ADMIN NOTE: EVERYONE READ THIS! PTB want no more UA photos on our site

[formersoldier71]

It is confusing, but here is the best I can come up with:

-Alextupelo, a UA Athletic Photographer, noticed UA taken photographs (One done by UA Athletic photographers) being used and modified in a variety of wallpapers. He asked how the poster had access to the high resolution file. Still no answer on that.

-The wallpapers linked back to a photobucket site, where people have the option to purchase prints.

-Purchasing (Or even distributing in a way that would give the impression it is an attempt to earn profit) another person's copyrighted work without their consent (In this instance, UA's consent), is a big no-no.

-Alex did NOT allow Tidefans the courtesy of taking care of this issue in-house. Alex alerted his superiors in the photography department about the thread. Tidefans got the notice to remove all UA taken photographs.

-Alex smugly let us know how this came about.

-This thread then mushroomed.

Fixed it for you.

 

[CapstoneTider]

There's no perfect way to protect high res images on the net.

Good points.
Even though a computer savvy individual can defeat any of these(the challenge has been keeping up with the download of streaming video), it does prevent a majority of people from copying something that you do not want all over the net, or hanging in someone's living room.

This number of non savvy is shrinking every year as a younger kid takes the user slot of an older person on the net. But those younger kids will start battling with their peers, so the protection methods will continue to improve I would think.

 

[DiamondDust]

D/D, you and several others who have posted often on this thread throw terms around that you and they are familiar with, but to those of us who are barely computer literate sound like gibberish. I seriously doubt that one Tidefans poster out of a hundred knows what EXIF data is, and not a tenth of those would know how to find that data by looking at a photo.

Therefore, to those of us who visit Tidefans to talk football (or any other sport played at Alabama), derive great benefit from viewing photos that illustrate situations or familiarize us with faces we only know because we are fans. I don't even know how to capture a photo and place it in a post. I CERTAINLY don't know how to determine that a given photo is "private property" unless it has a watermark.

I advised Brett to just ignore this letter, and I still feel the same way. It is the responsibility of the University to protect their copyrights; not Tidefans, and not me. From what I read here, it would be a simple matter for them to watermark the art they want protected. Otherwise, I think whatever appears on any website becomes public domain.

Well, you're wrong. Plain and simple. Pleading ignorance really isn't an excuse. An embedded copyright is the same as an external watermark. It is the responsibility of the University to protect their copyrights... they did just that by sending the letter. They were well within their rights to do so.

 

[NYBamaFan]

... They were well within their rights to do so.

Agreed, but TideFans has an established policy and track record banning such activity. It would be impossible for UA to win any award in court if something slipped through. That said, UA could do other things to make Brett uncomfortable, so he was wise to post the letter and amend the policy with specifics tied to UA properties...

 

[uafan4life]

D/D, you and several others who have posted often on this thread throw terms around that you and they are familiar with, but to those of us who are barely computer literate sound like gibberish. I seriously doubt that one Tidefans poster out of a hundred knows what EXIF data is, and not a tenth of those would know how to find that data by looking at a photo.

Therefore, to those of us who visit Tidefans to talk football (or any other sport played at Alabama), derive great benefit from viewing photos that illustrate situations or familiarize us with faces we only know because we are fans. I don't even know how to capture a photo and place it in a post. I CERTAINLY don't know how to determine that a given photo is "private property" unless it has a watermark.

I advised Brett to just ignore this letter, and I still feel the same way. It is the responsibility of the University to protect their copyrights; not Tidefans, and not me. From what I read here, it would be a simple matter for them to watermark the art they want protected. Otherwise, I think whatever appears on any website becomes public domain.

I really wish it worked that way. Unfortunately, neither copyright law nor copyright owners agree with you.

 

[DiamondDust]

Agreed, but TideFans has an established policy and track record banning such activity. It would be impossible for UA to win any award in court if something slipped through. That said, UA could do other things to make Brett uncomfortable, so he was wise to post the letter and amend the policy with specifics tied to UA properties...

Agreed. The actions were heavy-handed, but they were within their rights. No one is going to argue Tidefans and the moderators have done anything but respect the wishes of copyright holders.

 

[RedStar]

Agreed. The actions were heavy-handed, but they were within their rights. No one is going to argue Tidefans and the moderators have done anything but respect the wishes of copyright holders.

