Protecting My Copyright
baldheretic.comWhat I learned from this story: Godaddy will take down your site, without contacting you first, because they get a copyright infringement claim from some random dude on the internet.
I used to work at the abuse department for a large web host. In these cases, we would contact the site owner and provide them with a set amount of days to either remove the material, contact the complainant, or explain the usage of the material. If they did not reply or attempt to contact the complainant, we would suspend their hosting. The only time we would suspend a site immediately would be for malware, phishing or child pornography.
What I learned from reading her blog post (http://chicksandpolitics.com/jayleecheapshots/) -- Candice Schwager is batsh*t insane!!!
This has been posted to Slashdot too (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/05/25/1744246/photographer-...) ... Candice, welcome to the Streisand effect!!
Yes, that's the DMCA, isn't it?
No, the DMCA only forces them to take down the infringing content, i.e., the image.
DMCA doesn't force them to do anything, it just says that if you play by these rules then you, as the host, can't also be held liable for damages.
As other people have said, the real story here is how badly GoDaddy handles DMCA requests. Taking down a site for a single image is like using a bazooka on an ant. Yes it will stop the infringement, however it will probably damage some surrounding property. While that does not necessarily excuse the personal attacks the woman in the story may have made I think it offers perspective for all website operators. "Horror" stories of people sites being taken down (much like her's) have been on HN in the past with great sympathy shown and in this case I do feel sympathetic towards her cause (despite her reaction). I guess the lesson is talk to your registrar and hosting providers about their DCMA process before it bites you.
What should GoDaddy be doing instead? If they want the safe harbor protection from the DMCA so that they're not liable for the infringement, they are required to remove the content. There need be no direct mapping between the website URL reported in the complaint and any specific file they can identify on a server's file system; it might be dynamically generated, served by a CMS doing URL rewriting, coming from a database, etc.
So their choices are:
1) Invade your privacy, directly access your private source code and databases, and deduce how to remove the content, potentially destroying your data in the process over what might be a false claim... all of which is completely non-scalable to the millions of customers they have.
2) Edit their web server configuration to not serve that URL, and reboot the service, hundreds of times a day while this server is handling requests for thousands of websites.
3) Click the suspend site button and your site goes back online as fast as you can remove the infringing work, or file a counter-notice.
As low as my opinions of GoDaddy have fallen, the more I think about it, the more I think that Candice was probably trying to cut costs and inadvertently tied GoDaddy's arms behind its back.
The GoDaddy "Deluxe 4GH" plan costs $6/month and could easily hold 14 web sites, and one feature they offer at this stage is "Multiple Web Sites: Unlimited".
At first it sounded like GoDaddy had simply rerouted all of her domain names to null addresses, when they could have just rerouted one of them. But no, they were providing the hosting service. If she put fourteen businesses on one account to amortise the cost among them, then she is responsible for linking them together, not GoDaddy. Presumably GoDaddy would have just shut down one hosting account -- the one that held the infringing content -- but the problem is that she only had the one hosting account.
This is why I try to keep abstraction layers. The people I research with don't hang out with my Ultimate (as in frisbee) friends or my web development colleagues; the Ultimate folks are the only ones I'm letting friend me on Facebook, and I make it a point not to preach my religion to any of the above.
Spolsky is correct that all abstraction layers are leaky, and these are too -- my professor has met my father for example, and the folks at work know that I say something quietly before lunch every day -- but there is a great value in compartmentalising. Robert Frost's neighbour confidently asserts, "good fences make good neighbours" -- I guess it's more that good neighbours respect the fences and use them to lower your own mental stress and drama.
Candice could have used a good fence between her charity and her infringing account.
> Candice could have used a good fence between her charity and her infringing account.
Agreed, but GoDaddy could have also taken option 2) from dangrossman's post above, which happens all the time with "live" servers anyway, every time people change their own configurations through the web "control panel" for their hosting provider. For the kind of plan it looks like she had, her URLs were most likely being served by the same Apache instance as the URLs for dozens of other customers; so any time any customer changes their setup, the "web server" has to reconfigure itself. That's why servers like Apache do that on the fly, without requiring a restart.
To be clear, I took no joy in shutting her site down. GoDaddy is a bit heavy handed in their response and I have learned a lesson here. The main point is that she used the image without permission and her site went down because of it. To turn around and accuse me of being a part of a diabolical conspiracy was out of left field. She should have contacted GoDaddy and worked it out. I did my part by rescinding my DMCA when I realized the impact it was having and offered her my willingness to resolve this one on one.
