[HN Gopher] Nature photographer John Fielder donates life's work...
___________________________________________________________________
Nature photographer John Fielder donates life's work to public
domain
Author : Santosh83
Score : 262 points
Date : 2023-01-27 11:06 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (petapixel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (petapixel.com)
| Mali- wrote:
| God, I'd donate away that lot too...
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > Donated by Fielder in January 2023, in the coming months it
| will be digitized and cataloged by History Colorado to make it
| easily accessible and searchable by the public.
|
| And people/companies can download and use them as they wish? I
| don't want to be cynical (but this is HN) I hope we're not back
| here in 6 months, discussing how History Colorado has added some
| license, conditions etc.
|
| I haven't been to Colorado - but these photographs make me want
| to visit.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Obligatory IANAL.
|
| History Colorado is a "501(c)(3) charitable organization and an
| agency of the State of Colorado under the Department of Higher
| Education"[1].
|
| Copyright laws exist both at the federal and state levels.
|
| Federal copyright law states "a work prepared by an officer or
| employee of the United States Government as part of that
| person's official duties ... are not entitled to domestic
| copyright protection under U.S. law and are therefore in the
| public domain."[2] This does not necessarily apply to state
| government employees.[3]
|
| Colorado's state copyright laws, if any, are seemingly
| impossible to find with cursory Google-fu.
|
| [1]: https://www.historycolorado.org/about
|
| [2]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_t...
|
| [3]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_s...
| bawolff wrote:
| [Ianal] Additionally, in the USA (but not all other places),
| digitizing a 2D piece of artwork does not add copyright to
| it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v
| ._Corel....
|
| There is a summary of different country laws at
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse_of_PD-
| Art_p...
| Freak_NL wrote:
| > And people/companies can download and use them as they wish?
|
| Why would this be a bad thing? Is there something specific
| about photos of Colorado scenery that would result in a
| negative outcome? Because there are already loads of public
| domain photos out there of natural scenery (the noteworthiness
| here is that such a comprehensive topical collection is
| integrally placed in the public domain).
| hnarn wrote:
| The point of the comment was the complete opposite: that this
| is a good thing but that the custodians of this digitization
| may think they have a right to apply a license restricting
| usage.
| Eleison23 wrote:
| History Colorado won't have legal standing to add licensing or
| conditions to their use.
|
| They will have the technical ability to control initial
| distribution. So we can assume he's going to upload highest-
| resolution originals to their archives. HC may need to delay
| access to them, or they may only offer downscaled copies for
| download initially.
|
| They could watermark or alter them in some way before
| distribution: since being in the public domain really means no
| restrictions on use or modifications, they can do anything they
| want upstream. I mean, they probably won't do watermarking,
| because I don't see it on other images in the "Collection" on
| the official website. We'll see if EXIF data is processed in
| any way. Or which formats will be distributed: you could hope
| for something lossless, right?
|
| But a public domain dedication, properly done, is irrevocable.
| Fielder may choose to exempt certain works from dedication, for
| example if a photograph is monetized already, or used by a
| popular news agency, etc. But it looks like HC will have 5,000
| out of 200,000 images, and will shortly release it for public
| consumption on the same searchable website.
|
| https://www.historycolorado.org/press-release/2023/01/23/col...
| politelemon wrote:
| This is a nice thing to do, and at the same time I'm saddened
| that parasites like Adobe and Getty can start profiting off these
| as they have in the past. Legally parasitical.
|
| Also a question. How could I, a nobody, 'donate' my photography
| to public domain? An organization wouldn't give a hoot about me,
| so are there sites that can 'take' photos and host them as public
| domain?
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| >Legally parasitical.
|
| The whole point of public domain is that others can use it as
| they wish--including to make money. I doubt there's a big
| business in selling _only_ public domain works except as
| perhaps a more curated and easier to use experience. But it
| certainly makes sense to sell quality public domain works as
| part of a larger catalog.
| judge2020 wrote:
| The argument here, I think, is that in 10, 20, 30 years, the
| site used to host the original PD works will either go
| offline or otherwise be buried in search results, when Getty
| et al stay #1 in the search results and charge for the PD
| work. This is why I largely consider releasing anything under
| the Public Domain to be a PR stunt; you can achieve the same
| results by just granting a more permissive license that says
| "don't resell the work itself, but you may use it as part of
| any other work for any reason or for personal use"
| Infernal wrote:
| > The argument here, I think, is that in 10, 20, 30 years,
| the site used to host the original PD works will either go
| offline or otherwise be buried in search results, when
| Getty et al stay #1 in the search results and charge for
| the PD work
|
| Sounds like Getty et al would be providing a valuable
| service in that case.
