I saw something in a tech newsletter the other day that caught my attention. I had no intention of blogging about it but it just keeps gnawing.
Some poor soul is trying to make a buck from the Internet. Isn’t everyone? The problem is that on his web site he had used a photograph of a fish jumping out of the water. The picture was apparently fairly prosaic. It certainly wasn’t in contention for a Pulitzer Prize.
The owner of the site had received notice from the supposed copyright owner that he was to immediately fork over $3,950. That seemed a bit steep. I say supposed because there are people sitting out there sending people bills for anything and everything, just knowing that some people will pay without too many questions.
I don’t know if in this particular instance the notice came from a real copyright holder or some scam artist. Whatever, it was precise. $3,000 for use of the photograph. $900 for legal fees. $50 for FedEx.
Once upon a time, back in the day of the 4 by 5 Speed Graphic camera, I was a professional photographer. Even factoring in a lot of inflation I can’t conjure up an image the guy might be using that could command a use fee of $3,000. Ten bucks? Maybe.
The picture of the little girl in Vietnam running up the road naked, fleeing the fighting in her village was worth a lot of money.
Grown now, the lady fortunately doesn’t remember the incident.
The picture of a Stasi (State Police of the former East Germany) jumping a coil of barbed wire to the West during the first days of the building of the Berlin Wall was used on front pages worldwide. It was worth some money.
But a fish jumping out of the water is worth $3,000? Yeah. Sure.
Back in the days of the ‘Big Iron’ (large mainframe computers) and later, when the 8- and 16-bit computers were first showing up, I did a little programming. It is completely beyond me how people can be so impressed with themselves that they think their programming talent is worth $500, $1,000 or more for a copy of their work.
Programming isn’t that demanding. I started in assembler language. The others just got easier from there. Still, it wasn’t all that difficult.
Not only have I held copyrights on photographs and computer programs, I also have a copyright on my book and various articles. My publishers had copyrights on my work when I was foreign correspondent. I have some familiarity with copyrights.
Compare what someone thinks a picture of a fish is worth with what someone thinks some programming is worth. Then compare those with someone writing a book. Including the research, my book took more than sixteen years.
A library, an agency of the government, buys a copy of my book. People can come in and read it for free, or take it home with them. Then, the library provides a copier down at the end of the row of shelves. They charge for using the copier. They make money from people copying my book. I don’t.
Everyone would consider me well into a state of senility if I demanded $500 or $1,000 per copy of my book. And these photographers and programmers have the gall to charge such prices and complain about the violation of their copyright.
Back in the early days of the micro computer there was one word processor that ruled the roost: WordPerfect. I have used it since v1.1. I also keep Microsoft Word at hand but WordPerfect is far superior, and cheaper.
Why is WordPerfect no longer the standard word processor? They fought tooth and nail to protect their copyright. I am unaware of any other tech firm that could match their efforts of protection of their product, not even Apple.
The estimate was that there were three illegal copies of WordPerfect for every legal copy. But, think a moment. Because WordPerfect was so ubiquitous, even if most copies were illegal, those illegal copies helped it become the standard. Everyone was using it.
You can reference my comments above as to pricing and the effect it had on promoting illegal copies. Businesses, however, slowly came to the conclusion that perhaps they should behave responsibly and purchase legal copies of various programs, including WordPerfect.
While the WordPerfect people were trying to enforce their copyright, Microsoft created a graphic version of Word. WordPerfect dallied for almost two years. Giving Word an uncluttered path to dominance in that particular area.
Except for authors, I don’t ever want to hear of someone complaining about their copyright being violated. Also, I have eight patents. I finally came to realize that a patent is really only a license to sue. My last patent cost me over $6,500. Corporations don’t care about the patents of others and most of us can’t fight them for as long as Greg Kinnear does in his new movie, Flash of Genius.
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