I did my part by rescinding my DMCA when I realized the impact it was having and offered her my willingness to resolve this one on one.
And I applaud you for that.
She's still using the image on the business' Facebook page. Are you going to tackle that one too or is the burn not worth it at this point?
I have contacted Facebook about that image, but I suspect they are too busy rolling in their new found wealth to give it much attention.
I wonder whether DMCA stuff is applicable for Facebook also and if anyone had real experience in that?
It is and it was mentioned in the article we're discussing.
"Facebook, for example, would remove the image in a matter of hours."
You handled it better than I would have. I wouldn't have rescinded the DMCA. I cannot stand people who make false accusations, are self-righteous and/or act like they are blameless when they themselves are at fault.
If the person genuinely cared about their charitable work their first email would have said. "What do I need to do to get my sites up ASAP."
Their anger should have been directed at GoDaddy. If I had received the emails you had I would have responded after 12-24 hours with. "I do not respond to slanderous, false or abusive emails. If you would like to discuss this issue please reword your email"
This is funny.
So there are people in this world that do not live up to your standards and react with self-righteousness (btw. <sarcasm>shocking</sarcasm>) and you suggest the right way to respond to it.
Isn't that self-righteous on its own?
Yeah, people like that exist. I've run into a few that blew up exactly like this, throwing everything they can at me in an endless tirade of e-mails for days, including the nonsense legal threats, and "think of the children" guilt tripping.
It takes very little to set them off -- something as simple as a declined credit card for an advertising purchase has led to multiple accusations of "denying my child food in violation of federal child protection laws". One guy CC'd every e-mail to every United States senator and the FBI.
I just send a polite reply and try to ignore the follow-ups... communicating after there's nothing more to say on the real issue just spurs them on.
I'm no mental health professional, but I play one on the internet – and that woman sounds like a straight up example of borderline personality disorder with a dash of narcism thrown in.
It's awesome how the internet shortens the distance between you and crazy – reach out and touch someone, indeed.
I've just been reading "Against Intellectual Monopoly" and it's interesting how things change when you mentally substitute "protecting my copyright" with "exercising my monopoly". It completely changes the dynamic of who is acting and who is reacting.
While those terms are interchangeable, I don't think they are equivalent. The OP doesn't have a monopoly over the Houston skyline, and anyone is welcome to set up a camera in the same spot and take an identical photo and use it for their website.
Is this the link to the book mentioned? http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm
He's not got a monopoly on all pictures like that but he has a monopoly right on that particular image he took, lasting for 70 years beyond the date of his death, or else he wouldn't be able to send out DMCA takedowns for it and otherwise control the manner in which it is duplicated and used.
(I just googled to check the length and found this heartbreaking message on one of those cheesy Q&A sites: My grandmother has a senior picture of my mom from 1969 and I wanted a copy of it. Is the copyright for that picture up? If not is there a way for me to get a copy of it?)
And that is the book, though note it's a slightly out of date version. The final version is here:
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht...
It's not a great work by any means, but it's a good overview of the craziness of copyrights and patents when viewed from the perpective of economics.
Not true everywhere:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/01/25/Imitated_Image_Copyr...
I wonder... Does the original website from which the photo was taken had: 1. A statement that the photo was not public domain? 2. A way to contact the author with the clear purpose of license it?
I can understand that someone might react against seeing their work all over the Internet used for free, and use the DMCA to prevent that. I can also understand a generous reaction, and feeling flatter instead.
While I don't agree with Ms. Borderline, I do think that if I am going to react handing take down notices, providing a way to buy the image up front it is a fair preventive measure.
After all, the internet is like a world wide getto street, and it would be naive to leave my precious jacket out night after night and be surpriced that someone finally run away with it. Attaching a price sign to it at least, and some people might respect it, while others will actually consider buying it as initial offer as oppose to a legal threat.
"I wonder... Does the original website from which the photo was taken had: 1. A statement that the photo was not public domain? 2. A way to contact the author with the clear purpose of license it?"
It doesn't work that way.
Just like you don't need to put a sign on your door saying "The belongings in this house belong to me. If you want to buy them call me on 5555-1234".
The _default_ is that if you dont own a photograph(/song/story/program/movie), then somebody else does - and unless they've explicitly permitted you some rights to use it, you have _no_ right to use it. (with some very specific "fair use" exceptions, which are far less well understood by just about everybody than they should be. If you're ever tempted to claim "fair use", make sure you know what it means first…)
In theory there is no difference betweem theory and practice, but in practice there is.
