTER STILL, use the SHARE function to definitely show the source rather than downloading and reposting.

Now was this severe intellectual property theft? Do you believe there are degrees of infractions? It could be argued that this was just an enthusiastic hobbyist who eagerly posted a photo of a spider that blew him away, captured beautifully by Jason's photography. I admit I would give this guy less grief than if it was, say, used by a commercial page for marketing purposes, or was published on a website without credit or, worse still, stolen for sale or publication in a book. I believe the poster was ignorant to the seriousness of his theft, and that a cordial but firm message from Jason would elucidate the issue and perhaps result in him not engaging in posting in this manner in the future. Then again, my experience is that such discussion ends up argumentative and frustrating as people haven't a clue and are eager to prove it to you. As I wrote, a simple "Photo courtesy of Jason Newland" type of thing, with link to Jason's galleries or FB page or something, and I would find this usage comparatively harmless. But it is intellectual property theft/copyright infringement all the same.

But when you start debating degrees of an offense you enter the grey in an issue that is black and white. Don't post other people's photos. Use SHARE if you want one on your timeline so it is automatically linked back to source. Take your own damn pix.

As most of you will know, I am a prolific poster of images on Faffbook and Instagram. I primarily post in the BTS group, but have been including the Arachnoboards FB page more recently. And, as you know, my images are branded with a substantial watermark and now an upper band with image title and copyright info. Every now again some douchenozzle will whine about how they'd be great photos if they weren't "ruined" by a watermark. Well, fuck you, assclown, you want to see my great photos you're going to see them protected. And in each post I give a link to my SmugMug galleries where you can view them sans watermark at high resolution without the Faffbook compression distortion and even order prints if so inclined. Two choices: I keep posting my logo watermarked images or I post nothing. Each time one of these fucktards complains about the watermark I get closer to the latter. Here's an example of one of my pix. Is the logo watermark or the upper info/copyright band really negatively impacting the beauty of this image? I'd say not.



There is a Faffbook group for everything and my bud Chad or someone else made me a member of one called "Theraphosid Copyright Infringment Group". As of this writing, this closed group has all of 21 members. I immediately left the group for two reasons: 1) I hate when people add me to groups without my permission. I unfriend many who do so. 2) I have nothing to add to the discussion and don't want to listen to the complaints of people who don't bother to properly watermark their images". If you're just going to put your "nickname" in the bottom corner where it can easily be cropped you have nothing to say. If you're just going to add some text that I can Photoshop out in 5 seconds, you shouldn't whinge. I realize mine can be removed as well, but at least I make them work for it. I wish I'd see more of my friends who take excellent photos properly watermark. I used to put my logo smack dab in the middle. At least now I have lightened up a bit and put a semi-transparent logo closer to the bottom middle. And, as far as the Jason image that started this discussion goes, he doesn't watermark at all. So y'all are easy marks. (pardon the pun)

With regards to FB images, I realize that most are uploading low res images and FB is further reducing the quality with its own compression algorithms. Nobody is going to steal these for print use or professional sale. But they will represent them as their own and so many dealers have stolen images from Jason, Tom and other friends. FB images are fine for website use. Just another thing the Internet has ruined. It has created a culture of those who think everything on the Internet is free and nothing has value.

As for my own images, I publish them. They have appeared in my book, in my ARACHNOCULTURE and in the BTS Journal. If the book I now have in progress ever is realized it will contain MANY of the images I have posted (and hopefully some of Jason's and Chad's), but at full resolution without watermarks. I sell my images through my SmugMug. I have plans to sell prints at upcoming shows. The cretins that argue against my watermarks are always people who have never taken anything but a snapshot. They don't realize that there is a different between a snapshot and a photograph as art. I don't see great photographers like Christian Reimann or Michael Pankratz bitching about my watermarks. They understand. And I don't have time for the imbeciles who don't. And by now you all know that I don't have a fuck to give.

Here's some more music to try: Guthrie Govan, Erotic Cakes. Not metal like my other choices, virtuoso guitar playing without peer that has tons of melody and groove.

In closing, I just decided that later today I will read the early blogs that started KMBHS. They were written during what was undoubtedly the weirdest period of my life. I was hanging with twenty-somethings and having my heart broken. Hmmm... maybe I shouldn't.

Best, MJ