DB Annex

To Joerg Colberg -
I'm not objecting to the *use* of the imagery.
Not at all.
I do that. I want to keep doing that.
Using them, juxtaposing them, yes.
I'm objecting to the misuse of the archival labor.
How is it being misused?
By its not being attributed, acknowledged, recognized.
These images are not floating around in some nebulous virtual-reality
space - they're archived at the LoC.
The LoC specifically asks for attribution from anyone using their
gathered materials. They could password-protect their archives at the
drop of a hat, and they have every legal right to do that. But it
isn't a legal issue is it?
It's moral, ultimately, the law issues from the ethic, not vice versa.
Once dude has acknowledged that, that all his "labor" was actually
being done by scholars and interns at the Library of Congress, his
little scam falls to nothing, because as you say anyone can do what
he's done.
The difference is acknowledgment, not use, primarily, and only
secondarily about trying to make it pay.
Someone making a poster of the Mona Lisa isn't monopolizing all access
points to it. This would be impossible.
Whereas someone copyrighting something that's in the p.d. and then
bottlenecking public access to it, in other words *removing* something
from the p.d. simply because they got the opportunity to do so and
lack the necessary emotional engagement with life and art to prevent
themselves from resisting the temptation, is.
It's not a vague distinction but a necessarily fine, in the sense of
narrow and requiring precision, one.

The LoC site:
"When material from the Library's collections is reproduced in a
publication or website or otherwise distributed, the Library requests
the courtesy of a credit line.

Ideally, the credit will include

• reference to Library of Congress, and
• the specific collection which includes the image, and
• the image reproduction number (negative, transparency, or digital id number).

Such a credit furthers scholarship by helping researchers locate
material and acknowledges the contribution made by the Library of
Congress."

"Furthers scholarship".
He's doing the diametrically exact opposite.
I'm reminded of Hesse's "Magister Ludi" - all those scholars at their
wonderfully arcane tasks - and here comes some cigar-chewing
entrepeneur on the make, trying to harness their selfless labor to his
own little get-ahead machinery.
Expropriation, appropriation, la-di-da.
There's something sacred in the vast digital halls of gathered and
filed imagery there, like a profound collective memory. Further
gathering, display, illumination, augments that - co-opting those
images for selfish gain prevents it.

My position isn't as knee-jerk as it seems at first glance, I think.

cheers
msg

-
Joerg:
Then email the LoC and tell them.
-
from Matt Haughey of Metafilter:
Since they're all public domain images, it's totally free for him to
do what he's doing -- you don't even have to give attribution to the
original photographers. He's not breaking any law, and I do see him
referencing the original photographers in some places, so that's good.

It's essentially what Disney does with everything that made them
famous: you scour public domain archives, pull out the interesting
bits, then republish it as something new (for profit).

Matt
-

On 3/28/07, Matthew Haughey wrote:
> Since they're all public domain images, it's totally free for him to...

Dude they're all p.d. images >>*from -one- source*<< - The Library of Congress. That's it. Here's the LoC on reproduction:

"When material from the Library's collections is reproduced in a publication or website or otherwise distributed, the Library the requests the courtesy of a credit line. Ideally, the credit will include

• reference to Library of Congress, and
• the specific collection which includes the image, and
• the image reproduction number (negative, transparency, or digital id number).

Such a credit furthers scholarship by helping researchers locate material and acknowledges the contribution made by the Library of Congress."
To say nothing of setting up a little "gallery" or "museum" and selling prints essentially lifted off someone else's work. Not the photographers' work, which is yes in the public domain, but the Library's - as if all those hardworking souls were insignificant drones, existing just to provide the raw materials for some asswipe's little home enterprise.
These images aren't floating around in some nebulous virtual tidepool, they're in the archives of the LoC and they're there because of a lot of hard boring drudgery - going through donated photo collections cataloging and scanning (hundreds of thousands of) images and digitally rendering them, and there they are, out on the interstices of this new public domain, which, in case you're all inured to it, is crawling with chancers looking to cash in on anything regardless of any ethical nonsense like honor and responsibility.
Scammer boy is just hitchiking on that and letting the default assumption ride, that he's somehow collected these images himself and enterprisingly put together a little business around his efforts.
Horseshit.
National parks are in the public domain. Pretty much.
Want to buy a couple acres next to a fabulous waterfall? I just happen to have some lots left - better hurry though!
M.H:
"It's essentially what Disney does with everything that made them famous: you scour public domain archives, pull out the interesting bits, then republish it as something new (for profit)."
And where are you in that?
Man from Aldebaran17? Disinterested alien observer?
Disney, commons, public - all same, just actors on a wide stage, gee I wonder who'll come out on top?
Disney rips off the public domain - cool! Big money! Way of the world, hey, you know, it's how things are. Welcome to the jungle etc.
This is the antithesis of open source creativity, and you're enabling it.
And that's why I wrote to you the first time, and that's why I'm writing to you now. I haven't dropped a dime to the LoC about this because I'm uncomfortable with the snitch-level aspects of that - but make no mistake, I love those guys and what they've done with their resources, and I'll go a long way to defend what I see as open and furthering custodial labor against scammer-jammer opportunism - raw mediocre greed in short.
And so far I'm not at all convinced by your reasoning, such as it is, or clear as to your position, such as it may be, on this.

cheers
msg