Gone viral

My CNNgo piece on Digg

A selection of photos from my “Let the poets cry themselves to sleep” series recently appeared on the CNNgo site.
People started twittering about it, then someone Dugg it and it made it to the front page and then all hell broke loose.
It has been blogged on at least 30 blogs that I know about and probably many more that I don’t.
(I’m getting several Google Alert emails a day about it)

Half of me is flattered and a little ego boosted by the recognition, albeit a vaporous, intangible internet recognition.
The other half is pissed off at the massive infringement of my copyright.

Some of the bloggers have just downloaded all the photos from the CNNgo article plus some others from here and my site.
Thankfully most of them have at least had the courtesy to link to me, but not all of them.
I really don’t mind someone taking one of the photos if they are going to attribute it and link back to me, its all publicity for me, right?
But ALL of the photos, and some extras?? come on! that’s just not cricket!
It is in fact copyright infringement (all the photos on the CNNgo article and all the photos here are clearly marked as © and all rights reserved, is there something about that that people are having a little trouble understanding?)

A friend asked me on twitter how I felt about reblogging/curation culture, having been on the receiving end of it.

It got me thinking.

I recently posted some photos over on Magnesium (an agency I am a member of) which are part of a huge series I have been working on for over 3 years of the sticker art here in Tokyo.
All of those photos are pictures of other peoples work, work that they have put out in the street for all to see, I have come along and “curated” them.
The project is intended at some point to be a book (I’m currently looking for a publisher if anyone is interested), which raises the possibility that I may make a little money out of it at some point.
Making money of other peoples work……..

Hmmm…..that sounds a little like monetised blogs reblogging pictures from other sites that they wish to “curate”

(I know it’s not really the same (he says trying to convince himself) but you see where I’m going with this.)

Which leaves me with a dilemma. How exactly do I feel about all those people stealing curating my photos to promote their own blogs?

It’s an interesting question, not just for me but for all content creators and providers in this insanely interconnected world.

Print newspapers are by many accounts dead men walking, famous magazines are falling by the wayside every day and the guilty party was clearly average-joe’s-blog.com.
I can’t remember the last time I bought a newspaper or magazine out there in the real physical world, can you?
Photographers and photojournalists are finding it increasingly hard to make a living as it seems everyone with a DSLR is now a photographer or citizen journalist.
Large corporations search flickr and use the photos they find arguing that if you put them on flickr then you were giving them away, right?

I know that many photographers are feeling this pinch in their wallets (where it hurts most) and in their minds as they wrestle with the moving goal posts of digital culture.

Where exactly do we go from here?
How exactly we do we find a model which works for everyone, where photographers can still get paid for their work, but people can curate and reblog content?

I’m f%^ked if I know.

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to LinkedIn Post to Reddit

4 comments for “Gone viral

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.