Derrida's on the storm

[hirez]

Dear (self-)righteous campaigning types,
I believe what you're arguing about is the alleged right of someone to de/re/contexualise images¹ without the express consent of the participants.

Inasmuch as I am basically ok with the picture(s) from one of the early net.goth picnics being used in the context of 'Hey, look. There's [thingy]! Don't we all look young!', but I'm really not terribly happy for it to turn up on SomethingAwful about a decade later with some shoddy filtering applied as an entry in a rubbish potatoshop competition.

See also random Whitby snappers churning out grubby wank pics.

We need a crack team of postmodernist commandos to investigate and stamp out context violations.





1. And other (binary) media-object types.

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Photos at events where there may be aberrant behaviour, public nudity etc is always a fraught issue. Lots of fetish events ban cameras altogether - I think even Slimelight used to. BiCon permits photographs but photographers are asked to obtain consent from everyone in the photo both for having the picture taken and for how and where it may eventually be published. That includes in publicity materials for the event!

What weapons would postmodernist commandoes have?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Post-structuralism, Disque Bleu and a Citroen H van.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

If you get yourself down Millpond Lane (skank street, Easton) there's a corrugated iron breadbasket van for sale.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Hmm... you are correct in what you say but surely there is a less heavy handed solution than claiming ownership of all photos taken at the event.

I am basically ok with the picture(s) from one of the early net.goth picnics being used in the context of 'Hey, look. There's [thingy]! Don't we all look young!', but I'm really not terribly happy for it to turn up on SomethingAwful about a decade later with some shoddy filtering applied as an entry in a rubbish potatoshop competition.

Fair enough -- would you be happier for WGW organisers to have ownership and the right to issue takedown notices or not as they decide including in cases where all participants have agreed that they're completely fine with said pictures.

It's a thorny problem -- the answer Burning Man has come to does not feel right to me.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I don't know. The Burning Man fix may well be the best thing in an imperfect world run by the sort of people who think that CC/BSD is a licence to steal. In that thee (presumably) and I understand the concept of 'The Right Thing', but they'll go 'haha suckers' and continue cranking out 'Freaks gone wild'.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

to be honest i am just fine with people using images of me taken unposed in a public place however they wish, as they have the right to.

the dispute seems to be more about whether Burning Man is a public place, where pictures may be taken and used, or a private place.

i don't really give a shit either way - the festivals i go to all work on the basis that it is a public place. i realise that i may someday see my dreadlocked and drugged-up self in an ad for laundry detergent and give not a damn.

people are too damn precious about their own pictures. they don't REALLY trap your soul, you know.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Agree, I think. It's not as though I wasn't aware that for 25 years people were pointing fingers and laughing at me behind my back. And still I kept the mohican. There are some really bad photographs of me out there but hey, if it means that folks are relieved/pleasently surprised when they get to meet me in real life... result.

However, I am in the fortunate position of currently not giving a damn if folk at work see such things. That could change, and indeed if I was seriously looking for a job I might worry more - the solution of course is to keep my real name off the internet, and not to network with any work-related folk. I can see that this might not be so easy for some folk.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

i AM actually job hunting. :P and, as i work in the terribly conservative field of civil engineering, this kind of stuff can probably really affect my career.

that said, if i was really concerned about it, the solution would not be being precious about my photo, it would be moderating my behaviour and image in public places. as it is, having hair that i can style down for work, calling myself by the diminutive form of my name outside of work, and not getting arrested seems to be working pretty well.

[bluekieran.livejournal.com]

It's a thorny issue - Burning Man probably has it right (at least for their event), but that solution is very dependent on the trust people have for the people running it.

When you start talking about events without restrictions on photographers, or simply of a picnic in the park, you've essentially got to either trust/convince people Not To Be Dicks, or else Just Live With It. Neither is ideal, but would you want anything more resilient to need enforcing all the time?

I guess it's one of those All-Feasible-Solutions-Are-Worse-Than-The-Problem things, like DRM.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Right. Which is why I wonder if context-enforcement might be a good thing.

Take, for instance, an alleged Whitby photo. If viewed by someone who's been and/or is aware of the musical and clothing history of the g*th subculture, they're just going to go 'Hey, nice boots.' or 'Ugh. Bloody trads.' or whatever. Outside of that (subcultural) context, the intent of the publisher and/or viewer is likely to be 'omg freaks'.

