Posted on 09/03/2009 8:19:49 PM PDT by Steelfish
After 'Obama Joker' debacle, Flickr changes takedown policy
September 2, 2009
Flickr came out looking like the bad guy when it removed an image of President Obama portrayed as the Joker from "The Dark Knight." Onlookers accused Flickr of having a "political agenda" and being a "bully."
For the most part, Flickr has stuck to a retort along the lines of: Sorry, kids, but that's the way the law works.
But the Yahoo-owned photo-sharing site has since retreated, at least in one respect. Flickr revised its takedown policy Tuesday to be more clear when something has been removed as a result of a copyright-infringement claim.
One of the site's 38 million users suggested in the support forums that instead of completely removing the page in question as it had been doing, Flickr should delete just the image, leaving the comments and other relevant information, such as when the offending image was uploaded and how many hits it had gotten.
That's just what Flickr says it is now doing. As of Tuesday at 3:30 p.m., takedown requests filed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, will result in the image being replaced with one that reads, "This image has been removed due to a claim of copyright infringement."
Yahoo's legal team routinely puts the images back up after it receives a complete counterclaim by the original poster -- "complete," meaning it has all the boxes filled in and appears legitimate. Firas Alkhateeb's "Obama Joker" picture has not been reinstated, but that's because he hasn't filed a DMCA counterclaim.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
That was quick and canny!
Wouldn’t the artist/image in question have to be copyrighted in the first place to be taken down for this reason?
As far as I know the creator did not intend this image to be used for commercial purposes since it was put up on street signs, utility poles etc. as a political protest. It seems to me it was put in the public domain expressly to be used freely.
In an actual trial maybe that argument would work - but Flikr has no desire to fight it. Typically these companies just yank any potentially troublesome image and hope nothing comes of it.
Did these guys take down the Bush Joker art too?
Just asking.
That is so good.
I have stuff up on Photobucket so I can put pictures here on FR ... they’ve removed some political stuff re: Obama they didn’t like. All the stuff I have I have no qualms in showing my family or friends but yet they removed some of my pictures.
Will put it up on Photobucket to see what happens. Thanks,
Janey
Heh
:)
L!I have had several pictures removed for the same reason but I haven't lost one since I changed the public to private.
Just wondering if that is what causes them to review uploaded pictures.
Seems like Obama/Joker falls under ‘parody’ or ‘fair use’ clauses in the copyright law.
Yep, exactly. The copyright issue doesn’t make sense to me, especially being countless will make different versions which aren’t covered.
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