So the Labour government are one step closer

[crmcatee]

to screwing up Photography for everyone..

UK Gov nationalises orphans and bans non-consensual photography in public

I suggest a letter to your MP.

[LukeBird]

Madness, absolute madness. So we'll end up with either no photos online or all of them watermarked to destruction...

[gingerpaul]

So every decent amateur photographer is going to have to plaster their work with copyright notices. This is a massive shame.

As for the second part, how on earth is journalism going to work now? Surely this means no professional photographer can take photos of the general public. What will they put in the newspapers, news on TV and the internet? No more news reporters on location? Will the only pictures we now see look like the London scenes from 28 Days Later?

Edited by gingerpaul on Wednesday 17th February 22:20

[havoc]

gingerpaul said:

As for the second part, how on earth is journalism going to work now? Surely this means no professional photographer can take photos of the general public. What will they put in the newspapers, news on TV and the internet? No more news reporters on location? Will the only pictures we now see look like the London scenes from 28 Days Later?

And how do you differentiate between still and video?!? They seem to have managed to, yet it it child's play to take a still from a video, so the net effect of that particular legislation is b'gger-all!

WTF are they playing at?!?
(Playing probably being the operative word...as in something that a child does!)

[rufusruffcutt]

One feels the need to quote Major Clipton from the Bridge on the River Kwai

"Madness! Madness!"

They'll ban having fun next.

[Nick M]

crmcatee said:

I suggest a letter to your MP.

Done.


The more I read about this, the more my p*ss begins to boil at the sheer audacity of this government. Any sort of democratic process seems to been ridden over rough-shod in order to meet their own particular objectives as opposed to those of the population. Is it any wonder people have lost any respect for the political process ?

[DiscoColin]

gingerpaul said:

So every decent amateur photographer is going to have to plaster their work with copyright notices.

Well - embedding copyright information in the EXIF might be adequate. If someone explicitly then removes it then you have the RAW and they don't when it comes to proof for litigation - in theory at least.

In practice though your point is still well made, and all I can say is my standard response to the more ridiculous actions of the current bunch of inept chancers - "Don't blame me, I didn't vote for them" (with the caveat that I couldn't definitively claim that who I did vote for would necessarily have been much different).

[gingerpaul]

DiscoColin said:

gingerpaul said:

So every decent amateur photographer is going to have to plaster their work with copyright notices.

Well - embedding copyright information in the EXIF might be adequate. If someone explicitly then removes it then you have the RAW and they don't when it comes to proof for litigation - in theory at least.

According to that article commercial use of an image is allowed if the user has performed a "suitably negligent search". If they can prove they have then the rightful owner of the image is irrelevant.

[4hero]

I swear 1984 is feeling more and more real every day.

Edited by 4hero on Thursday 18th February 20:13

[Simpo Two]

gingerpaul said:

commercial use of an image is allowed if the user has performed a "suitably negligent search".

What the flying fk is a "suitably negligent search"? Would not searching at all suffice?

Judge: 'Did you search for it?'
Tog: 'No'
Judge: Can you prove that?'
Tog: 'No, but Defendant X can't prove that I did'


Or something. Evidently all the sensible laws have already been thought of, so they're forced to invent more and more patently inane ones. Next week: 'Wearing a loud shirt in a built up area after the hours of darkness'.

Edited by Simpo Two on Thursday 18th February 20:25

[gingerpaul]

Simpo Two said:

gingerpaul said:

commercial use of an image is allowed if the user has performed a "suitably negligent search".

What the flying fk is a "suitably negligent search"? Would not searching at all suffice?

Judge: 'Did you search for it?'
Tog: 'No'
Judge: Can you prove that?'
Tog: 'No, but Defendant X can't prove that I did'


Or something. Evidently all the sensible laws have already been thought of, so they're forced to invent more and more patently inane ones. Next week: 'Wearing a loud shirt in a built up area after the hours of darkness'.

Edited by Simpo Two on Thursday 18th February 20:25

I would have thought it would more likely be design companies or journalists that will be making the most of this. Is a "suitably negligent search" sticking in a couple of key words into Google Images and seeing if it shows up?

Say a company designing a web site need a picture of a pile of paper. They stumble across a picture that would fit their needs and use it. If they were asked in court if they had searched for the image before its use then all they have to say is yes. How could anybody prove otherwise?

[Bacardi]

Simpo Two said:

Next week: 'Wearing a loud shirt in a built up area after the hours of darkness'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#playnext=1&playne...

About 05.50 in.

'Looking at me in a funny way' will now be charged as 'photographing me in a funny way'.

[Nick M]

Thinking about this, it should be pretty simple to get this to go viral if the right people are targeted so the news gets out there on Twitter and Facebook - I'm sure people recall the uproar caused by Facebook's attempt to acquire the copyright of images posted on its site.

A few well-targeted e-mails and some messages in the right forums should stir up some anti-government opinion on this one.