So. Any context-enforced image must come with enough metadata to ensure that the publisher/viewer is fully aware of that context.

Enforcement would be carried out by the previously mentioned post-structuralist commando brigade.

[markeris.livejournal.com]

"Enforcement would be carried out by the previously mentioned post-structuralist commando brigade."

That would more or less be Grant Morrisons Doom Patrol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_Patrol) then. Who would handily look right at home at Burning Man.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Never mind Paris-eating paintings, we need autonomous jpegs that will grass up the poster should they find themselves on some shonky phpBB site. Or subject the viewer to a two-hour lecture on semiotics.

Ceiling cat really is watching you masturbate.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Up to a point, there's HTTP_REFERRER and REMOTE_ADDR. Surely we all remember the Great LiveJournal IQ Test Hoax of 2006 (http://www.krissyinboston.com/?p=277)? But the point that it is up to, relies on the shonky phpBB poster not being able to right-click, Save Image As, and upload to his own hosting provider.

[the_axel]

The two pieces are
1) BM is claiming for itself the right to tell you to pull down a photo you take of yourself on Facebook, Flickr, etc. Putting the photos up on a website served from your house is likely OK. Depending on how 'website controlled by a third party' is interpreted, you may or may not maintain agency if your website is on Dreamhost or somesuch.

2) If anyone copies & reposts a photo then Burning Man get the copyright of the image, no if's, and's or but's. You lose it.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Principle good. "Avoid embarassment to BM attendees by centrally controlling all use of images"

Practice pathetic. Just how effective do you think this will be against the intaweb's ability to circulate images?

Risk significant. Do you _trust_ the BM oligarchy? Just how much money would PeskyCola have to offer to make them sell image rights for an ad?

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Well, quite. Or the BM oligarchy's desire to censor anything which illustrates just how much they damage the desert.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

[Citation needed]

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

From Burning Man's own website (http://www.burningman.com/environment/resources/burning.html): (Emphasis mine)

"Fires built on the playa surface create a burn scar or patch of discolored, hardened playa sediment that, unaided, take years to fully recover. The process of manually restoring them requires many hours of picking out residue by hand (mainly shattered bottles, nails and screws), breaking up the fire-hardened layer and returning the following year (after the rainy season) for further treatment. There are many dozens of these from past years events that we are still working on; it is our goal to not make any new ones!"

Now this isn't proof that they want to hide the evidence, but it does provide a motive for them to hide the evidence. And censoring photos of scarred desert would certainly fit with your observation about context, especially if old scars were presented with accompanying text that suggested they were new ones.

Skip this post, you've heard it from me before

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

The problem with... No. Let me start that again. The consequence of citizen's media, Web 2.0, heck even usenet and 70's phreaking party lines, is that the equality of the common man to have his views received by the general public, goes hand-in-hand with the equality of having views about the general public received by the common man.

I could re-hash the Oracle privacy quote, but you've heard it a squillion times already. That doesn't make it any less true.

The days of privacy are gone. The opportunity for you to object was twenty years ago. The change has happened. No matter what you try to retroactively legislate, no matter what old laws you try to apply to new technology, no matter what terms, conditions or gentlemen's agreements you come up with, you have missed the boat. The tools to defeat privacy are already in the general public's hands and cannot be withdrawn, disabled or curtailed.

Freedom of information means YOUR information too. Welcome to the new equality - everyone is a public figure.

[(Anonymous)]

Picture them now! Cruising the streets in a black Volkswagen EA489 with the words "This may not be read as red" written on the side in scarlet letters, fighting to clear their name after being accused of a crime they cannot be said to have committed:

Martin "Hegel's Hannibal" Heidegger
Michel "Faceman" Foucalt
Jean "Bonkers" Baudrillard
Jaques "Inappropriate Disposition" Derrida

When there may or may not be anyone for you to call, when special circumstances have rendered something outside context, there may be evidence of their presence detectable in a situation where it would be advantageous (within a given frame of reference) for them to manifest such that their actions might incur consequences.

Though in fairness it's not Whitby that's got the problem with camera accoutred 'ornithologists' seeking to snap the rare Pale Tit, but Treffen. I've seen more photos of 35mm perverts at that event than I have goths.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yes. Very much so. With a twist of lemon.