If no one was profiting from it, I still don't understand why it doesn't fall into "fair-use" catagory.

 

[DiamondDust]

If no one was profiting from it, I still don't understand why it doesn't fall into "fair-use" catagory.

I'm not 100% certain, but I'm guessing they can argue something along the lines of:

-The links on the board that generate revenue, thus a copyrighted image is indirectly being used to generate revenue for Tidefans without UA's consent.

-There could have been other instances in the past where people tried to sell UA prints without consent and approval, thus forcing this action for all future instances. The same would apply to bootleg t-shirt vendors and such.

I am sure there are several other arguments that can be made, but again... it's all in the gray territory, which is why they had to give such a heavy-handed statement in this case.

 

[derek4tide]

As many have pointed out, the issue is not the use of photos, the issue is how this whole thing was handled by Alex. To continue to defend this point is useless. Because of his "actions", this site (and others) will suffer in the long run. This fact has most on here highly ticked off....and rightly so.

 

[DiamondDust]

Because of his "actions", this site (and others) will suffer in the long run. This fact has most on here highly ticked off....and rightly so.

Really? I can think of several avenues where you can still get game photos, if you go through the proper channels. Heck, I can think of a couple people on this board (Alex not included) that have the capability of posting field-level game photos if they wanted.

 

[uafan4life]

If no one was profiting from it, I still don't understand why it doesn't fall into "fair-use" catagory.

Unfortunately it doesn't matter whether or not someone profits from it.

If someone else could profit from it and/or the copyright owner could have lost revenue because of it then it is treated as a violation.

I don't like this application of copyright law. I think you should have to prove that revenue was, in fact, lost before you can take action.

It's kind of like copying DVDs. Copying a DVD, in and of itself, should not be a copyright violation and doesn't create revenue for the copier or reduce revenue for the movie maker. Now, if I were to copy that movie and sell the copy (or the original, keeping the copy) then I have gained monetarily. However, under this application, making a copy and giving it to my friend may or may not actually reduce revenue for the movie maker and could, in theory, increase their future revenue.

Let's say that I have a movie and I think it's cool. I make a copy and give it to my friend John. Now I know John could have rented the movie or I could have loaned it to him. Let's take the loaning out of the equation - he lives out of state and I don't want to give him my copy since I might not get it back. So, he might go home and rent it, and he might not. If he doesn't (or maybe even if he does), he's not going to go out and buy the movie, so the movie maker hasn't lost any revenue whether I copy it for him or not. Regardless, he takes the copy home and watches it, and he likes it. He likes it so much, in fact, that he goes to the theater and watches the sequel when it comes out. Had he never watched the first one, he wouldn't have gone to see the sequel. In this case, my making an illegal copy of the movie and giving it to my friend actually made the movie maker more revenue than they would have gotten had I not made the coffee. In this instance, in theory, it doesn't make sense to restrict this as a copyright violation and threaten a lawsuit. For that matter, John might like it so much that he goes out and buys the first movie as well or a box set or something. Now that copy I made is useless (and technically legal) since he now owns an official copy. I say it's technically legal because you can legally have a backup copy of any movie you own.

While this instance, which might be rare I know but not as rare as some might think, is technically a copyright violation, it actually is a good thing for the movie maker. It's a bit of a paradox, yes, but it's true.

The movie industry, though, would prefer it to be impossible to copy a dvd for any use. This is absurd, and stupid on their part.

Take my setup at home, for example. I take every movie I buy (and have done this with almost every dvd I own) and rip it to my home server. BTW, rip it means that I make a digital copy of it and store it on a hard drive, instead of on a physical DVD disk. Why do I do this? For safety, yes, but mainly for convenience. If the only thing I have is a physical DVD, then whenever I want to watch the movie I have to look for the disk and put it in the drive. Since I have the disk ripped to my server, I can watch the movie wherever I want to in my house. I can watch it on my desktop, my laptop, my netbook, my media center PC in the bedroom, or my xbox360 in the living room. I can watch it on any TV or Computer in my house without having to locate and insert the DVD. If I had to use the physical disk every time I (or my wife) wanted to watch a movie two things would happen: 1) we would watch fewer movies and 2) I would buy fewer DVDs. Between hulu and netflix, I can find something to watch.

