A dirty big secret of Blogging on Steem
Okay, bloggers, I have got to mention a dirty secret. I am really trying to be as nice as possible. I am perfectly capable of going all over-the-top attack mode.
But I shouldn’t.
You see these dog and cat photos? I didn’t take them on my own camera. They are essentially stock photos. You bloggers … you know who you are … are constantly using photos that you scrape and lift from the web.
Yes, I said it.
You filthy rotten scoundrels!
(ok, some faux vitriol and snark there. Let's keep this light and friendly.)
But everyone is doing it!
(Source: Staff Sgt. Daylena Gonzales,U.S. Air Force, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_military_dog.jpg , public domain)
Indeed almost everyone is. People in the Steemian community, like a lot of other social media and blogging platforms, are prone to taking artwork and re-purposing it for their own use. Essentially every good blog post has to have some form of “eye candy” or artwork to “sell” it to viewers. So you search and search, browse and browse, for that perfect little piece of artwork with the white background and the photoshopped look. I am talking about stock photos and artwork.
(I didn’t swipe this image, either. Credit: www.christianholmer.com, Christian Holmér, CC by 2.0, which is to say it is licensed and legal to post this image here for any purpose. Not all artwork is available this way.)
You take it.
(Not everyone, every time, but this is very common!)
You don’t ask for permission… it was on the web!
Maybe you link to the source that you discovered it from. Maybe you skip the time and effort to do so.
But you plop it near the top of your blog post, and through the wonders of Steemian, “your” artwork is shown next to your carefully crafted Blog post title. You might even use a half dozen of these images.
Congratulations, you are a great blogger, but you may have just robbed a photographer or creative artist of her earned recognition, professional livelihood, or rights. Copyrights are generally perceived to belong to the creator for their entire lifetime, and sometime for decades after their death.
Personally, I struggle with both my unskillful artistry on the one hand and the “borrowing” of the images I find in image searches. But on Steem, we are publishers of content who expect to make money on blogging.
We are professional bloggers, by definition
We make money from posting. The images we use on many of our blog posts are supposed to be properly licensed for web publishing.
But what about Fair Use?
Fair use is a great thing, because it enables us to comment about images and videos and music and the written and spoken content of other people and companies.
But do blog posts even make a comment about the images they use?
Almost certainly, no. There is not commentary about stock images.
Stock images are simply there on a blog to add some flavor and make the content easier to digest for readers.
When @Bitcoin-blogger-expert-guy writes a blog on Bitcoin, he doesn’t say,
“This image is an interesting representation of the bitcoin cryptocurrency. The green and red hues coordinate with the symbology and historical images of accounting ledger sheets and 1980s electronic spreadsheets.”
In other words, the stock photos are being used as part of the content to make his blog stand out. I went out of my way to find free and licensable stock photos for this post.
So in my most recent proposal, I detailed an entirely new system by which bloggers can obtain stock photos for use on Steem. In that proposal, I explained that bloggers can:
- Write an original blog post
- Search for stock artwork relevant to his blog post
- Obtain a license for the artwork
- Support fellow Steemian stock photographers and artists
- Get upvoted by the soon-to-be powerful SSPVM account (and optionally, the artist)
- Give back some of the earnings from the blog to the artist who supplied his stock artwork
Would that make you bloggers feel better?
(I am one, so my answer is Yes)
I am proposing a 6% fee on the final value of your post to be paid to Steem Stock Photos, Videos, and Music (SSPVM), half of which will be sent back to the artist. The other half would be used to maintain a website and storage cloud for licensable, Steemable artwork.
I don’t know about you, but when I put myself into the shoes of a stock photographer or artist, I think I would appreciate a little bit of money for each time others used my work.
I must admit that I want to be fair. I’m trying hard to make both bloggers and artists understand this predicament. I want everyone to come out on top. That includes
- Bloggers (legally and morally, I believe you will want easy licensing of stock images)
- Artists (financially and for the sake of fairness, I believe you will want some of the rewards for your work)
- Me, the developers, and the maintainers of the SSPVM project (financially, legally, and for the benefit of Steem, I think we owe all of the stakeholders a sense of fairness and earning potential)
If anyone questions my credentials as either a professional blogger or as a bad photographer, look no further than some recent posts of mine! I've been a pro and bad for longer than some have been alive! LOL.
Thanks everyone. I tried not to be over-the-top ATTACK dog.... I am right there with you... stock photo swiping is truly a dirty aspect of blogging for me, and
This is why I rely almost exclusively on pixabay and other image hosting sites that host pictures that require no license and no attribution, though I still link back to the image on pixabay or wherever I sourced it from. I'm not keen on taking money from photographers and artists who want to be compensated for their work; they're well within their right to do so as things stand now.
Except for the government. They've already stolen from me, so I'm using their stuff. It's the least they can do.
Those sites are great and all, but I think if I told you that a Steem stock photo site was ready today, I think you and others would be on board. Thanks for the encouragement!
i think theres a lack of interest...maybe beg for more upvotes?
It can also be said that people can always just create their own photos for their own use. I'm a big advocate of always attempting to use my own photos so far on Steemit I have only used my own photos and I find it more rewarding knowing that it's my picture in the thumbnail.