| type0 wrote:
| > Sounds like Getty et al would be providing a valuable
| service
|
| What valuable service? they are extortionists -
| https://onehourprofessor.com/getty-images-demand-letter-
| gett...
| ghaff wrote:
| Just because something is in the public domain doesn't
| mean an unspecified someone is required to bear the costs
| of hosting it and providing access with a good user
| experience, metadata, search, etc.
|
| Fortunately, in many cases, organizations like the (in
| the US) the Library of Congress and non-profits like the
| Internet Archive do. But no one is required to do so.
| (Aside from some legal mandates in the case of the LoC.)
| ghaff wrote:
| So you're basically arguing against anything being in the
| public domain ever because someone other than the original
| creator might make money off of it--even if the alternative
| is for it not to be available at all.
|
| And what does reselling the work itself mean? If I sell a
| picture book of Colorado that combines these photos with
| some maps and long captions, is that reselling the work?
| How about selling prints? That's a value-add service.
| markdown wrote:
| Getty Images has millions of historical public domain images
| that they never paid for but charge a $1000 a pop for.
| They're bottom-feeders. Absolute scum.
| ghaff wrote:
| So get those images from a different source. They're public
| domain. If they're not actually available from elsewhere
| without a lot of work then Getty seems to be providing a
| service.
| hannob wrote:
| > How could I, a nobody, 'donate' my photography to public
| domain? An organization wouldn't give a hoot about me, so are
| there sites that can 'take' photos and host them as public
| domain?
|
| Wikimedia Commons, upload them with CC0 as the license. (CC0 is
| basically public domain, just with some legal language that
| makes it work in other countries than the US where public
| domain as a legal concept does not exist.)
| detaro wrote:
| or archive.org
|
| I forget what the current terms are, but Flickr also had tons
| of public domain/CC0/CC-licensed images and didnt count them
| against quota afaik
| porphyra wrote:
| CC0 is nice but why not CC 4.0 license? It still lets people
| use it for commercial use but has attribution. That way
| people can't sell the photo and claim it as their own, for
| example.
| wartijn_ wrote:
| Wouldn't it be better to release your photos under one of the
| Creative Commons licenses (other than cc0) if you don't want
| those companies to profit of them?
|
| With those licenses they'll at least have to add the copyright
| notice. You could even disallow commercial use while giving
| other users the freedom to do with them as they please.
| ghaff wrote:
| One of the problems with non-commercial clauses is that
| essentially all non-trivial/non-private uses can be argued to
| be commercial in some way. There was even a court case a
| while back that argued having a commercial service reproduce
| copies of an NC-licensed work was commercial activity in and
| of itself.
|
| The general opinion of NC licensing is it makes the creator
| feel good about themselves but doesn't generally let others
| use the works.
| wartijn_ wrote:
| Ah, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Obligatory IANAL.
|
| You put your works into the Public Domain by explicitly
| forfeiting or waiving exclusive intellectual property
| rights[1].
|
| TL;DR: A Public Domain work is a work to which nobody holds nor
| asserts copyright.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain
| ghaff wrote:
| Though you're probably better using one of the existing
| "public domain licenses" as opposed to inventing your own
| disclaimer. There's CC0 (there's some problematic patent
| language but that's mostly only a concern with software) and
| MIT-0. This still doesn't make everything necessarily public
| domain everywhere in the world but it's the best you can do.
| culi wrote:
| Wikimedia Commons! You can upload them there directly. The more
| tags you use the more useful and more discoverable your content
| will be
|
| I'm a plant Wikipedian for example and am always looking for
| pictures of lesser known species or even just better photos of
| species that already have some. Sometimes I also browse
| iNaturalist (a citizen-scientist platform for making species
| observations) for observations labelled CC-BY or CC0 so if
| you're into nature photography, that could also be a relevant
| platform to check out
|
| I assume you're likely not taking close-up shots of specific
| species though but any other articles covering semantic
| concepts presented in your photos may likely benefit from your
| contributions
| Wistar wrote:
| This. Over the years, I have donated many automotive photos
| to wikimedia as public domain, CC0.
