Not sex related, but directly related to me and my communities: the Podtech photo misuse issue that’s emerging on blogs and the Yahoo videoblogger mailing list. A few weeks ago I caught this, thanks to Jason pointing it out on my photostream — but haven’t had time to follow up on it until now. The short version is this:
According to this post, Podtech snagged a Flickr photo for their Vloggies promo images and didn’t compensate the photographer, Lan Bui. He invoiced, but it seems he got the runaround; he posted after weeks (months?) of unsatisfactory response from Podtech.
Lots of people blogged about it, but what’s weird is that the three main faces of Podtech — Robert Scoble, John Furrier and Linda Furrier all partially responded to this issue — but only publicly in the comments on other blogs, namely here and here. John Furrier and Scoble responded about the issue on the Yahoo list, but disparagingly about the Vlog community and in one instance saying that they’re “paying tons of content providers all over the world and we lost a TON of money on Vloggies. We invested in the community and now are negotiating with you.” (Scoble). It’s been months and this still isn’t resolved. Is this any way to treat a community concerned about misappropriated content? Telling us our work is a waste of their time (despite the fact that Podtech put *zero* effort into promoting the Vloggies first time around, and IMHO, put Podtech on the map?)
It sucks that Lan Biu’s image got snagged by a big company and he was not immediately compensated — regardless of the “complexity” of the situation being referred to in comments by Podtech employees/owners on *other blogs*, the least they could do is comment on Lan’s blog, or — hello — make a public apology of some kind for a mixup, at the very least.
It’s especially painful to the vlogging and online indymedia communities when even a hint of content ownership violation happens. Even just the way Podtech has *non* responded shows that these big companies are fine to co-opt content-making communities (like vloggers and the Vloggies) but still behave badly (like corporations) when it comes to individuals within those communities, revealing that they still don’t “get it”, at all.
I hope there’s a positive update on all this, soon. That it even got this far is a huge disappointment.
Update: Valleywag picked this up (thank you!), and in the meantime I’ve received two more emails off the videoblogging list. One is from Robert Scoble and the other from Lan Bui. Here, Scoble tells the Yahoo! list that “an employee [at Podtech] made a mistake”. This is a great start. I’m not getting all the mail off this list but these two relate to the issue at hand directly, and contain small details I feel are very relevant. One, that Bui is outright calling Scoble a liar — holy crap. The other is Scoble’s statement saying that “(…) it’s easy to miss the copyright on Flickr”.
Is it, really?
Why do I care so much about this? This whole thing seems (to me) to be a huge, evolving object lesson in the way these big 2.0-ish companies behave toward the communities and individuals they serve. I’m starting to feel like we can rest assured that the people with money (and people who “make it”) will always treat us content creators disposably, and shift the blame when they fuck up — more correctly, when they are publicly called on their transgressions and the self-correction mechanism of 2.0 community scrutiny kicks in. What companies like Podtech say when b/vloggers call them on their accountability is very revealing: we get to see where their values lie. The emails are after the jump.
* * * * * * *
——— Forwarded message ———-
From: Lan Bui [redacted]
Date: Jun 29, 2007 10:51 PM
Subject: [videoblogging] Re: Hey PodTech – What’s up with Lan’s image?v
To: videoblogging@yahoogroups.com
Robert, thank you for finally coming out and saying something for
PodTech to the community.
First, I must say that your statement:
“He believes his work is worth that and believes that there isn’t room
for negotiation on this issue.”
Is a lie.
One of the points in my blog post was that I wanted, at minimum, to be
contacted to negotiate. In the last couple days I did negotiate down a
lot less than $3000 and even sent an updated invoice for it. So how is
this not negotiating on the issue? Remember we talked about this on
the phone, so I’m not sure why you left that out.
PodTech had the chance to ask to purchase a license to use the
photograph before it was used, at which time they would be able to set
the terms. That didn’t happen. Now that they have used the photograph
already, who should set the terms?
I gave PodTech over a month to respond to my terms and they didn’t.
When it was just me that was involved PodTech didn’t care. When others
started to blog about it and it was giving them a bad name, then
PodTech started to care. Remember, that blog post was up for about a
month before others started take notice to it. So PodTech showed to me
they don’t care about me, they only care about their image in the
public eye.
Next, I am not Thomas Hawk. Wait… Thomas Hawk? I will be the
professional and not discuss the prices that PodTech pays him.
Remember Robert, you told me how much PodTech pays him and that
reinforced my price even more!
You also said:
“It was easy to see how a mistake was made since usually people in the
community who, when invited to an event we held usually give us photos
that were snapped at our events for free”
I was not contacted… so how could there be a mistake regarding
permission? I also never gave (if you meant sent in to PodTech) any
photographs that this one could be mistaken for.
You also said:
“it’s easy to miss the copyright on Flickr”
Come on, that argument is weak. Putting something in the same place on
every page on flickr makes it very easy to not miss.
You said:
“I asked several professional photographers, the average fee was
$300.” and “3x what most professionals in the marketplace charge for
this kind of work”
Please don’t lie again. The $300 price point is for stock photography.
I even asked John where you guys got $300 from and he said “that is
standard for a stock photograph”. If there is a photograph with Casey
McKinnon holding Vloggies in a stock photography book somewhere I
would love to see it. The photograph that was chosen was chosen
because it had great value. It is not stock photography and I am not a
stock photographer.
Ok, lastly. Lets say I accepted $1000. Wow that sounds like a lot of
money to many people that aren’t making money from their creative
work. Well this issue is not about me making money. It is about
setting a precedent.
If we allow companies to steal work and only pay a standard small fee
when they are discovered, what is the incentive for them not steal
again? Is that what other companies should learn from this? Just take
now and deal with it later if it ever comes up. And don’t worry, it
still won’t cost more than if we paid up front.
To anyone else reading this: I hope this clarifies and corrects
Roberts post.
-Lan
www.LanBui.com
— In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, “Robert Scoble”
>
> Here’s what happened.
>
>
>
> An employee made a mistake. We recognize that a mistake was made. It was
> easy to see how a mistake was made since usually people in the community
> who, when invited to an event we held usually give us photos that were
> snapped at our events for free and it’s easy to miss the copyright on
> Flickr. Thomas Hawk, for instance, takes lots of photos at our
events and
> gives them to us for free since he’s appreciative for the community
work we
> do.
>
>
>
> We asked around what a photo like the one that we used by Lan Bui
was worth.
> I asked several professional photographers, the average fee was
$300. Lan
> was not commissioned to take photos and an employee made a mistake
by using
> a photo and not making sure we had the rights to use it before using it.
>
>
>
> But Lan wants $3,000.
>
>
>
> We have offered Lan something between those two prices which we feel
is fair
> ($1,000 is the price I saw offered by PodTech CEO John Furrier, which is
> more than 3x what most professionals in the marketplace charge for
this kind
> of work).
>
>
>
> Lan wants $3,000. He believes his work is worth that and believes
that there
> isn’t room for negotiation on this issue.
>
>
>
> So we’re at an impass.
>
>
>
> I’m personally sorry for the whole way this thing has been handled,
though,
> and still would like to find a way to get the two parties to reach
closure
> on this problem.
>
>
>
> I do want to make sure Lan gets compensated properly for his
intellectual
> property, but we want to reach a fair price and one that’s based on what
> professionals expect.
>
>
>
> Robert Scoble
