THE AUTHOR OF SOPA IS A COPYRIGHT VIOLATOR
I decided to check that everything on Lamar’s official campaign website was copyright-cleared and on the level. Lamar is using several stock images on his site, two of which I tracked back to the same photographic agency. I contacted the agency to make sure he was paying to use them, but was told that it’s very difficult for them to actually check to see if someone has permission to use their images. (Great news, copyright violators!) However, seeing as they’re both from the same agency and are unwatermarked, it seems fairly likely that he is the only person on the entire internet who is actually paying to use a stock image (and he’d be an idiot not to).
So I took a look back at an archived, pre-SOPA version of his site.
This is a screenshot of his site as it appeared on the 24th of July, 2011.
And this is the background image Lamar was using. I managed to track that picture back to DJ Schulte, the photographer who took it.
And whaddya know? Looks like someone forgot to credit him.
I contacted DJ, to find out if Lamar had asked permission to use the image and he told me that he had no record of Lamar, or anyone from his organization, requesting permission to use it: “I switched my images from traditional copyright protection to be protected under the Creative Commons license a few years ago, which simply states that they can use my images as long as they attribute the image to me and do not use it for commercial purposes.
“I do not see anywhere on the screen capture that you have provided that the image was attributed to the source (me). So my conclusion would be that Lamar Smith’s organization did improperly use my image. So according to the SOPA bill, should it pass, maybe I could petition the court to take action against www.texansforlamarsmith.com.”
Oh dear. Luckily for DJ, there are people out there like Lamar making new laws to protect the little guy against online copyright theft. Keep fighting that good fight, Lamar!
Ironies. Ironies everywhere.
(via inothernews)
The Costco Analogy
Imagine that the Internet is Costco. Costco sells a lot of great things in great quantity. It’s also a great place of friends, dialogue, and community (well, my analogy breaks down a bit here, but stay with me). It also provides free samples. With Costco, it might be a sample of Miss Havendish Tater Tots.* On the internet, it might be a sample of Predator, a quick clip of “Dylan! You SAHNAVABITCH!” Of course, Costco isn’t giving away every tater tot or every Arnold movie for free (although you may find a guy doing that in the alley behind Costco, and that guy needs to be stopped).
SOPA/PIPA essentially says that because Costco is is giving away free samples, it can go in and burn the entire Costco down.
To avoid a lot of this trouble, Costco makes some of its own products (think Trader Joe’s). It’s already having some success. For instance, Costco Fishsticks taste a lot better than Little Belvedere Fishsticks* and cost less. This is bad news for Little Belvedere Fishsticks. Costco Peanuts are pretty good and Planters—an international corporation—is privately angry about this (and also that their product is pretty easy to recreate… it’s pretty hard to screw up a peanut).
What Costco can’t do quite yet is make something the quality of Macallan 12 Scotch. Costco Scotch isn’t there yet. Maybe one day it will be, but at least not today. So right now Costco exists as a hybrid—some self-created products and some great name brand stuff you recognize. The motto becomes “Come for the fishsticks, stay for the Scotch.” That’s the business model that allows Costco/the Internet to thrive and further experiment with Scotch recipes, etc. AND it gives out free samples to get people talking in the store.
But Belvedere Fishsticks and Planters are pissed. They’re being made irrelevant quickly, more quickly than Macallan. They go to the studio that made Predator and get them all riled up about the free samples (when really they need to go after the shady guy in the alley behind Costco). So then all the name-brand products threaten to pull their stuff off the shelves and / or burn the place down.
So Costco will either wither and die because of the destruction of its current hybrid business model, or it will actually be physically destroyed. Those are its two options.
Which sucks, because Costco is a great place.
*This post in no way endorses Little Belvedere Fishsticks or Miss Havendish Tater Tots.
Well - this is just about perfect.
