About a week or so ago, a video called “Richter Scales” was put out and then soon after taken down because of take down notices. Unfortunately, the take down notice from photographer, Lane Hartwell, seems to be a bullying tactic.
Read the post from the link (which still had the video in it too) for a really great analysis of the debate.
According to the article:
Copyright is a structure around prohibitions, not permissions, he says. That means it lays out rules for things people cannot do with your work – it does not give you the right to demand permission before any use is made.
I’ve read and heard through blogs and podcasts too many people quickly supporting the photographer. While a photographer should in general should have attribution of their work, there are instances where that may not be required such as in parody (which is what this video is). A work like this had hundreds of pictures in it and attribution would have been prohibitive if not impossible and would have potentially prevented or ruined the work. Copyright is not about that.
People, like this photographer, appear to be using copyright law to address hurt feelings, or other goals that are not the purpose of copyright law. This is why the DMCA is broken because it allows free speech to but shut down too easily.
UPDATE: Another post over at Tech Crunch discusses this issue further and has some other great comments. Go read it.
Apparently other photographers are after money even though the creators of the video have given attribution to all for the video. Money from a parody video that is not trying to make money is just ridiculous. It’s also a misuse of the copyright system. Check out the other comments in the post.