What intellectual property rights on the web? If it's on the www, it's free for the swiping. While the Napster fans fight the good fight with the record labels, visual artists and digital artists online are still good targets.
Photoshoplifting is an idea and suggestion based on the limitations of intellectual property rights on the web. It's not limited to my own experimentation or "personal" work, but rather an idea and invitation for digital artists to swipe and graffiti any file from the www and make it thier own.
Bake it if you want but I dare you to steal a better idea.-- julien, Dec 08 2000 (?) DigiMarc digital watermarking http://www.digimarc.com/imaging/index.htmEmbedded digital watermarks and a spider that finds them. Photoshop, among other things, detects the watermark format. [jutta, Dec 08 2000] (?) Digital Image Watermarking in the "Real World" http://paris.cs.ber...mark-realworld.htmlPaper by Adrian Perrig, Andrew Willmott; technical critique of Digimarc. [jutta, Dec 08 2000] US Law on fair use http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Statutes, cases, articles, pending legislation. [jutta, Dec 08 2000] When lacking talent, steal.-- Jonathan, Dec 08 2000 "Good swiping is an art in itself." JULES FIEFFER-- julien, Dec 08 2000 Thieves beware there is such a thing as copyrighted images. Putting them up elsewhere on the web could lead you to more trouble than its worth!-- leefryder, Dec 08 2000 True, copyright laws exist. To what extent is this really any protection? However currently there is very little effort or programs/software/etc. in place to trace these violations when and where they occur (no program is attached to an image that records the number of people that downloaded the file). At least in my work, appropriation is key; the images I take are used in digital collage and never displayed singularly without alteration as they existed at the time they were 'borrowed'. see for yourself...http://www.istoleyour.com-- julien, Dec 08 2000 Petey, Thanks for the tip on getting other folks to host your images (hahahah). Okay, seriously...if what I've explained about Photoshoplifting still leads you to believe it's a crime, do you then consider artists who take images from magazines, cut them up, and then create collages -thieves? If so, the list of criminals include (but not limited to); Max Ernst Hannah Hock Andy Warhol Ray Johnson Jasper Johns Romare Bearden my personal pal, Shirin of photomontage.com and many, many others.
Just because the medium is now digital, does that create a new crime?-- julien, Dec 08 2000 Not necessarily, but it doesn't create a new legality, either. Which of the artists you listed used no copyright on their own works?
(Incidentally, software can track where images are downloaded to & how often; also, in some cases, where they're re-uploaded. Not perfect, but it's done. )-- hello_c, Dec 09 2000 I recently heard from a reputedly informed source that courts are beginning to embrace a "20%" rule, i.e., if you modify at least 20% of an existing copyrighted work, you have created a new work for which you own the copyright. Under this principle, most of the images I saw on julien's site would seem to be her own creations, not stolen ones. This would also be the case for the other artists she mentions.
julien, I love much of Romare Bearden's work.
hello_c, as jutta has pointed out in other discussions, the creator of a new work owns the copyright for that work whether the copyright notice is posted or not.-- beauxeault, Dec 09 2000 Yes, I know they had copyright, but did they *use* it to enforce payment or limit redistribution?-- hello_c, Dec 09 2000 Using a work in a collage may be defensible under fair use. A court determining whether a reproduction is a fair use is required by the Copyright Act to consider the following (in the actual words of the act):
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.-- bookworm, Dec 09 2000 An image in a collage seems to serve the same purpose as a literary allusion, though thankfully writers tend to avoid composing works composed of allusions alone - on that subject, I don't think it works in music too well either, particularly when the artist alludes to his/her own songs - I seems to me sort of like "going on about yourself" in a self aggrandizing way, and makes me wonder if the artist is running out of lyrical content... It does work in the visual medium, however, perhaps it mimics the "collage" of subconcious imagery. I for one have never mistaken the individual images in a collage for the work of the collage artist, the collage itself is the artwork. On a related subject, somebody, Sony, or Seiko, has a B&W digital watch camera, quite reasonable - I havn't bought one yet, but with one I could "scan" everthing is sight for wingdings, buttons, etc, for my web designs - I'm amassing quite a collection of stupid looking buttons based on non-copyrighted images, in all varieties, but I'd like to go further afield - a very small, portable high-resolution scanner would be much better, I imagine - any suggestions?-- Scott_D, Dec 10 2000 beauexault: When "you modify at least 20% of an existing copyrighted work" how is that determined? Recount? <just kidding>A tradesman once told me that to avoid a copyright suit, a certain listed company requires non contractual users of its "trademarked" residence blueprints to make 5 changes in the plan. What must be changed? No one knew for sure.-- reensure, Dec 12 2000, last modified Dec 13 2000 The 20% "rule" is one of those legal legends. Changing a work in any relevant way, whether it's .01% or 99.9%, creates a derivative work and requires permission from the holder of the original copyright.
Also, using copied plans doesn't violate the Copyright Act, though if the plans are for a building it violates the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act of 1990.-- bookworm, Dec 12 2000 Baked... I'm looking for the link now, but it's an artists website where each artist takes a designs a desktop wallpaper, and hands it off to another artist who alters it retaining at least a few of the original elements. They then pass it on to someone else...-- ElectraSteph, Dec 14 2000 Steph- the site you mention is not at all like the concept I'm suggesting. http://conform.suffocate.org/ The "Conform Project" as it's called, is a collaboration effort, with all parties consenting to the use of their personal work for the contribution. No other artist has brought their own work to me for me to alter or vice versa. I alone select the works, I do not request permission from the webmasters and artists who created the work I appropriate, and the final product is my own. If you must bake it, be just and accurate.-- julien, Dec 16 2000 Please don't copy and paste these 2 lines of words for use in your own documents. I spent ages typing this and it is all my own work.-- DaveSt, Aug 25 2001 random, halfbakery