Remember back in the day when not everyone could get onto the internet before there was a true world wide web? Then AOL, which was really a glorified oversized BBS, became an internet gateway in 1993 and the USENET users were up in arms. They called the event Eternal September, because of the constant flood of users who came in not understanding how things worked, the social norms of USENET or the proper netiquette that had been established. Whenever a new service makes gaining access (perhaps just by highlighting its existence) to parts of the Internet easier for its users, there is usually a time period often referred to as an ”Eternal September Event” that occurs.
The most recent Eternal September Event I witnessed was on Facebook.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Facebook is more popular than Jesus himself. It’s the dominant social network of the world where MySpace once reigned. While it made leaps and bounds by keeping the design clean and uncluttered, indoctrinating third party apps, and enhancing your privacy levels… some of the more annoying MySpace trends have crept over. Most notable are the Facebook Notes feature, which on MySpace were called Bulletins, that allows its members a medieval form of blogging while taking internet memes and their tagging requirement to the next level.
The Event
I was tagged by one friend in a note with his own creation after following this meme:
Create Your Own Album Cover
To create your own album cover:
1 - Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random… Read More”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.2 - Go to “Random quotations”
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.
It’s a basic internet meme, one I think I may have done back in 2006 or something. No big deal right? Well shortly thereafter another friend wrote this as his status:
Brian asks that his friends stop copying people’s photographs for the “Create Your Own Album Cover” game.
Needless to say, there was a lively debated discussion in the Status Comments.
The Debate
My friend playing devil’s advocate argued:
1. If you put a photo out there, you have to expect that anyone who sees it can easily copy it. The photo I used for my “create your fake bands first album cover game” was taken directly from flicker. I didn’t use any special tools or gimics. I simply used my mac to take a screen cap and then croped the photo.
2. I didn’t do it to make fun of the art it self, nor do I claim any ownership to it. Futher more, by the very rules of the game it is apparant that noone playing claims any ownership of the photos they are using. The rules direct you to flicker and tell you to allow flicker to choose a random image for you. That was kinda the point.
3. I make no profit nor gain anything from using this photo.
4. I did not use the photo in a slanderous manner, nor did I depict the subject in a manner that was offensive or misrepresentitive.
5. I have seen many people who wish to retain exclucivity and ownership to a photo utilize a watermark, which the particular photo in question did not have.While I can understand the need for an artist to protect his art, I don’t see muhgrounds for argument for the situation in question.
My friend who took the position of the established community (in this case Flickr) argued:
1) How is that different from saying that if you write a song, you expect people to pirate it. Just because it happens, doesn’t make it right. As I said, I know things can be copied off Flickr, but Flickr is more than just a photo hosting site. It’s a community and I get a lot of critiques, and guidance from it.
2) IMHO, the rules encourage the theft of intellectual property.
3) No one said there was profit or gain from it, but it’s still wrong. If I download an album or a movie, and don’t sell it, does that make it right?
4) No, the photos used are not slanderous, however, as an artist, I take offense to a photo being used in a meaning other than the artist intended without the artist’s permission. My heart would break if one of my images was used as the butt of a joke.
5) Yes, watermarks are used, and use them here. However, as I stated Flickr is more than just file hosting, and most people prefer to critique the full, unobstructed image.
Which was met once again by the devil’s advocate with:
Ok Point by point (and again, I just love the debate, no malice intented bro)
1. The piracy of digital music is a complicated thing. the MP3 phenonanon was indirectly a result of the record companies greed. A great new mediumwas created and rather than utilize it to recreate themselves in a new buisness modle, they fought it tooth and nail, subsequently it has become their undoing (but i could talk about that for days)
In the case of flicker, again I claim no ownership to the photo so i’m not really stealing it. In fact it could be argued that by te very nature of altering it, i have changed in completely and it is no longer the same photo. I guess I kind of see this as no different than drawing a mustache on a newspaper photo. The photo may oneday win the pulitzer prize. My mustache drawing has no real effect. the difference here is that far more people see the mustache that would on the newspaper.