If the music and movie industry is allowed to take things as far as they would like in order to "protect" their revenue, I'm afraid they would find that they would be shooting themselves in the foot and reducing their revenues enev more.

 

[uafan4life]

As many have pointed out, the issue is not the use of photos, the issue is how this whole thing was handled by Alex. To continue to defend this point is useless. Because of his "actions", this site (and others) will suffer in the long run. This fact has most on here highly ticked off....and rightly so.

And your anger is misplaced.

Yes, Alex could have handled things more "diplomatically" in regards to this particular instance with the particular thread on Tidefans. However he was not wrong in his actions, as he was doing exactly what he was instructed to do as per his superiors.

I think you people are looking at this one instance as an all-inclusive causation of this policy. This policy has been coming, if not set, for some time. There are many sites that have somehow obtained and/or hosted and/or linked to high res images that were taken by the University. Alex's actions did not cause this policy to be set in place, they only affected the timing by which Tidefans was notified of this policy. It was coming, sooner or later. The only thing Alex did, again by doing exactly what he was supposed to do as per his job, was to make that sooner rather than later.

If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at the person(s) who leaked (or made it possible to get) the high res photos on the internet and the person in charge (which isn't Alex) who thought that this heavy-handed policy was a good idea.

Not to mention the fact that getting angry at and, especially, venting that anger at Alex is stupid. It's simply stupid.

We don't like the policy, right? We want the policy to change, right? We want the University to allow us to post and use their images to promote the University, and their sites, with proper links and credit, right? If that is what we want, then it is simply stupid to throw stones at a member of the department when they did nothing, technically or legally, wrong.

Let's say that the kids in your neighborhood take a shortcut through the back of the neighborhood, though a small treeline to a public park. If they walk around the neighborhood to the front of the park then they end up walking along a major highway, and it's much safer to cut through the back. Now, let's say that the park and rec department decides to put a fence up along the back of the park, and now the only way for the kids to get into the park is to walk along the highway or get you to drive them there. Obviously you don't like the policy. If you want the policy to change, is it a good idea to go to a council meeting and yell at the council members telling them what idiots they are? Is it a good idea to go spray-paint the entrance to the park or cut a hole in the fence? Absolutely not. If you wanted the policy to change, only an idiot would do those things.

The same logic should apply here. If we want them to change the policy then we need to give them a reason to change it, not convince them that is was a good idea and necessary, which is exactly what the reactions of most in this thread would do.

 

[CrimsonPride]

Well, you're wrong. Plain and simple. Pleading ignorance really isn't an excuse. An embedded copyright is the same as an external watermark. It is the responsibility of the University to protect their copyrights... they did just that by sending the letter. They were well within their rights to do so.

I agree that "stealing" or distributing copyrighted property without the owner's permission is wrong. I also agree that the University is well within its rights to protect their copyrights. However, I disagree that they did so by sending the letter unless there is more in the letter than we saw. For instance, did they explain in the letter how Tidefans would be identify whether a BAMA photo was copyrighted by them? If as you and others have said, that the problem is not with the low resolution photos but with the high resolution ones which are akin to digital masters of a recording, I think the major problem is that UA photography department's internal controls are not what they should be. Otherwise, the high resolution quality photo would not have been on the internet to be misused. IMO, the UA photography department did not do their due diligence in protecting their own property. To me, protecting your copyright would mean taking precautions on the front end to prevent your property from being misused. The letter was reactionary to a problem that the University"s employees are also partly responsible for.

In many instances, I agree that pleading ignorance is no excuse; however, to use this against a person assumes that they should have a certain level of knowledge about the subject or that the information about it can be easily attained. I think a key element to this should be the intent of the person using the image. I had never heard of or given thought to much of the technical photography related information that has been discussed throughout this thread. So, I think that pleading ignorance to a certain degree is a plausible excuse. I would not stand a chance in defending myself if I had used or tried to sell a picture without the owner's permission if it had a watermark on it but without something that is obvious to the average internet user (and prior to this thread), I would have liked my chances with a jury of my peers.

