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Remember that bit I did the other day on The Worst Website I Have Ever Seen? Man, those were the days. I also cross-posted it at Street Carnage, like I often do, because they are my bros, and that is how blog buddies roll, via sharing content. It's why I often repost things here from Stuff You Will Hate, and Leisure, and/or vice versa. Information wants to be freeeeee, man. But so do tits, and in order to get access to either you usually have to ask first.
Speaking of tits, and asking first, this one other site called Wastechester, which I thought was actually pretty cool on the electronic music and tattood hipster nipples vibe*, had an entire series of Street Carnage posts they'd janked off the site going back a few months, like the aforementioned post of mine. This came as a pretty big surprise to Arv and Gavin, who run Street Carnage, when I asked them what was up with my stuff appearing on another site. Naturally, much butthurting ensued, and we contacted them to say "y u steal our shit, bro?"
*Actually, fuck that. Those pussies defriended me, then blocked me from their Facebook page because I complained on their wall.
It wasn't just posts they were snatching either, they took the logo from the Word on the Street series on SC (above) and used it for themselves, and even used verbatim quotes from stuff said by other writers on SC and posted them as Facebook status updates. That's...weird?
It wasn't just posts they were snatching either, they took the logo from the Word on the Street series on SC (above) and used it for themselves, and even used verbatim quotes from stuff said by other writers on SC and posted them as Facebook status updates. That's...weird?
Boring story short, after we bitched about it, they agreed to properly tag and source the content, which they were arguably already doing, they said, but, again, without asking first. Eh, not so sure about that, but ok, problem solved, and I think it all turned out like a happy fairy tale in the end in that everyone ended up looking really gay.
Or did it? Is a site like that guilty of anything more than what literally every other blog on the internet does all the time anyway, including this one sometimes? Were we being hypocrites by being so annoyed by it?
"Probably worth bringing up, since we're on the topic," I wrote to the SC dudes. "We all do this all the time with photos."
But, I added, "Who cares because photography is a fraud anyway? Still though, something to think about."
I even referenced a nerdy piece I wrote about "ethical blogging" in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago, because I wanted to remind everyone I'm an important journalist, in which I wrote about different ways to use other people's intellectual property with a clear conscience.
"The blogoverse has become a lot like what Picasso supposedly said about inspiration: A good artist copies, but a great artist steals," I wrote, which I'm quoting here with my own permission. "Of course, back in his day you couldn't exactly right click on a canvas in a gallery and drag it over onto your bedroom wall, so what did he know?"
Whether or not information should be free is a different matter altogether. On popular blogging platforms like Tumblr, the point is moot. For the bloggers who use these sites, the exchange of copyrighted material and intellectual property—other people's photographs, music, lists of all the amazing things you ate for lunch—isn't just an aspect of the form, it's practically the entire business model.
Call it the copy(paste)right approach to creativity, where much of the allure is in reblogging posts from contacts in your network in an Internet version of the telephone game. Each repetition takes you further and further away from the work's original creator.
It doesn't have to be that way. There are services that make content available for bloggers to reuse on their own sites, free of thorny ethical issues and legal complications. Most bloggers aren't aware of these resources or don't seem to know what the appropriate standards actually are.
I do not personally follow all of the rules I suggested when it comes to using photos on this blog, I'm sort of ashamed to say, but not really that much so, for one very important reason I mentioned a minute ago which I will repeat now in case you have the shittiest memory I've ever heard of: photography is not art. In fact it's not anything but an easily learned, easily reproducible, talent-free hobby, often mastered by skilled hucksters, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a photographer, or wants to sleep with one. In my normal life as a music "journalist" I have to deal with newspaper photographers all the time. You would not believe how seriously these people take themselves. Dude, you point a machine at another thing, how hard was that to learn? (One caveat here, which is mentioned in the piece I reference below, is that war zone photographers are the real fucking deal, and ten times the journalist I will ever be.)
I was talking about the Wastechester situation with Ben Leo, another writer from Street Carnage who's , and how photography is a joke anyway, so no harm no foul that we use other people's images on Street Carnage. He'd actually written a post on that very idea a couple years back he told me, called Photography Is For Jerkoffs. Go read the whole thing, but I've pulled a few choice bits below, which I will now commence quoting with his permission.
The piece begins with him referencing a conversation with someone who revered the work of Terry Richardson, a dude who points his dick at more models than he does his picture-box.
The idea that it matters one iota who TAKES a photograph of a supermodel’s tits (as long as they meet a certain standard of technical competence that is roughly equivalent to what it takes to operate a Gmail account) is just beyond offensive. This abortion of artistic justice cannot stand. It is therefore my duty to explain why… PHOTOGRAPHY IS FOR JERKOFFS. Other prominent pseudo-arts in the Auto-Pilot Jizzcock genre include: DJ-ing and Sampling...
There’s a part of photography that I DO think is impressive:
a) Ansel Adams going to the north fucking pole and shit? Props. That shit is HARD. It’s cold and there are fucking BEARS and no food. Creds.
b) Niggas going into war zones and shit and taking shit like this and this without throwing up or getting killed? PROPS....