I agree that in default should works the way you say, but that is theory, in practice it is not what actually happens a the OP found out. And we need to acknowledge the reality that people does not behave as theory, law, or whatever other abstract term expects (the law is so abstract that it needs a punishment machinery to be respected, it is not natural at all, and while some people will surrender their free will to goverment compliance, others will not, not even under the threat of heavy legal pain). Not realising this fact of life is naive.
You can go around beating people over their head for their wrong doings (natural or artificial), and if that makes you feel better about yourself or your position then take your measuring stick and go on your merry way.
I, on the other camp, rather attempt to figure out how people actually works, and make decisions accordingly.
Try to understand how things work vs. Do a I say or I'll beat you up. I guess that is one of the differences between tinkers and lawyers.
One book that explain tis concept better than me would be Nudge by Sunstein and Thaler.
Interesting - I see the story as saying almost exactly the opposite.
Crazy lady behaved in a common-but-still-technically-wrong manner, thinking (if she thought at all) that she'd "get away with it", presumably "'cause everybody else does".
The thing is, she got caught, and none of her "but everybody _else_ does it!" defenses stand up to even the most minor scrutiny.
Note, this is a lot like speeding - (almost) everybody _does_ it, and we all try to justify ourselves with lines like "I was just keeping up with the traffic", or "the speed limit is set unreasonably low for the conditions", or "my vehicle/driving skills are significantly better than the lowest common denominator they used to calculate the safe limit" - but every now and then we get caught, and none of those justifications mean anything.
Copyright law and the DMCA might well be "wrong", but if you think so you need to lobby to get the law changed. Arbitrarily choosing the break copyright then complaining when you get caught is just like being that guy with the fast car who speeds _everywhere_ bitching about getting speeding tickets. To most (informed) people, you just became "the crazy person".
It may be hard to reach you way up on your high horse there, but I don't think a "these photos are mine, all mine" disclaimer would have done a ton for him.
Take Candice as an example. She's crazier than a bucket of ferrets on meth. Even normal users don't read much of the text on websites; look at any of Jakob Nielsen's eye-tracking studies. People who are task-focused (e.g., find an image for their site they're rushing to get up) read even less. Given that, how much do you think Candice will read?
And once it's on another site, people will start stealing it from there too. Coughpinterestcough.
So as someone who also tries to look at how things work, I don't think he did anything wrong here. Suddenly everybody's a publisher, and it's going to take a while to teach them about copyright. This is part of the education process.
Is not a matter of high or low horses, but a matter of choices.
"She's crazier than a bucket of ferrets on meth"... love it.
"how much do you think Candice will read?" A bucket of ferrets on meth... none. But that was not the only place the he found the photo.
"and it's going to take a while to teach them about copyright. This is part of the education process."... teaching, that is something that I can agree with. On the other side, in principle I cannot agree with Goya's picture "La letra con sangre entra" (Teaching by punishment, or spare the rod and spoil the child) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_letra_con_sangre_e...
If I am in a high horse, then then that kind of "teaching" is egocentric and self entitlement.
What disappoints me about your argument here is that you're basically complaining that other people aren't doing things the way you'd like them to be done.
You mention egocentricism, but don't seem to realize that he is under no particular obligation to live up to your standards. Reasonable people can disagree on how to handle this. He apparently disagrees with you, possibly as a matter of morals, but more likely as a question of how best to solve a problem with limited resources.
If you really care about this problem, solve it yourself. Go make something that makes it easier for somebody like this to act the way you want than the way that's easy for them. Until then, you're just one more person telling the Little Red Hen how she should bake her bread.
Wow. That is quite a story.
I hope he doesn't actually file suit against her. Partly because she's so obviously nuts that I'd feel a little bad. And partly because it's a bad idea to get involved in a court case with a crazy person. You may win in the end, but your lawyer can rack up some big bills keeping up with a manic loon.
Worse if the crazy person is themselves an attorney. She can just file crazy motions all day long and it won't cost her anything.
I think GoDaddy is to blame in this. Taking multiple sites down for one DMCA take down request. And the blogger too seems too happy about taking sites down as he does. He should work harder (at least for GoDaddy sites) to contact the sites directly and get a license fee.
Diplomacy before nuclear war.
Having had one of my photos stolen, I can understand entirely why he doesn't bother trying to contact site owners first. It is very hard to find a mailbox that connects to the actual responsible person. And then they may just ignore you. Hosting companies at least answer the phone.
