The Karma of Pilfering, waking a Cyclops and Flaming Flora
PILFERED is a place where artists, photographers, designers, and the inspired can submit their favorite visuals pilfered from the web to share with one another. Founded on the spirit of web democracy, and built to aid in communicating ideas and concepts, PILFERED Magazine aims to assist in speaking the thousand words – visually.
Snow exile, though bad for my personal economy, is good for catching up on a post or two and this past week was eventful. A wave of concerned Netizens mobilized and voiced valuable opinions regarding one of The Evils on the web, the use of images without permission. To sum it up, Pilfered magazine got busted. I won’t go into detail as they can be found at the Copyright Alliance.
Whether the debate falls into the messy area between fair use and infringement is not for me to decide. I don’t have a law degree. But I do know that it’s a really bad idea to take things that are not yours, publish them and then base your publication on that concept. Then to brag about it and weave it into the hipster culture is like tossing a rock at a sleeping giant. The giant will wake up and may proceed to eat you (though I think a Cyclops like the one Ulysees had a throwdown with is way cooler).
No mistakes to make about me, I’m all for community building through art and using tech to further it. So the idea behind this post is that not all Netizens are guilty of what a friend of mine calls the being part of the Shareware Generation. Some deserve of a lot of credit for their respect of copyright while others need a digital lashing. Today I received an email from a new blogger. Not exactly sure what her search terms were, but she stumbled onto an image from one of my recent photo explorations, the burning of flowers, and so appropriate for the title of her blog, FlowersandGasoline.
She also made it a point to ask permission to use an image of mine, a burning flower, as a Gravatar for her new blog. In return for posting she offered a link to my portfolio. And if I ever decided to rescind she would gladly take the image down. I said yes. I couldn’t resist since the blog’s title was so right on regarding what I had been doing, though sans the gasoline, using it is just too dangerous! So I made the offering in honor of Copyright Gods for their work mobilizing the masses. It just felt right in a karmic kind of way.