Censorship?

[ukexpat]

Chris,

I'm not going to say anymore about the 'Political' bit, but Don did include a fair number of photos that were not his work in his recent 'political' gallery. I'm sure others did too. These photos may have been in the public domain, but they shoudn't have been been in his galleries, or anyone elses, whatever their nature, political or not.

PBase is for your own photography.

Where does it say that Pbase is for your own photography? Also, ANYTHING on the net without a tradmark is PUBLIC domain, that means FREE for anyone to use!

Read the PBase ToS as to what is or is not acceptable to post on PBase. As to your final assertion, I almost fell off my chair. As a lawyer I can tell you that you are spouting complete and utter nonsense. Lack of a copyright statement (this has nothing to do with trademarks) does not automatically render an image public domain.

[bobt54]

Slug, in the interest of fair play. here's a purely political gallery in the favorites categories that needs to be gone from there like the rest:

http://www.pbase.com/kayakbiker/bush_signs&page=2

If this is kayakbiker's original work, how is "in the interest of fair play" that it be gone? Assuming that it is his/her own work how are they not in compliance with the Terms of Service?

Quite frankly I was pleased to see the web site in the favorites because it appears that Slug did not buckle to the complaints by those offended by the message but rather removed those sites because the individuals violated their Terms of Service Agreement and posted images that were not their own.

Free Speech is not always pretty. On one of kayakbiker's pages he has a photograph of a person holding a sign that says "Bush Eats Babies". While I find the message is rediculous and offensive, I have to smile and think in how many countries out there would a that guy get tossed in jail simply for speaking his mind.

I am happy to see Free Speech is still alive here.

[texindian]

I said earlier that I was no longer disturbed when Don's gallery was returned, just removed from the Most Popular. We have a contractual right to post images, not to be in the Most Popular.

But I am now starting to believe that censorship may be playing somewhat of a role here. That gallery by kayak/biker is no different than Don's, yet is has been allowed to remain. Looks like a double standard to me.

If ownership or right to use photos is the issue, I checked out Don's site. It appears that he has obtained releases for the photos that were not taken by him. kayak/biker simply doesn't address whether those are his/hers or not.

[slug]

i removed five politically oriented galleries from the popular galleries first page.
this had nothing to do with copyrights, simply the fact that politics were dominating the popular galleries. there are most likely other galleries listed there now concerning the election and politics as it's a current event.

people usually use words like "censorship" and "discrimination" as bad words.
without censorship and discrimination, the popular galleries page would either be a porn site or a shrine to the back street boys and britney spears.

the popular galleries page is intended to be a set of fresh, interesting examples of photography from a variety of people. it's not a contest nor can it be a pure democracy.

in the future, we'll expand the concept of topical photography. for sure i'd like a current events section. for example a set of galleries for elections or the olympics or anything else that is currently going on would be good.
right now you can go use the search page for "olympics 2004 athens" or "olympic 2004 athens" and find a few galleries, but a specified place to find things like this would be fun.

-slug

[ukexpat]

i removed five politically oriented galleries from the popular galleries first page.
this had nothing to do with copyrights, simply the fact that politics were dominating the popular galleries. there are most likely other galleries listed there now concerning the election and politics as it's a current event.

people usually use words like "censorship" and "discrimination" as bad words.
without censorship and discrimination, the popular galleries page would either be a porn site or a shrine to the back street boys and britney spears.

the popular galleries page is intended to be a set of fresh, interesting examples of photography from a variety of people. it's not a contest nor can it be a pure democracy.

in the future, we'll expand the concept of topical photography. for sure i'd like a current events section. for example a set of galleries for elections or the olympics or anything else that is currently going on would be good.
right now you can go use the search page for "olympics 2004 athens" or "olympic 2004 athens" and find a few galleries, but a specified place to find things like this would be fun.

-slug

Hear, hear!!

[bobt54]

Slug, thanx for clearing this up. I don't think censorship or discrimination are dirty words, but I am never compfortable when they are applied.

Here is a thought about the popular galleries. Obviously they got that way by either a lot of people voting for them or one person voting for them many times.

Instead of the ranking them and putting the top 8 on the screen with the others galleries successive mouse clicks away where their chances of being viewed decrease with each mouse click, why not take the top 100, 200, etc and then randomly display them when someone chooses the Popular Galleries button.

Tex, I was wrong in my last post and you were right. Based on Slug's explaination, kayakbiker's gallery is no different then the other political galleries that were removed from the popular galleries.

[framewerkz]

Here is a thought about the popular galleries. Obviously they got that way by either a lot of people voting for them or one person voting for them many times.

As far as I know each user only gets one vote per gallery.

[ukexpat]

Here is a thought about the popular galleries. Obviously they got that way by either a lot of people voting for them or one person voting for them many times.

As far as I know each user only gets one vote per gallery.

I think that's right -- if you try to vote twice you get a polite reminder from the system that you have already voted!

[texindian]

Thank you slug for clearing things up and for evening the playing field for those that want to engage in that type of activity. I personally come here to view pictures and learn, and perhaps I was out of line myself for helping fuel the fire, it it was. My sense of justice is satisfied and my confidence in pbase restored.

Bob, thank you for your gracious remarks, bu we probably were both right and wrong in a sense. There are no rights and wrongs in many instances like this, just a desire for that elusive concept of justice.

[hipolito]

[clickaway]

in the future, we'll expand the concept of topical photography. for sure i'd like a current events section. for example a set of galleries for elections or the olympics or anything else that is currently going on would be good.
right now you can go use the search page for "olympics 2004 athens" or "olympic 2004 athens" and find a few galleries, but a specified place to find things like this would be fun.

I find this a bit worrying that slug is considering extending the topical photography thing. I firmly believe that PBase must stick to a core value, and that is that the work submitted must be our photography, and not that of others, such as Government departments (even if 'released').

If slug has removed the five galleries because of copyright related ToS infringements, then an expansion of this is naturally going to cause even more bad feeling and mayhem. And more ToS violations. Whilst its of little interest to me, everybody has the right to submit a photo OF THEIRS showing a politician, a protest, an Olympic event or whatever. If I took a photo of our Tony Blair, I think that could well be worth posting, as it would be a significant photograph personally, (even though technically or artistically it may be mediocre). Same if I went to the Olympics. What I'm saying is that there is no need to promote this topical photography.

I think PBase should develop, but be based on our own work. And I mean our own photography. We ought to find ways to showcase fine work. The Popular Gallaries have been open to a degree of distortion lately.

I'd much rather the 'political' bit be taken out of mainstream PBase altogether.

I'm all for freedom of expression, but would rather any lengthy debates about politics as opposed to photography be placed elsewhere within PBase - or even beyond it. I'm sorry, but I think that such threads put PBase in a bad light.

The question will eventually arise - do we want to pay for a photography site or a political site.

Ray

[clickaway]

OK, seems I misread the basis of slug's decision to remove the galleries from the populars.

It was because they were too political, not because of copyright.

Even so, an expansion of topical photography is still going to encourage the same happening again in the populars.


Apologies!

Ray

[bmwgsbill]

so why is the still there in the popular gallery:

http://www.pbase.com/minoltaman/ronald_reagan

maybe i should put my shrine of Britney out there!!!!
there is nothing fresh about that man!!!

bill
http://www.pbase.com/bmwgsbill

[texindian]

kayak/bikers political gallery is on the first page of the Popular galleries. I thought slug said he was gonna fix this??? Seems his fix didn't last very long.

[matiasasun]

Does PBase has some kind of relation with the NRA or the U.S. army?
I´m wondering that...