I agree that GoDaddy is the problem here. When people pick hosting companies, they should think a little about how well they'll be treated when something goes wrong. Because something always goes wrong eventually.
The state bar association will make quick work of her. Real pro lawyers hire other impartial lawyers to represent them in lawsuits.
Impartial lawyers? How can you be impartial if you're representing your client?
I assume he means 3rd party/independent lawyers (i.e. not yourself).
Definitely not worth it. I'd be worrying about potential physical contact, phone calls, etc. Seen and heard it before personally. Best bet in most cases is to take care of things and get out of there, minimise ongoing contact (stay terse on the phone, don't respond to emotional appeals coming by email) and stay level-headed.
Also I would be surprised if oyu could get significant damages from such an individual.... Being awarded them, sure, but collecting them?
Is she a lawyer? She claims to be a lawyer. In the UK it is not legal to claim to be a solicitor if you are not one. Isn't it the same in the US?
It is very much illegal to impersonate a lawyer. Being a member of the bar means state regulation, and it is very much an institution.
But on the other hand, that's likely only ever applied in instances where a person offersactual legal services to others without being admitted to the bar.
Having worked service jobs in the past, I know that the population of the area where I worked was at least 70% lawyers, judging by the number of people who'd threaten to sue me/the business/the owners/unrelated parties when they didn't get what they wanted.
Maybe I'm misreading it but I can't find her claiming she's a lawyer.
I've found the bit claiming she's the President of an organization called 'Attorneys for Special Needs Children' and in her G+ page she says 'I studied in South Texas College of Law' but she isn't claiming she's finished the studies or that she has got any title, certification, or the bar card.
Weakly here:
> a partially disabled atty
and weakly here:
> You cost me thousands in billable time
But then directly here: (http://chicksandpolitics.com/nauseatingsagagarciaboohoo/)
> Attorney & CEO of Schwager Consulting & Marketing;
Also here:
(http://www.whenigrowupi.com/)
> though I still practice law via the Schwager Law Firm. My law practice thrives
Claims several times to be the grand-daughter of Henrik Ibsen. I have no reason to disbelieve this. But it's mildly interesting.
(http://houstonattorneysocialmedia.com/)
If I was going to go all Internet detective I'd ask the Mormons[1] for genealogy advice. And then I'd carefully check each of these logos:
(http://houstonattorneysocialmedia.com/logo-design-is-the-fou...)
I don't particularly want to pile on (perhaps a bit late) but, while I know nothing about design, I can say that I dislike those logo examples. I also dislike the copy-writing. (Removing the many errors wouldn't help.)
[1] For anyone who isn't aware, the church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints (or whatever they're called) have extensive genealogical databases. They're friendly and welcoming to people who'd like to research family trees. At least, when my pa did that in London they made no attempt to convert me and provided him with help using their systems and computers.
> For anyone who isn't aware, the church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints (or whatever they're called) have extensive genealogical databases. They're friendly and welcoming to people who'd like to research family trees. At least, when my pa did that in London they made no attempt to convert me and provided him with help using their systems and computers.
Yeah, they really are interested in genealogy for its own sake, not as a recruiting tool. They just want people to do their genealogy and contribute it to the database so it can be used by others. They don't want to scare people away from doing that by using it as a sales tactic. It's part of their general ideology that stresses the importance of family.
Claims several times to be the grand-daughter of Henrik Ibsen. I have no reason to disbelieve this. But it's mildly interesting.
I also found that interesting, but being that his two great-grand kids are male, I highly doubt she's a descendant.
No results searching "Candice Schwager" at the Texas Bar:
http://www.texasbar.com/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Find_A_Lawye...
She goes by a different name: "Candice Lee Leonard"
Interesting. Her LinkedIn page was under Candice Schwager.
> The most interesting actions come from GoDaddy. If you file a complaint with GoDaddy and they find your complaint has merit, they will completely disable the site until the matter is resolved.
What happens if I forget about the issue and never tell GoDaddy the matter is resolved? Is the site permanently down?
DMCA requires the site/material be down for 10 days. The takedown may be appealed by the recipient. 17 USC 512(g)(2)(C)
I'm no expert but I think the owner of the site in question can file a counter-notice and then GoDaddy has to put the site back up.
A counter notice would imply some kind of dispute, in which case the matter is definitely not resolved, possibly headed for the courtroom.
