Tin Man has a good point. Makes me wonder if FatMan has an opinion... Or a few chioce lines he might use. I have no info on his qualifications but "more than us" seems to fit well.
"Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible." -Feynman
Jack's got a good point.
Not that any of this is an issue now, but who knows how things will change in the future. My guess is that White Blaze will matter 20 years from now. Its hard to believe how WB has grown over the past 5 years. Five years of excellent work!!!!
BTW, I googled this up, and it seemed like it could make sense. Just a thought.
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The ATC contacted me a few weeks ago wanting to include one of my WB photos for an upcoming revised guidebook. They didn't say anything about going to WB first; they considered that I was the owner whose permission was required.Originally Posted by Frolicking Dinosaurs
Were they going to "lift" it off the website or do thy need the original?
They saw it on WB but didn't ask to lift it. Rather they asked me to transmit it to them. After talking to them, they wanted to see a lot of my winter photos from SW Virginia. To minimize file space, I suggested sending them the photos via Snapfish.com or KodakGallery.com both of whom I use. They said the resolution from lifting photos/images from those sites was not good and it was better for me to e-mail the original.
Which is the point I've been trying to make. The photos in the gallery while nice to look at are basically worthless. I'm not a lawyer but, I'd find it hard to believe that anyone could stop you from giving/selling your original to someone else.
My guess is that is what happens 99% of the time - especially if an organization or individual wants to use the photo without the WB watermark embedded. The one time I knew about WB being asked was by a site that wanted to use both the photo and WB watermark on the photo -- the site planned to use the photo plus watermark as an image map (clickable hyperlink) to WB.
My thoughts on the copywrite issue:
As several have noted, the wording on the copywrite notice is legalese - it needs to do two things IMO:
1. protect the owners and agents (like this she-dino moderator) from getting sued if something like this happens:
John Doe, friend of a WB owner, emails his friend (a WB owner) about how to solve some sort of hiking or gear problem or for info about a trail. Owner copies a particularly good post or group of posts or an article about the subject and emails it to John Doe. While no one would question this if neither party was an owner or agent of WB, some people would if one party was an owner or agent.2. protect the posters from having their posts, articles or photos reused off this site without the poster having approved the use.
Hopefully this can be resolved, but the owners do not possess magic wands (though I do sometimes wonder about Dixi).... it will take a bit of thought and conferring between the owners to decide if the newly revised copywrite notice adequately states that people's work isn't going to be lifted and used in publications or on other websites without the authors' expressed permission and also protects the owners and agents in the event they do something human and share info with their friends.
One of the owners is not easily contactable right now due to being on a temporary assignment out-of-town. This likely isn't going to get discussed by the owners until that owner is back in town so .... how about the rest of us chilling for a while and letting the owners have some time to get this totally resolved?
Well, I don't know - I'm not much of a techie. But I decided to try myself so I lifted someone else's photo from WB by right-clicking and using "Save As", saved it to a file on my PC, and - using Microsoft Imaging Expert - cropped it ie. stripped off the WhiteBlaze lettering. Saved a new file, printed a 4x6 - it looks good, sharp-looking resolution. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's suitable for publishing; there may well be technical details I'm not aware of.
Generally for high-quality printing you need 200-300 dpi. That's why I'd never post a large image (at least, one that I cared about) to the web.
I'm sympathetic to Rift Zone's query and concern, being in a vaguely similar position. But I'm no longer under any delusions concerning the monetary value of scenic nature photos. I admit to being fairly ignorant of copyright law, but it's never been an issue for me.
I hope you cropped whiteblaze.net !
If people are really concerned, they shouldn't post what they perceive to be valuable content here - whether its photographic or otherwise. People "borrow" photos and intellectual property on the 'net all the time. It's just a right click or copy & paste away.
'All my lies are always wishes" ~Jeff Tweedy~
The technology involving printing on paper (my chosen field) and publishing on screen (usually the internet) requires the same image to be prepared two different ways.
For quality color printing on a printing press, the file must be at least 300dpi at the dimensions it will be used, and in the CMYK color space. An image lifted off the web, or prepared with the web as a destination, will typically be 72dpi and the dimensions as small as possible, in the RGB color space. Trying to obtain a good quality print job from one of these images is nearly impossible, especially if the image will be printed in a "large" size.
A full-resolution large file could conceivably be used on a website, although it would take a lot longer to download to the viewer's computer (and for those with dial-up it might not ever download). This is why larger, full-resolution images are typically re-made to a significantly smaller file size (downloads faster!) specifically for use on the web in an application like Photoshop or web-authoring software.
We have clients at my printing business who consistently ask us to just "take" a photo from their website for use in a brochure, for example. Definitely a no-no. I ask them to try to recall the last time they watched a show like Cops on TV, and how those faces of innocent bystanders were blurred so as to not be recognizable. That's an extreme example of "pixellization," and is similar to what a photo lifted from a website would reproduce like on a printing press. When put like this, they see the wisdom in supplying us with larger files at full resolution to print from.
There is almost zero likelihood that anyone could take a photo off the WB site and use it to create something destined for a printing press that anyone would want to look at much less pay $$$ for. I do understand the concern over legal ownership, and it seems like ATTroll and Dixie have taken some steps in the right direction to address this.
Many of us do upload photos that are at a high enough resolution to be printed as 4" x 6" prints or even 8" x 10" without losing too much quality. I often do this in case those pictured want to print the photo for their own use.
There is probably no one more guilty of snatching photos from the gallery than that evil photoshopping Dino. Is this acceptable to most of the posters? I've only had one complaint and I removed that photoshopped creation ASAP.
Perhaps for personal use but I'll stand with Skyland, it would not be worth trying to sell.
Sure photshop away. I don't care.
I'm afraid to complain. I might get photoshopped!
There is probably no one more guilty of snatching photos from the gallery than that evil photoshopping Dino
If anything in my gallery was found worthy, I would honored. My blessing applies to all WB members.There is probably no one more guilty of snatching photos from the gallery than that evil photoshopping Dino
Last edited by Rift Zone; 11-05-2007 at 13:28. Reason: clarification
"Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible." -Feynman
Ms. Dino, if you do photoshop me, could you use Brad Pitt's face or someone like Gregory Peck??
Would I do something like that? You're just another harmless hiker....I'm afraid to complain. I might get photoshopped!
Thankyou, now I feel fully validated.
I added a little code so that you could not save the photos in the photo section now by right clicking and saving them.
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