Here’s how to be a photographer: If you follow these steps, you CANNOT fail at getting an art show at a shitty gallery in the city somewhere, and unless you have terrible breath you WILL get laid. If you can’t follow these steps, you will be a BAD PHOTOGRAPHER which is like being bad at using a microwave oven and you should then literally go play pinochle with my grandfather at The Home. You will be in great company, as he too is a BAD MICROWAVER.
INSTRUCTIONS:
1) Make sure you have a LOT OF FUCKING NATURAL LIGHT.
2) Make sure the natural light SOURCE is behind you
3) Make sure the flash on your camera is OFF. If you need a FLASH, it means you don’t have enough NATURAL LIGHT. (step 1)4) Look through the viewfinder: Make sure that everything in your shot is symmetrical. If a tiny bit of it isn’t, like a bird or a queer walking down the street, that’s OK because it makes the photo “cool.” Go watch every Stanley Kubrick movie ever made if you don’t understand this. (Study Alex’s fake eyelash as the archetypal stylistic symmetry violator) 5) Take pictures of everyday shit from stupid angles but make sure it’s all SYMMETRICAL and that it isn’t MOVING.
6) Make sure YOU don’t move or have your fat black fingers in front of the lens when you push the button. (priceless tip: push the button down halfway, wait for a clicky sound, and then push it all the way in – this is the BIG photography secret that professionals don’t want you to know.)
7) Take TONS of photos of the same thing and then only use the good ones where the bird or the queer wasn’t blinking.
You’re done. You’re a fucking photographer. See how easy that is? That’s because it’s for JERKOFFS.
Here’s some evidence that what I’m saying is true: Ask yourself this: Why was every picture taken on 9-11 (all taken by totally random shmoes) better than any other photograph you’ve ever seen? It’s because photography is Auto-Pilot Jizzcock. If you are taking pictures of something that’s FUCKING INCREDIBLE, your photograph will then be better than the best picture that the best photographer can take of a piece of dogshit.
For example: Imagine you had a real picture of GOD or a UFO or Barack Obama fucking Osama Bin Laden in his anteater ass? If you just happened to be lucky enough to see one of those things and have a camera with you, you would instantly be known as the best photographer of all time.
You could never in a million years say the same thing about a real art: Let’s say you saw GOD or a UFO and then WROTE about it. Your writing would still suck shit and be way worse than James Joyce or Jim Goad’s killer works. [Dude, did you just use Joyce and Goad in the same sentence? -- Luke]
That’s because writing is a real art that you can’t just push a button and have a machine do for you...
Couldn't have said it better myself, although maybe a little less, you know, offensively.
It's actually a pretty common refrain among writers I've heard over the years, because we're all insecure as shit, but also because it's true. Just today Stuff You Will Hate put up a post on the same idea called What's the fucking deal with photography, which is kind of a crazy coincidence, but you know what they say about mediocre minds thinking alike. Go read the whole thing there. A few quotes from Sergeant D follow:
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Good thing she put her name on this image or someone might have gotten it confused with the 400 million other photos of a sweaty guy in a black band shirt screaming into a microphone
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My first question is, why do people act like photography is on par with real forms of art like drawing or painting?? Obviously there are some photographers who take it to that level, but I have no idea why people think it’s some kind of amazing accomplishment to take a picture of something that is either happening in nature or that someone else is doing. You didn’t plant the tree, you’re not playing in the band, you’re not riding the skateboard, you just bought the camera. Am I supposed to be impressed??
In other words, as Leo concluded in his piece, "VAN GOGH’s oil painting of dogshit is better than your oil painting of GOD!!! The same is not true of photographs."
Like this one below from Wastechester, which I'm pretty sure is a photograph of God's girlfriend taking a shit, so pretty much close enough.
So, in summary: stealing art is bad, but only a little less so when it's a picture, because photographers are only artists in the way that bloggers are writers. The important point to remember is that no matter what ridiculous "creative" path you choose to disappoint your parents with, the only thing that matters is whether or not it gets people to pay attention to you.
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38 comments:
"In fact it's not anything but an easily learned, easily reproducible, talent-free hobby, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a photographer, or wants to sleep with one."
true fact
Maybe went a little over the top, but fuck it. "/
Oof. It went straight to their "manifesto."
What did?
Not to help drive their traffic, but: http://www.wastechester.com/wtf/
"THE WC MANIFESTO
We don’t know why we exist, but we try to post stuff that our readership, will either love (tits) or hate (not tits). If you don’t like what we do, you’re more than welcome to fuck right off."
Oh right. Yeah, that is straight ripped from a post on Street Carnage
http://streetbonersandtvcarnage.com/blog/dear-street-carnage-fuck-you-2/
We don’t know why it exists but it does and it keeps on barreling forward. We try to post stuff that our readership, loosely definable as they may be, will either love (tits) or hate (not tits).