Of course you're never gone to find the photo of a wolf exploding Super Saiyan Style but you can do what you can with what you got. Great read.
Right. I think blogging about esoteric things (monetary policy, trading, humor) and media things (news, sports, entertainment) gets prohibitively expensive and/or time consuming if we produce our own eye candy.
In fact, even with a correct understanding of copyrights and fair use can be expensive... when the license holders and copyright lawyers come knocking on your door.
On Steem, if I see that you have $800,000 in your account, it might help me decide to sue you. So let's say you put a Sports team logo on your blog tomorrow. 3 Years from now, you are a top-tier Steemian, and with the blockchain... the sports team finds your old post. You are either going to pay their $250,000 demand or hire a lawyer real quick to settle out of court.
Am I pessimistic? Maybe. But just because it doesn't happen doesn't mean that there are people here who should clean up their act. It could get out of hand. This stuff happens at YouTube.
all. the. time.
Indeed. Makes life harder all around.
I just discovered too that everything on here can be found on Google. I had originally thought that it was somehow hidden away and separate from the rest of the web. That means that one of these days, an agency is going to find an unauthorized use through their web crawlers! I would not like to be in the shoes of someone using an image illegally when that happens! Photographers do have legal rights, backed by the courts. But, I'm with you, @uruiamme, education is key - if we can get people to read what we have to say!!
Currently I use CC0 licnesed images as much as possible (any use, no attribution required) but I still provide link to source. This idea of yours sounds very useful.
Yes, this works for me and many others. But if you have browsed a real stock photographer website and seen the cost of real stock images and artwork, you might start to see what I am saying.
The "free" images are useful. They are often far from good quality (taken by amateurs) and far from useful (the wrong pose or shape or specific thing)
If you ever need to advertise a product, you will need a licensed photo or hire someone. I have paid folks to do this for me. It's expensive. But you get great, specific, and targeted images you can't get for free.
Awesome! Come clean, man.
thanks for this post I agree on what you think.
Thanks! Do you belong to any stock image websites? Have you ever paid for the use of a non-free image?
No I don't belong to any such site. would you say to use photobucket? And no I never had to pay for an image I always like using my own photos.
But I do like your post and agree.
No, like iStock, Shutterstock, and the big kahuna... Getty Images. Alamy is good. If you blog the news, you need AP images and Getty.
That's where professional photographers will have their images. The "CC0" images you see are virtually 100.00% amateurs. Nary a professional releases his images as free stock photos. So you are used to seeing the stuff that is pretty much restricted to amateurs, hobbyists, and the people who think they want to be a photographer some day and have all of the right equipment (or think they do).
Good morning. May I say that I'm not a professional blogger nor even good but one thing I know for sure....all photos are mine and stories I tell are almost all true but real. And that's the truth. You are welcome to check my page out @islandliving. I enjoy reading your post and that's one cute kitty. Aloha!
Thanks! You have a good idea where you obtain all of your photos... from you.
Those who blog about finances, politics, and TV shows have it a lot more difficult to come up with images. These people have to rely on "fair use" and whatever they can scrounge up on the Web about their topic... otherwise, they would have a media empire or artist skills to make a nice blog post.
A friend of mine, @papa-pepper, only uses his own photos... up to a point.
One day, he needed a logo to represent "him." Well, you know what? A fellow Steemian created him a logo, a set of avatars for his family, and did some nice graphics work.
Can you do that for yourself? People with a 74 beside their name do that.
I am admitting that I am not a graphics artist. The junk you see on my posts that I create takes a lot of time... or otherwise, it's cute kitties and puppies from stock artists. And in those cases, I get them for free.... the original photographer will never know me or get a $0.01 from me.
Is this social media? Or a sad story of abuse?
You decide!
I would love to have my own logo but honestly I don't know how. Ah yes, @papa-pepper...he's awesome! Thank u for your reply. I'm still learning this platform and the politics of it all. Aloha!
I thought that if we take a photo from the Web we have to cite the source?
I have to say that I have seen some familiar photos on blogs, but think most do put the source at the end of their blogs (I'm assuming that most are honest).
Steem stock photo site would be a great idea for when one just needs a quick filler.
No! This is wrong.
You need to acquire a license to "take a photo from the web." There may be a requirement to indicate the source. And Steemians may expect you to cite your source to prove you didn't borrow it without permission.
But this citation is not a free pass to use photos if such a use is not permitted by the original artist.
You are a professional blogger and publisher of information, @katdvine. You make money from being on Steem. You are responsible to obtain a license to use photos in your blog.
In the reverse situation, if you took all the pictures in the world, and only the people blogging made all of the money, is that fair to you? What good is your work in photography and artistry if you get no gain from it?
It's artists versus the bloggers. There is some animosity out there. And it's really a thing.
I think the artists should not just get a link and a hat-tip while a blogger makes all the Steem. The artists should be able to license their photos and get some money for their use.
Did you not know that there are Stock Photo websites out there on which photographers make their living? And a good stock photo may cost $100 or considerably more for exclusive use rights for product ads and for certain sizes? Professionals are not feeding their families on our citations. They are feeding their families using money through licensing.