Point 2 - I don; know if you can really consider this theft. The original photo is can be found safe and sound in it’s original place. The credit, still belonging to it’s originator. The game I played was clearly in good fun. I don; think anyone could confuse my game entry as a claimto the original artwork.3. Actually there is nothing illegal about downloading movies or music. If it’s out there you can download it. it is when you become the distributor that the problem occurs. Grated this is a chicken or the egg argument but it is in fact the way it works. You will never see a search warrant on my mp3 hardrive but if I were to digially share that music over a file share system I would be sued.
4. The fact is the photo is not the butt of the joke. The game or joke is tantamount to the old, how to create your “porn name” by choosing the name of the street you were born on and your first pet I belive.
5. Ran out of space,but I said my peice on watermarks. To u sir
The debate continued on, in the adverse conditions of Facebook Status Comments I might add, with my own opinion voiced.
Understanding The Root Of The Problem
The root of the problem is a severe lack of understanding of both the service and the proper netiquette associated with them.
It is important to understand exactly what Flickr is. While it obviously is a photo sharing site, it is also forged around a community like Facebook itself. On the community side, it is a place for photographers to gather and share their work for both critique and inspiration. The thread of commonality in image creation and artistry binds them around a toolset focused on interaction through both words and pictures. Similar to YouTube, the Flickr community is generally a niche community that allows the public to look in on it. Transparency after all is a basic building block of Web 2.0 communities.
On the technical side it allows its users to either retain all rights (© All Rights Reserved) or to license the photos out for other people to use in Creative Commons Licensing. Choosing the Creative Commons Licensing option will allow anyone to save your image or copy HTML code to display your image pursuant to the terms of the license. This gives the creator more exposure. More exposure can bring both more opportunity and gives the creator a greater influence within their sphere.
So how would you find images that are usable via the terms of the license in the meme? Simple really… just use Flickr’s Search For Attribution License located here: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/by-2.0/ . This license allows you to alter the photo with cropping or writing and can be used in both commercial and non-commercial settings as long as you give attribution to the creator with a link back to their profile.
It is the meme creator and those who blindly did it, with a lack of understanding about how Flickr actually works, who are the root of the problem. They are the “Frosh” that USENET users endured every September until that fateful day when September became an eternal way of life.
The Conclusion
Even though AOL disconnected from USENET in 2005, Eternal September continues across the internet. There have been huge leaps and bounds made regarding copyright and ownership on the internet. Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse, nor is it excusable to disrespect someone else’s community by blatantly promoting actions against it. It’s just uber poor netiquette.
It goes beyond poor netiquette though. There are also some pretty scary things out there that could adversely affect the internet as we know it, like New Zealand’s Copyright Act of 1984 amendment of Section 92A that would require ISPs to disconnect an account after three accusations of downloading copyrighted materials from file sharing sites. Sure they specifically say “file sharing” sites insinuating bit torrent, like The Pirate Bay who currently has their administrators on trial, but let’s relook at Flickr… a photo-sharing site… which happens to have photos in files. So if you go to Flickr and make three albums, and are accused of such, you lose access to the internet. Or worse… your company could lose access to the internet. Luckily it has been delayed thanks to the protests of the New Zealand blogosphere.
Where were the New Zealand Facebookers??? Oh right… too busy stealing images off Flickr. Why mention New Zealand? At the risk of sounding like an alarmist, because there is a similar US version in Congress right now.
The truth simply is that if you put it out there people will find a way to take it, but that does not make it automatically right.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I totally copied the above arguments from the Status Update debate on Facebook word for word, including misspellings and whatnot . That’s probably not a violation of someone’s copyright, but I totally stole that graphic of Facebook being more popular than Jesus through Google Images. So yeah… I’m a pirate… shiver me timbers.
