This started making the rounds yesterday. The Stolen Scream: A Story About Noam Galai. I thought it important to post here. Wanted your thoughts to be a part of the conversation.
IMHO, this is:
Exciting.
Scary.
Different.
Opportunistic.
Cannibalistic.
Visionary.
Divisive.
Should we celebrate it or hate it? Lawsuits or a new suit of clothes that recognizes the times?
Two obvious sides with no obvious answer. And on and on… It’s our newest classic challenge as a rapidly evolving industry with the rapid deployment and sharing of information.
What say you?
(via the nice folks at fstoppers)
I saw this yesterday, and ironically saw the scream image in a promo piece from the UK shortly afterwards. It left me feeling angry for the guy that his image was used AND was stolen by another creative. It also left me angry at him for being passive and not fighting for what is rightfully his. I don’t know if the editing made him appear that way or not.
This is another wake up call to be vigilant and fight for what is right.
Give credit where it’s due. The guy does have a good attitude about it, but it’s outrageous how people these days claim art to be their own. Sure Artists love for their work to be shared, but they should also be compensated if it’s going to sell.
Thankfully National Geographic got it right. Great shots btw.Though it’s not film, it’s still piracy.
No one group of people is more often abused and taken advantage of than creatives & photographers. If you were selling a hot dog at a hot dog stand, would you feel guilty about charging a fair price for that hot dog? Of course not. So why be pressured by anyone to demote your work to anything less than a living wage? Our work is meaningless and worthless until WE decide to step up and put a value on it.
This last year alone i’ve done $13,000 worth of work that i will not end up being paid for, despite contracts, paper trail, invoices etc. If i stole a car off a car lot, i’d go to jail. However, today’s corporations can easily get away with outright theft without any recourse from us. Why? Because it’s difficult to get caught driving a website or a photograph down the street like you would a stolen car.
Until this changes, people and companies are still going to treat the majority of photographers, creatives, designers, and coders like trash, because they don’t see the tangible value we represent. People don’t really have a problem copying music, so why should we have a problem with copying photos and other creative ip? Right?
People make a living in photography. The more people question whether photography by default should be in some sort of ‘open source’ bubble the more this fact gets taken for granted.
Very well said David, I couldn’t agree more.
I guess he could sue the shit out of every single company that is making money from it.
Then again he could try and use the publicity engine to get himself exposure from that… and maybe get is works sold that way.