It does seem rather heavy for Godaddy to disable the entire site, instead of just the infringing content.
This is ridiculous, and I don't mean the response of that site owner. While yes, that woman is at least slightly nuts, the problem in the first place was "oh the horror, people are using my image, let's throw around DMCA takedowns". Yes, it's not nice to not give attribution, but I don't see a fundamental problem here. What was the loss involved? Nothing. People liked the image, so they used it. Where's there any theft? Nobody stole anything. Just another example of why the DMCA is a very bad law and needs to go away. Ideally along with copyright as a whole.
"it's not nice to not give attribution"
That's _exactly_ the misunderstanding that gets so many people in trouble.
Whether you like it or not, there _are_ "rules", they're called "copyright". They say that attribution or not, the creator of a photograph has exclusive rights to say what can and can't be done with their work. Nothing about whether you're nice or not, nothing about whether you attribute them or not. If they haven't said you can use it - you _can't_ use it (Yeah yeah, except in some very edge-case calle "fair use", but reproducing an entire photo on your website is _never_ "fair use" - if you are ever tempted to claim fair use, make sure you know exactly what it means first…)
TL;DR, Crazy woman is crazy and wrong. Photographer guy is using the tools society provides to assert rights society says he has. Wishing the laws were different does nothing to change them. Behaving as if the laws are the way you wish them to be has a good chance of making you very unhappy.
I can understand where you're coming from, but I think you lack empathy and experience. If you like, send me a copy of every piece of creative work you've ever produced -- songs, poems, articles, computer programs, graphics, whatever -- and I'll just go ahead and post it wherever I want without giving you any attribution. If you can tell me you're OK with that, I'll modify my opinion: rather than saying you lack empathy, I'll say you have a very different worldview than anyone I know, and I'll acknowledge that, under your worldview, your opinion is entirely consistent and reasonable.
>I'll just go ahead and post it wherever I want without giving you any attribution
Actually, I use the WTFPL[1] for a lot of code I produce, so yes, you could do that, though it wouldn't be nice to do that.
My opinion is that copyright should not exist. While I can't demand copies from anyone, I don't think anyone has a right to stop me from sharing anything that I have access to, either. Putting things on the internet counts as giving me access. I simply reject the notion that people should be able to control the distribution of digital data. It's both illogical to assert ownership of something abstract and harmful to society at large.
On the other hand, I think people should be credited for their work (if they want). But that's a social issue and not one that can be solved by laws. Look at the scientific community: plagiarism is highly frowned upon and proper attribution is required. And that's mostly by social pressure, not by laws.
So in short, my believe is "Give credit where credit is due, but don't try to tell others what they can or can't do.".
OK, I can see that your worldview differs from mine, but I can't reconcile the last part of your first sentence ("... though it wouldn't be nice to do that") with the rest of your comment. If copyright -- by which I mean the right to copy, not necessarily any laws pertaining to that right -- did not exist, there would be no justification in saying it "wouldn't be nice" to ignore it. It's like: if I didn't like redheads, and I said I didn't want to see any out my window, but I acknowledged that there is and should be no law restricting them, then clearly I'm being unreasonable somewhere along the line.
You're misunderstanding the "it's not nice" part. For example, it's not against the law to be (somewhat) rude, either - but it's not nice. As I pointed out, the whole attribution thing is something that needs to be addressed on a social level, not enforced by law.
And in general, I don't think it's an unreasonable world-view to dislike something, but be against regulating it. For example, I'm vehemently against right-wing ideology and fascism, but I still would not want laws restricting nazis to voice their misguided opinions, because everybody is entitled to free speech. That's not being unreasonable, that's being consistent.
Do you earn your living off this WTFPL software?
The problem here is that when you want to use a photo, you either take it yourself, or you take one made by someone else and ask him what are his conditions.
When you take a photo and put it one your web site, this doesn't mean that anyone can grab it and use it.
The problem here is that people think that they can do what they want on the web and if you just send them a mail they will do nothing. DMCA is globally a bad thing but but its at this time the only way to make people respect copyright. It should go away but for a better law.
You can transpose this to software easily. If you put some of your code on your blog, you expect people to respect the law and so your copyright. If your code is under GPL for example, you don't want other peoples to take it and include it in their commercial product without respecting the GPL.
Look at all the work done by GPL violation and how its hard to make people correct their behavior when your are a now know organization. This men is alone trying to protect its right and the only thing that he can do which is effective is to fill a DMCA.
And remember that the copyright law is what make GPL possible...
