Photo: Weatherproof Garment Co.'s billboard in Times Square. Credit: Timothy A. Clary / AFP/Getty Images
from:
Surely by now we've all heard about this right? It's so funny to me to be honest. But in reading up on it on a couple of news sites, I happened upon a comment made by a reader of the Chicago Tribune that started out well enough, was actually quite funny in illustrating a main point, and then led in directions that were unfortunate by the end. In drafting a response I was most disturbed though by the fact that I couldn't respond anonymously to this post, which ironically actually shed a whole other spotlight on this reader's concerns I thought. That, and, I remembered a similar and rather hilarious photo that I took over the summer that serves as a wonderfully comical visual example to compliment a hypothesis of his.
The current trend in our government is sinking in slowly. Apparently it is not a free country. The Weatherproof company bought the picture of a public figure from the United Press and put it in an advertisement. I don't believe that the president's control over his image, captured at a public event, is protected by copyright law. I could understand a government's complaint if a billboard had a picture of a public figure's young child or if a billboard was put up by Viagra and contained a public figure's image, along with the heading "I'm the president and when the mood strikes me I choose Viagra". We would all agree about taking down the Viagra billboard, because telling the world that our president might be impotent would be a threat to national security. Suddenly, this sort of American advertising and free enterprise is not tolerated by our government. Look at the other areas of free enterprise the government is attempting to control. For instance, look at the current government attempt to take over control of the privately owned health care industry. I thought we elected presidents in the US, not rulers. The next thing you know he'll try to change the term of office to a lifetime term!
skepticalsurfer (01/09/2010, 9:08 AM )
Taken June 2009 Loose translation: POPE "I only drink OISHI" OBAMA "I also only drink OISHI"
Taken June 2009 Loose translation: POPE "I only drink OISHI" OBAMA "I also only drink OISHI"
Obama, along with the Pope, apparently (and certainly unknowingly) endorsing Green Tea in the Czech Republic somewhere on the way to Prague. But since I took the photo, and I'm not advertising anything - it should be okay to post it here right? Heehee - man I've been dying to post this image. Haha!
and I said...
Oh darn it skepticalsurfer - you had me all the way to the idea of impotency possibly threatening national security. I'm a photographer and I agree wholeheartedly with your opening points about the legal purchase of a publicly created image of a public figure. But, I can certainly appreciate that it is also inappropriate for images of our politcal leaders (not just the president) to be used for commercial profit. That in itself actually makes the country more of a frivolous comedy show on the international stage and most certainly could be a further threat to our national security. The white house is making demands along the lines of propriety as I understand it, and not from dictatorship rule that could lead to any lawful compromise of our freedoms. Let's not get that excited. What's next - a photo of Michelle and her daughters on a J. Crew billboard? Do you even see where this could go if they let it fly? Who the hell would take this country seriously after that? The viagra point was excellent though - and damn funny - as is this entire occurrence. What's more troubling is that I couldn't leave my response on the chicagotribune site anonymously (whatever ‘anonymously’ could possibly mean in cyber world). I HAVE to create a user page offering personal details in order to comment freely. Why is that? (chin scratch…)
and I said...
Oh darn it skepticalsurfer - you had me all the way to the idea of impotency possibly threatening national security. I'm a photographer and I agree wholeheartedly with your opening points about the legal purchase of a publicly created image of a public figure. But, I can certainly appreciate that it is also inappropriate for images of our politcal leaders (not just the president) to be used for commercial profit. That in itself actually makes the country more of a frivolous comedy show on the international stage and most certainly could be a further threat to our national security. The white house is making demands along the lines of propriety as I understand it, and not from dictatorship rule that could lead to any lawful compromise of our freedoms. Let's not get that excited. What's next - a photo of Michelle and her daughters on a J. Crew billboard? Do you even see where this could go if they let it fly? Who the hell would take this country seriously after that? The viagra point was excellent though - and damn funny - as is this entire occurrence. What's more troubling is that I couldn't leave my response on the chicagotribune site anonymously (whatever ‘anonymously’ could possibly mean in cyber world). I HAVE to create a user page offering personal details in order to comment freely. Why is that? (chin scratch…)
Hey artslawroundup - can you shed any light on any of this?
Hi Berette,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this very interesting post and for asking me to shed some light on your questions! Not only is it inappropriate for images of our political leaders to be used for commercial use without their permission, in New York at least, it is a misdemeanor. Section 50 of the New York Civil Rights Law protects any person (not only a public figure like Obama) from having his or her likeness used for advertising purposes without permission.
As for your inability to post anonymously to the Chicago Tribune website, perhaps part of the reason the Tribune has required this is to maintain some level of propriety in the comments that people post. No doubt you have noticed that the anonymity the Internet provides leads people to post things on online forums that they would never dare to say in public. That is a great thing in terms of encouraging freedom of expression, but from time to time users can take advantage of that anonymity to vent some shockingly racist, homophobic and otherwise hateful viewpoints, and the Tribune might reasonably not want to be a forum for speech like that. Perhaps by requiring users to take ownership of their comments by setting up a profile, the Tribune guards against this to an extent. Since the newspaper is a private company that has provided you with a forum in which to comment, it is allowed to set the rules governing your participation in that forum. By contrast, if the newspaper were operated by the government, requiring users to set up a profile would almost certainly run afoul of the First Amendment as a restraint on users' freedom of speech (the First Amendment and most other constitutional guarantees of civil rights limit the behavior only of governmental actors).
Please keep up the interesting posts!
Justin
EXCELLENT Justin! Oh my Gosh - you really ARE a lawyer aren't you!!! I feel like reposting this for others to benefit from the light you just shed. And actually - a private institution governing their forum for such reasons makes sense. Fits along with the caveat we often hear "the views expressed here are not necessarily the views of _________ (paper, tv/radio station, etc etc)."
ReplyDeletethanks again!