| porphyra wrote:
| I love Wikimedia Commons and have uploaded many photos across
| the years. But it is a pity that the Featured Picture
| Candidate process is almost entirely run by a cabal of people
| who have been there for years and have a rather narrow view
| of what makes a photo good, as well as poor technical
| understanding.
| anileated wrote:
| Is there a license that says "OK for commercial uses except for
| resell"? CreativeCommons non-commercial doesn't cut it if I
| were a photographer and wanted to allow using my photos as
| illustrations in some for-profit newspaper or magazine, or ad-
| supported blog, etc.--but not to capitalize on reselling them
| by the likes of Adobe and Getty, which strikes me as low-effort
| uncreative money-grab.
| ctoth wrote:
| Nominative Determinism strikes again!
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| Photos should become available sometimes in the spring.
| https://www.johnfielder.com/
|
| It also gives him a museum that will often feature some of his
| work as part of their exhibits.
| jahlove wrote:
| > Fielder's photography has influenced policy that protects
| Colorado lands including Congress' Colorado Wilderness Act of
| 1993, which created 36 federally protected Wilderness areas that
| amount to 660,000 acres.
| martyvis wrote:
| "The nature photographer prides himself on having traveled to
| each of Colorado's 104,984 square miles over the past 40 years"
|
| While I think the only time I've been on Colorado ground was a
| transfer at Denver airport, I understand it has pretty rugged
| geography. Is that statement even remotely possible to be true?
| Santosh83 wrote:
| Yes why not, unless an entire square mile of land was
| completely inaccessible, setting foot on an inch of it anywhere
| makes his claim true. According to the article, he was an
| expert with printed maps, so I'm inclined to believe he
| accurately mapped his own travels.
| ghaff wrote:
| That seems correct. A square mile is actually fairly large.
| It almost certainly means getting well into the backcountry
| but it doesn't mean having summited every peak.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Visited may also include _seen_ or laid eyes upon every
| square mile. This is a photographer. I visited the Eiffel
| tower as a kid. I didn 't go inside.
| jebarker wrote:
| I think he probably means he's seen every square mile. I
| live in CO and run ultramarathons in the mountains and
| backcountry here. There are squares miles that are almost
| certainly inaccessible even on foot due to terrain, grade
| or property rights.
| TheCondor wrote:
| I'm a giant fan of John and his work, but I tend to
| agree. DIA has 50+ square miles and it's basically
| private. Malone and the Kronkes own some big chunks of
| land, not sure if they leave them open. There are some
| places on the western slope, north central to north
| western Colorado and the in the south east where it could
| be dry challenging to get to. With forestry support, I
| think it is possible but not easy. There are probably
| multiple square miles sections of BLM range in the north
| east without any real access roads; nothing prevents you
| from getting there but it'd be a long hike or
| horseback/atv ride with maybe not a lot of photographic
| targets.
|
| It sounds like hyperbole, but John is a Colorado legend
| and if he says it, then I think it is true or shockingly
| close to being true. He has tons of photographic evidence
| of being in a lot of fairly challenging to visit places.
| humanizersequel wrote:
| If anyone could get permission to go on private lands for
| non-essential purposes like photography, surely it'd be
| Fielder?
| ghaff wrote:
| I thought of DIA and it's pretty massive and I'm pretty
| sure a private individual isn't going to be wandering out
| by the runways, service hangers, and so forth. And I'm
| sure there are some huge private ranches as well.
| TheCondor wrote:
| Plus Rocky Flats. And I'm not sure if the Rocky Mountain
| Arsenal is completely visitable
| matwood wrote:
| Square miles is pretty large. ~1/2 of CO is the plains, not the
| rugged mountains you're thinking of. Still an amazing feat, but
| one I think can be done.
|
| Another popular thing to do in CO is hike all 58 '14ers' (peaks
| over 14k feet). I only lived there a couple years, but managed
| to do 5 without too much planning. An outdoor person, doing
| outdoor things over 40 years...it makes sense.
| muyuu wrote:
| that's my wallpapers sorted
| abledon wrote:
| The Diffusion Algorithms Roar in Hungry Anticipation!
| crackpot wrote:
| What an inspiring thing to do!
| jl6 wrote:
| Should be a great source of high quality images for Wikipedia
| articles.
| Robadob wrote:
| It's a real shame there's not a built in way to get notified in 6
| months to check this stuff out. Guess I'll add it to my calendar.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-01-29 23:02 UTC)