I will accept that an embedded copyright is the same as an external watermark. The problem is that I and apparently many others (1) don't know what EXIF data is and (2) couldn't find it if our lives depended on it. So, that brings up a question that has been asked many times in this thread with no answer: How would I know that a photo is copyrighted if I don't see something that alerts me to that fact? Can you or someone else explain how a person could access or see this "EXIF data" and what specifically should they be looking for so that they would not "ignorantly" post a copyrighted photo? Also, since a photo is not hosted on Tidefans, would this "EXIF data" still be with the photo when posted here? A little education goes a long way and this would allow the members of this site to help the moderators keep Tidefans out of the crosshairs of UA.

 

[JSherm54]

hog wash

 

[TIDE-HSV]

They've taken down a bunch of links to images, also. I host a small forum on Delphi and I was linking to a UA BD stadium pic for a start page. Delphi went down for five days (result of a "massive upgrade"), and UA took down the link while Delphi was down. My assumption was that the Delphi software was broken, since the pic disappearing coincided. At length, I realized that UA had taken down the image link...

 

[Hamilton]

I'd be interested to know if Alex still has a job. His boss can't be happy with the way he represented the University in this thread...

 

[bobstod]

Really? I can think of several avenues where you can still get game photos, if you go through the proper channels. Heck, I can think of a couple people on this board (Alex not included) that have the capability of posting field-level game photos if they wanted.

Dust, nobody seems to be able to get through to you. You keep talking about their 'rights'. You keep saying that all we have to do is 'go thru proper channels'. You are coming from the perspective of someone is protecting his own rights with regard to the use of photos.

It can certainly be argued that UA has the 'right' to ask Tidefans not to publish any UA photos; but is it 'right' for them to do that? Is it wise?

"Going thru proper channels" might seem elementary to you, or to those others who post endless lines of computer-speak (gibberish to me, and to most); but I would never attempt to use such a language, any more that I would attempt Greek.

The question here, it seems to me, is what to do about the U of A's letter. I say DO NOTHING, other that to communicate to them how we think this is unwise and unworkable, and quite possibly very damaging to UA's reputation among loyal fans.

They should watermark their art, and they should respect and appreciate Tidefans.com, a website that is run "right" and produces huge amounts of fan interest (and money) for the University. Until then, we should continue to apply rules already in place, and we should continue to post photos that are not visibly copyrighted.

Seems simple to me...

PS: Do you seriously think it is a good idea to restrict our usage of photos to 'a couple of guys'? At present we have a couple of million guys to choose from; and we're not abusing their rights.

 

[2003TIDE]

I'd be interested to know if Alex still has a job. His boss can't be happy with the way he represented the University in this thread...

Hence all his deleted posts.

 

[CapstoneTider]

I'd be interested to know if Alex still has a job. His boss can't be happy with the way he represented the University in this thread...

I would ban him from here due to the conflict of interest alone. Someone may turn him in to UA for participating in threads that include copywritten material.

 

[GulfCoastTider]

D/D, you and several others who have posted often on this thread throw terms around that you and they are familiar with, but to those of us who are barely computer literate sound like gibberish. I seriously doubt that one Tidefans poster out of a hundred knows what EXIF data is, and not a tenth of those would know how to find that data by looking at a photo.

EXIF Defined:

EXIF is an acronnym for EXchangeable Image Format. It is a standard for encoding information about an image within the image itself. For example, the EXIF data can contain information on the make/model of the camera that took the image, or the software used to manipulate it. Some high end cameras and GPS-enabled cellphones can also record geospatial data in the EXIF. Not all digital imagery on the web supports EXIF encoding. For example, the GIF and PNG formats do not support the EXIF standard.

If you use Windows XP, some of the EXIF data for images is displayed in the properties window when you right click an image. XP (and Vista) also display EXIF data when the image file is highlighted. If you use the Firefox browser, you can view EXIF data for images on the web by using the Exif Viewer plug-in.

EXIF is basically "information about information," or "meta data." It is very useful not only in getting information about how or where an image was generated, but when. For example, there is a picture floating around certain LSU fan sites purporting to show a still image of Peterson making the INT in the fourth quarter of last Saturday's game. However, the EXIF data for that image shows that it was created at a time and date that are inconsistent with the time and date of the play in question. So not only can the EXIF data be useful for determining technical data about an image, it can also cast light on whether to believe what you're seeing...

Hope that helps.