theregister.co.uk — A Photo-Journalist speaks: "We're continually being told the Internet empowers the individual. But as an individual creative worker myself, I'd argue that all this Utopian revolution has achieved so far is to disempower individuals, strengthen the hand of multinational businesses, and decrease the pool of information available to audiences."
Dec 29, 2006 View in Crawl 4
chongliDec 30, 2006
@smhillIt's all a matter of perspective. I look at Youtube and Flickr as being providers of free hosting service. They give free bandwidth (and a lot of it) to anyone who wants their work to be seen by the world. Yes, they make money from the ads. No, this does not cost the user a dime, the ads are easily blocked.What exactly is the problem here?
wolfboyDec 30, 2006
I have a friend who is a professional photographer who regularly goes to war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, Lebanon, etc. He literally risks his life to get those pictures. He's been in battles and firefights and ambushes.It costs a lot of money -- airfare, translators, hotel, ground transportation, security, body armor, satellite phone, etc.He's one of the best in the business and regularly wins top prizes. His pictures appear on the covers of newspapers and magazines around the world and on many news services web sites.I also see his pictures on many places that obviously never paid for them. Every time, it lowers the monetary value of his photos. That situation can't last. He's lucky now that he works for an agency that is big enough to absorb the losses. When he was freelance, he went broke.
obkenobiDec 30, 2006
They don't just buy modern art. That's a trend for corporate buyers right now, but for their homes they also like to buy antique Americana and they still love their big-name fine art.Anyway, I don't think the point was that you can't make money as an artist, the point was that a select few control the mainstream distribution channels. It's not really about profit, but about who decides what's newsworthy, and who decides what's "good'?The situation is the same for the food industry. Most farms have been long ago taken over by corporations. Everything is franchised from the farm to the transport to the point of sale. It is killing small businesses in America.
nobogeys217Dec 30, 2006
I have never really thought of copyright infringement w/ photos. I know you copyright them but I havent really ever heard of anyone suing/getting sued over photo copyright infringement.
fantasticjonJan 5, 2007
@lysdexiaYes, Because all really good photographers are greedy and unreasonable.
chandonJan 8, 2007
Oh man. I wish I could get away with that s**t as a contract programmer. "Yea... that code I wrote for you, I retained the copyright on it. Your new server? That'll be a $10,000 license fee. Thanks." Them: "But we contracted you to write it!". Me: "This is standard terms... for a photographer."