As a photographer, I think I and I alone should be able to dictate what happens to the photos that I take.
The idea that you can somehow control your image is insane. You can't forcibly control your reputation, why should you be able to forcibly control photographers who legally photograph you?
Your idea of somehow "dictating" what happens to the photos you take is equally insane if not more so. Your photos are just bits, information. Trivially copied. For you to be able to "dictate" literally anything at all would require control over the computer I'm typing this comment on and every other computer on earth.
> For you to be able to "dictate" literally anything at all would require control over the computer I'm typing this comment on and every other computer on earth.
Crimes are enforced above ring 0, at the physical layer.
Privacy rights are about stopping information from coming into existence in the first place. We want corporations to not collect data about us at all.
Copyright is about controlling distribution of information that already exists and has already been published. It's complete nonsense in the age of information.
> Crimes are enforced above ring 0, at the physical layer.
Surely you're not suggesting throwing in jail anyone who downloads grandparent's photos off of his website.
There are other ways that privacy rights are enforced, but the right to not distribute a creative work (and prevent others from doing it) is also a right that people have under copyright, and I believe they should continue to have.
> Surely you're not suggesting throwing in jail anyone who downloads grandparent's photos off of his website.
Correct, I am not. I am saying that most places around the world do dictate what he does with a computer already, and legal systems don't need a technical solution to enable it. The fact that nobody can electronically prevent them from copying bits is irrelevant. We are discussing the law, and courts use prisons, not bits.
> legal systems don't need a technical solution to enable it
They absolutely do. Without technological solutions, they don't even have a snowball's chance in hell of even so much as identifying perpetrators of copyright infringement. They can't stop it even with technological measures in place. In order to enforce copyright, they literally need to end computing freedom as we know it today. Computers gotta come pwned straight off the factory so we can only run software that they approve, so that they can reject software that copies their bits.
> We are discussing the law, and courts use prisons, not bits.
Let's discuss the law then. I propose that copyright should stop existing altogether. Simply because laws encode the customs of a people and copyright infringement is absolutely one of those customs. It is normal and natural to infringe copyright.
You infringe copyright when you download a picture or video from a website. You infringe copyright when you screenshot some social media post. You infringe copyright when you share something with your friend via messaging app. You infringe copyright when you make some funny meme by editing text into some popular culture picture. You infringe copyright when you download a copy of some blog post so you can read it later. It goes on and on. Pretty much anything you do infringes copyright. I've seen people arguing that fucking memcpy infringes copyright. It's mind boggling and never stops.
People do all of this stuff without even realizing it. How could it possibly be illegal? The only reason I can think of is constant lobbying by trillion dollar corporations.
There are always unanswered questions, legal FUD, and a lack of case law when a new technology brings up previously unanswered legal questions. This is just how law works. It doesn't necessarily mean that all of those things are illegal, or that the foundational law is fundamentally flawed. Yes, more case law is needed. Yes, some small tweaks could be necessary to clarify what 'copying' really means on the internet. But no, the underlying concept of copyright is still very necessary to protect creators from those with the power to exploit them.
> It doesn't necessarily mean [...] that the foundational law is fundamentally flawed.
I say it does.
Copyright was created in the age of printing presses. In order to violate copyright at significant scales, you had to be an industry player. You needed access to the expensive machines. It simply wasn't possible otherwise. Obviously, copyright makes sense in such a world. It's even enforceable since corporations are big targets.
But we are living in the 21st century. Everyone has globally networked general purpose computers in their pockets capable of copying and transmitting information at speeds and scales unimaginable to anyone in the last century. Everyone infringes copyright on a daily basis without even thinking twice about it. Copying is a fundamental computer operation, computers make it easy and natural to copy virtually anything. There's nothing they can do to stop it without literally destroying this wonderful invention.
Copyright is clearly hanging on for dear life. I say let it die.
> Your photos are just bits, information. Trivially copied. For you to be able to "dictate" literally anything at all would require control over the computer I'm typing this comment on and every other computer on earth
Do you feel the same way about companies violating open source licenses?
Your medical records are also just bits in an EMH system as are your text messages to your significant others. Is it okay if I share those?
> Do you feel the same way about companies violating open source licenses?
Of course. There should be no copyright nonsense to begin with. Those licenses shouldn't even exist. Nor should anyone ever be punished for using leaked or decompiled proprietary source code or anything of the sort.
> Your medical records are also just bits in an EMH system as are your text messages to your significant others.
Medical records are collected by healthcare professionals who are ethically and probably legally obligated to keep it secret. This confidentiality exists for obvious reasons, nobody would consult doctors otherwise.
> Is it okay if I share those?
You don't have access to them. You can't share them even if you wanted to. Unlike copyrighted works, those bits shouldn't be and actually aren't distributed to massive audiences worldwide. Everybody understands that once information is out there it's essentially impossible to contain it. That's why they keep it secret.
Only copyright industry is delusional enough to want to sell copies of data to everyone on earth and control what they do with it.
> Your medical records are also just bits in an EMH system as are your text messages to your significant others. Is it okay if I share those?
Medical records are covered by separate body of law, so is a conversation with your lawyer, and so are matters of National security. They have no relevance to copyright
Yes and yes. (But also, it's trivially easy to state why that type of information should not be shareable in a way that wouldn't apply to commercial photography, you can assuredly come up with these yourself with a minutes thought)
In the US, being factually accurate is an airtight defense against libel.
Face it, you don't get to control what other people say about you, nor should you want to. (Whether that "saying" is gossip, in print, or photoshopping your face on to unsavory things.)
In Sweden, it's not. I do think that it's reasonable to have certain expectations about what can be spread about you as a private person, regardless if the things said are true or not.
I agree but only if you have a consent form of the persons depicted of course.
And the state of mind is important too. I help at kink events sometimes and I don't accept consent forms from drunk people and don't get them photographed. Unless I know they've agreed to it before.
>I agree but only if you have a consent form of the persons depicted of course.
How many of the millions of published photos of recognizable people on the internet do you think have consent forms. Stock photos yes. But I'd be willing to bet that well short of 1% of the photos of people on Flickr, say, have consent forms.
Well yes, but in the environment I would take photos this is a much bigger concern obviously. I know even there not every photographer takes a form. But they always ask for consent verbally.
I wouldn't run the risk without it personally. Especially in the kink community where consent is paramount and forms are already an established method for other activities as well.
I know flickr etc is not so strict on consent but I personally would be. Especially when it involves anything remotely risqué.
The thing is that people change and societal values change over time. It's better to have that consent when someone changes their mind and blames you.
The idea that you can somehow control your image is insane. You can't forcibly control your reputation, why should you be able to forcibly control photographers who legally photograph you?