GioBlog

More moral confusion on the copyleft

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today about the latest dispute within the CopyLeft community on fair use.

It's not big surprise that the CopyLefties would be arguing that it's perfectly fine for an artist to find a licensed photo on the Internet and use it without paying or even acknowledging the owner of the photo. That's pretty much standard for the CopyLeft. They feel free to take what they want, because, you see, that's really what creativity is. Creativity isn't the hours of work and the years of experience that go into creating the original creative work. Creativity is taking someone's creation and splashing a little yellow paint on it. THAT's creativity. You call it a mash-up, and you're on the cutting edge of creativity, and you are so much more creative than the person who did the original work that they aren't even worth mentioning, unless they have agreed to abandon all their rights and use the borrower's licensing system, Creative Commons.

Okay, I admit that turned into a little rant. Sorry.

Anyway, this time some artist took a photo of Obama from the Internet, disregarded the photographer and owner of the photo, and Andy Warhol-ized it.

It became an iconic image of the Obama campaign. And since I guarantee you that 99% of the CopyLeft were rabid Obama supporters, they all thought this was just great.

But this time it isn't the rights of some corporation that are being trampled on, but rather the rights of a photographer. The artist has made a bundle on the alterations he made to the original photo, but instead of sharing even a fraction of the profits with the guy who made it possible, or even acknowledging him, the artist is suing the photographer with the help of Larry Lessig.

I have argued before about the moral confusion of the IP thieves, who have gone so overboard with their opposition to IP that they actually condone counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals, and in this case condone trampling all over the work and the rights of the photographer who captured the image of Obama that was altered by the artist.

It is nothing short of moral confusion for the CopyLeft to justify defrauding the photographer of his work and then suing him.