>And remember that the copyright law is what make GPL possible...
It's funny you say that, because RMS has cited the creation of a post-scarcity society has one of the explicit goals of free software. In such a society, copyright would not exist, because everything would be free (as in both speech and beer). The GPL is but a means to an end, not an end unto itself, and it just so happens to use the current system of copyright to progress towards that end.
So yes, without copyright, there would be no GPL. But without copyright, we would not have most of the problems the GPL is trying to solve.
> So yes, without copyright, there would be no GPL. But without copyright, we would not have most of the problems the GPL is trying to solve.
The main problem GPL is trying to solve is to keep code free and this problem wasn't created by copyright. In a society without copyright it would be even more difficult to keep code free.
Copyright just allow you to claim some right over the code you produce. In a society without copyright you would not be able to make this claim so, if you publish your code it will be free, but : - nothing force you to publish your code, you can keep it for yourself and just distribute binary ; - nothing force other people to distribute there modifications of some free code.
Copyright is what allow you to say "this code should be and remain free", the only alternative in the view of the GPL and FSF should be a law who say "all code should be free and remain free" or something like this.
(just to be clear, I'm not a partisan of the GPL but this is my understanding of it)
The GPL is trying to keep code free in an environment where it's unfree by default. You are conflating what free software is doing right now with what it is trying to eventually accomplish - being a step towards a post-scarcity society. Yes, you could modify code and never share back etc without copyright, but it would at the same time be pointless to do so. Nobody, including yourself, would gain anything from it.
It's not obviously ridiculous to expect people to license photos they use.
There isn't any theft, but it's still violation of the creators right to his work. I've actually been in his place and spent time approaching the sites directly, it was significantly more difficult and more of a waste of my time than the DMCA process seems to be.
Essentially, don't be a dick and lift someones picture because it's on the internet.
This is a perfect example of why DMCA is great. He manually made a list of site and sent notices. No wrong claims, no automatic bullshit. Now if only there were some laws requiring DMCA to be used that way…
But taking something, making money of it and not even attributing where it's from? That's just the lowest of lows.
I agree.
And she had a simple remedy if he made a false claim; she could have filed a counter notice.
All she had to do was take down the image, it's not like it was beneficial to her charitable business to have the image on the site in the first place. Being someone that gives out legal advice, you'd think she would know better. Glad it worked out in the end, sheesh I would be way less patient if I had to go through this hassle just to get an image removed.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading, great story.
I've seen other indications that GoDaddy is a bit heavy-handed, to put it mildly, in responding to DMCA takedown notices. This confirms it. Assuming that the notice was worded properly, they should only have taken down the one specific site that infringed, not all the sites belonging to the same person.
Apparently many of her sites used that specific photo. Hell, her business page on Facebook still uses it as its cover photo. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Schwager-Consulting-Marketing...
> Apparently many of her sites used that specific photo.
Ah, didn't catch that.
A lot of people fail to understand what's legally protected by fair use.
Are you implying that the use in question was fair use (i.e., that the OP should not have sent the DMCA takedown notice for this use)?
No, she claims she is covered under fair use because she doesn't make any money from it, blah blah blah.
No, she claims she is covered under fair use because she doesn't make any money from it, blah blah blah.
Plus, her claim of being a lawyer makes the whole matter quite baffling.
Actually, there have been fair use decisions when an entire work was used non-commercially:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/fair-use-defense/
I'm not saying that's the case here, but whether the use was commercial or not is one of the four factors considered when deciding fair use.
I don't think "commercial" requires you to "make money" from the use. I think using the photo as an illustration on your business website qualifies as "commercial" even if you can't show that it brought you any business. (Of course, IANAL.)
There are different degrees "commercial." It's not a binary distinction.
What is not explain in the post is how do we prove to be the author of a photo ?
Is it possible to own the copyright of a photograph of a city? You own none of the buildings in the photo.
People are copyrighting the composition of the photograph, not necessarily the subject of it.
The original photographer has no ability to stop you going to the same spot and taking your own photograph.*
But just 'cause you could-but-haven't done that, doesn;t mean you can use his without his permission.
(* although they might be able to make some claim you've copied his composition if their photograph has some remarkable enough artistic input beyond "just a picture of a city")
Copyright infringement isn't theft you huge douche.
Agreed - and I usually don't agree with people who express strong opinions regarding copyright in internet fora. But just because it's not theft doesn't mean it's not wrong. The accusation is hyperbole, not error.