WGGB Ch 40 website
Originally Published 7/13/12
Usually it's bloggers who are said to steal from main stream media, so imagine my surprise when I went to WGGB Ch 40 TV's website today to check out their Atkins Corner road reopening story (which has now been taken down) and spied a familiar photo. Mine.
No permissions sought, and no credit for its usage. Kind of uncool.
But what really bothers me is their lousy lead. Talk about a "phoned in" story. The new 2nd roundabout area is still a disorganized, unfinished mess -- as I demonstrated in my story this morning. Hardly what you would describe as "traffic can now flow through the area as normal." Especially for bicycles, motorcycles, or pedestrians.
If that's "normal" I would hate to see their version of abnormal.
My reliable source tells me the state, feeling pressured, told Baltazar on Monday that Atkins Corner was to open on Thursday no matter what. Then on Thursday afternoon the state faxed a press release to the usual bricks-and-mortar media and they fell all over themselves publishing the "good news."
The newest roundabout is really not finished, thus it requires attentive, on-the-ball drivers for safe passage. My concern now is for when a drunk driver tries to negotiate it for the first time later this weekend ...
Atkins Corner Electronic Sign 8/11/12 Hey, they updated
8 comments:
Thanks for posting the pic of the torn-up Route 116 (by Hampshire) -- it's barely passable (and with today's downpours, I bet it's even more of a mess). This route should by no means be open. Once again, road construction is overpromised and underdelivered...
And I'm told the streetlights will not be working this evening.
There is absolutely no excuse for there not to have been one of those diesel-powered light stands running all summer -- that thing has been such a confusing clusterf*** all summer that I am really surprised that no one *sober* has been seriously hurt out there, let alone someone whose skills are impaired.
And someone should have given Hampshire a "deal they couldn't refuse" -- that land would be taken by eminent domain if need be (and not returned) but if they just let the detour run across their land, they would get some "mitigation" something like Atkins did.
Public Blog + unprotected photos = free use to all doesn't it?
No, it doesn't.
What a laugh. After your years of using copyrighted photos, which you always made cheap excuses like "it was on Google images so its okay." Give me a break.
Actually if you go through my 2000 articles over the past five years you will find a little over 95% use photos I have taken.
And when I, as a last resort, go to Google images, I use the advanced search for "free to use and share."
If I want to be a stubborn, pissed off Irishman I could now register that photo with the copyright office ($35 fee), since you have 90 days from day of publication to do so --and it was originally published only 3 weeks ago-- and then suit them for copyright infringement.
Quite frankly, they should have known better! They are after all "professionals."
My understanding of the copyright law is that you own a copyright on your work as soon as you create it and that there is no requirement that you actually register the copyright although it is helpful in proving that you had created the work as of a certain date should you need to prove it in court.
See: http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#211
And for general copyright info, the whole thing is at:
http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html
There are exceptions, essentially works which the author has explicitly put into the public domain in some way, works produced by the Federal Govt or under a Federal Contract, etc.
As a general practice, most media will, upon request, grant (without charge) one-time license to other publications to use photos they have already published themselves, with the understanding that an explicitly worded attribution also be enclosed. That is (a) how the UM Minuteman obtained the picture of Jason Vassell and (b) where the highly-offensive-to-some line of "curtsey of The Republican Newspapers" tagline came from.
And the aspiring politicians in the Student Government Association somehow didn't know who "The Republican Newspapers" were and raised great offense at the word "Republican" appearing below a picture of the nice Mr. Vassell....
But I digress....
My experience, that of the adviser having to clean up the mess after a student group published an image without permission -- after I having already told them not to do it -- is that protocol is for the offending publication to write a formal letter of apology promising to never do it again which the offended publication publicly accepts.
Yes you can threaten lawsuits and all, but what you really want is them to publicly admit that it was you who was intrepid enough to take the picture and it is best to let everything else drop -- sure the publications are competitors but there is also civility and such.
Requesting an apology is what I would do -- and then just posting it. And moving on.
And for the record, I am absolutely certain that The Minuteman had the right to use that picture of Vassell because this was one of the times when the adviser does something to ensure that it was done right.
Dr. Ed Cutting
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