For the record, my homeboy Tommy brings up a good point:
"Tom Bellotti ha, i do sometime think that photography can be art though. like there are famous photos that really give you a sense of place/emotion etc. like the guy stabbing the dude with an american flag pole from the busing demonstrations. or something like this. http://www3.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Tom+Brady+Michael+Strahan+Super+Bowl+XLII+dlv9n6BO-T2l.jpg"
Obviously I agree. That flag photo stabs me in the guts. The Super Bowl one is even worse, because that captures an even more depressing moment in American history. But, you know, saying "sometimes photography is awesome" isn't gonna pay the blog bills is it?
re: wastechester -- i would just chalk it up to typical neophyte behavior of people who don't really "get" the internet/journalism, but then their website looks legit and they have a good following. WHAT'S THE DEAL?
this is a thing that exists:
http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2011/11/really-4-3-million-for-that-photo/
I once had a teacher at a journo conference tell everyone in his workshop that "great photojournalism is the art of hanging out."
Where does this fit in to your argument?
Photojournalism requires patience, and a knack for being in the right place at the right time, which are qualities that all real news journalism require, sure.
Be careful. They're going to steal this piece too!
@dasgirlgal Yeah, I dunno, seems like they have a big following and should know better.
@corey: ha! i would love that actually and respect them if they did.
So maybe the Daily Show didn't jag your shit. Maybe they jagged it from some other person that jagged it from you. I think you owe them an apology.
What did he hope to get out of that scheme?
Right. It seems like it would be impossible to point a camera at the women in the top and bottom pics and not come out with a saleable result. So, I guess not being a photographer is pretty stupid of me.
That's not all I'm pointing at those women.
so is the problem just that the barrier to entry isn't high enough? It's easy to be a mediocre photographer just as it's easy to be a mediocre DJ or a mediocre blogger (SNAP!). Whereas, it's really hard to even be a mediocre painter.
So are you arguing that generally-mediocre people shouldn't be allowed to partake in a creative pursuit and to feel accomplishment from their mediocre creations? Should they just sit down and enjoy Dancing With The Stars and not try to create something of their own?
This reminds me of the Rock Band conundrum: people aren't playing real instruments, so is it wrong that they are having real fun?
(the above is all invalidated if they are being a jerk about it. See also, the rule of watermarks: The size of the watermark is inversely proportional to the quality of the photo (http://www.jwz.org/blog/2010/11/ever-notice-that-the-size-of-the-watermark-is-inversely-proportional-to-the-quality-of-the-photo/))
Yeah, it's partly the barrier to entry, just like in blogging (which I already mentioned, so YOUR SNAP IS INVALID!)
I think you have the right of it. I don't really care what anyone does, as long as it's fulfilling to you, cool, go for it, just don't be a prick about it.
As for the Rock Band thing, having fun is overrated.
Also, everyone knows I don't actually believe a lot of the shit I write on here, right? We're clear on that aren't we?
It's hard to know anymore.
i know how you feel
wastechester stole shit from Creep Street too. stealing's for faggots
Girl in the top pic is Carmen. Good luck ever masturbating to anything else again as long as you live, dudes.
http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/xh91z_oreo6970_carmen-cam/1#videoId=xhrq4m
I don't think it's the barrier to entry. I think it's that photography is just recognizing that something you see is cool and then using a machine to share it with everyone else in the world. It's not really creating anything.
I agree in that sense. Unless it's a staged photo where you planned out the design and set up and it ended up looking amazing, like the header image on this blog, which I am using without persmission.
It's not so bad that some fags are sharing your sub-blogosphere's content. What bothers me, broski, is that that they refer to themselves as:
"illest of the ill, the most street of the street."
BTW, you're allowed to share my content, but you have to find it yourself (LOL).
Being a cameraman/woman used to be much 100x more difficult than today, so obviously the egos and sense of entitlement are a vestige from those days.
That Carmen video was kind of a letdown, brah.
God's girlfriend there is Kitty Lea.
You can be famous in the UK for taking your top off.
my art worthless art degree has programed me to disagree with about 90% of this (painting is dead, sorry kids), but i haven't loled that hard in a while. kudos.
As both a shitty photographer and a shitty journalist, I must say that photography is as hard as journalism. Only after studying it for four years will you consistently punt off good image after good image.
In the end, it's just like good journalism. You have to be well versed, and you have to get off your ass and go do it. Stealing images is stealing indeed. Use shitty images off freestock.com it's better karma and probably better for your blog(if your readers understand your policy).
Luke,
Some good photographs make you believe no effort was involved. Terry Richardson has a style that is not for all. Just like anything else, different people have different tastes in photography and different opinions about what makes a good photograph. Intellectual property is intellectual property and just as you were offended that someone stole your words, I would be upset if someone stole my images. I think it's contradictory to say that words are art and should be protected but photography doesn't deserve this same classification. I also think that you only half believe this yourself.
Love,
"Taking It Personally" Photographer
I agree Annie, just, as the kids say, doing it for the lulz.
Way off topic here but the chick in the first pic has what might possibly be the nicest tits on teh internetz
She most certainly does. Carmen from Cam With Her innit? Have fun!
Art isn't the medium but the message behind it.
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