Well I do know now and thank you for that information. The couple of photos I have used were archive photos from a newspaper and museum. How would I go about obtaining permission to use those? Although I think I shall just draw them as I usually do.
Most advice is to merely search in the places where "free" images are found in the first place. If you do somehow like a particular photo or image, and you find it elsewhere, you can do a reverse image search on the Web. You upload the source image to them. The results of that search will show you where else the photo is used, beginning with Stock Photo companies. If it's on such a place, you merely go to their website and purchase rights to it.
If it's not on a stock photo site, you will need to track down the artist and ask them. I have done this before. The answer may not be to your liking if it is truly taken by a pro who values their work in Benjamin Franklin notes. And then you will usually need a copyright notice. This is why stock photo subscriptions save big media companies big money on licensing... the terms are usually more reasonable.
But I have also literally hired semi-pro photographers before, paid them by the piece or hour, and they send me the photos and agree to transfer to me the copyright. That's real people, real contracts, and real photography done professionally. Not even wedding photographers like to turn over their copyrights, and so you still see "copyright" notices on wedding photos that are just annoying. But that's the photographer's right unless he transfers it.
great
Speaks from my heart. If we see plagiarism, we should alert @steemclean to it with an appropriate comment.
A related post to blog-fraud from a different perspective is here: https://steemit.com/upvoting/@globocop/fair-warning-to-all-vote-beggars
Thanks for your excellent post.
I do not quite get what you are proposing yet; do you mean to create a steemit stock photos central so that steem community can extract and pay to the content (art) creators?
Yes. It would be like this. A blog post pays out $300. An automatic payment of 6% (proposed) is sent to @stockphotos, which is $18. Then, the photographer would get 1/2 of that (proposed), which is $9.
Hm. That will probably be another Hard Fork to make this happen, yes?
I don't think it would need a hard fork to do a beta version, no. At some point, given a lot of what ifs... possibly so.
It is kind of hard to think if it is not a hard fork, probably another kind of curation rewards then...
Why isn't the image metadata enough? The fundamental problem here is that all of the arguments for more rigid enforcement rest upon terms that are so broad and arbitrary in their definition as to be completely incoherent.
For example what defines the difference between an original image the entire content of which is entirely my own vs an original image the content of which is not?
• thought experiment (totally hypothetical) •
I want to post a picture of my family I took at Christmas 1990.
The image is 5 people in a living room.
Assume no distortion whatsoever exists anywhere in the image. All detail is vibrant, clear, unmistakable.
One person clearly wearing a Guns N Roses t-shirt with obviously licensed image on it.
One person wearing an official licensed Chicago bears logo sweatshirt
Clearly visible on the television is the opening scene of Disney's Mickey Mouse Club which also includes the characters of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
On one wall is a poster of the Chicago Bulls.
Another wall has a poster of Michael Jackson's Thriller album cover.
One person is reading a newspaper the front page of which clearly showing iconic well known photographs of JFK.
Please explain exactly what I would need to do to post this image on steemit to your satisfaction. I can't wait to hear it. I'm sure it will be coherent and non-arbitrary.
All of the incidental imagery of copyrighted and trademarked logos is irrelevant.
The "work" is a photograph of a scene in your home. That "work" is yours.
Now, you cannot take your photo and manipulate the Bulls poster in Photoshop and sell the Bulls image on a piece of merchandise.
You cannot crop the Disney stuff out and use it in a competitor product or service (like a Moose Club).
Other types of manipulation and derivative works are your fully within your rights. For example, you can really parody any or all of the logos... like place a copy of the guns-n-roses shirt and logo on Mini Mouse, or edit the Bulls logo to say "balls" or something. That is usually a fair use manipulation, and would likely be construed as parody rather than copyright infringement.
You probably know this intuitively, but as soon as you make a competing product or service, fair use is no longer fair. If you own a sports team, you cannot take the Bulls imagery and steal elements from it... that may include colors, fonts, graphic elements, or copying the name or likeness. If you own the "Ducks" and your logo is remarkably similar to and (obviously) derived from the "Bulls" ... you are going to find yourself in trademark court.
But with all of this commentary, if I had shown you an example of a "Ducks" logo that looks like "Bulls," having no intent to own or make a real "Ducks" team, would not be a copyright infringement. So the intent is super important. The Chicago Bulls would not have a prayer in court against a blogger or commentator who used their logo as part of a commentary on copyright infringement. There would be no harm, no foul... as they say. Such a commentary would be protected by fair use.
Next, as soon as a new "Ducks" team comes into existence 2 years from now, they cannot use my fake, exemplary one. I could have derived it from the poster, used it on a discussion, and then the new "Ducks" got ahold of it. They could call me up and pay me $1000 to use their image, or to obtain my copyright. But they cannot turn around and use it as their logo! It's a clear copyright infringement on the "Bulls" at this point. My "fair use" is the Ducks' copyright hell, even if they own the copyright to my image.
So, then, therefore... Your image is fine to post on Steem. (The key word in that sentence is in italics.)