Pic (c) by Teraeuro
Houston, we have a problem..
If you watch this pic, you will find a (c) on it .. why?
Nobody likes to discuss copyright questions and issues (i call it copyblabla) .
They involve a lot of more or less complicated legal issues.
Next we have different nations with different legislatures and different laws about copyright issues..
(disclaimer: i am not a lawyer, but as a amateur photographer from Germany i had to spent some time with it to be legally safe. Since Germany is famous for the most stupid copyright laws (you can not imagine) ,
i think i know a little bit about what i am writing here.
for more information plz contact your local lawyer mafia ..))
So lets stop talking about „copyright“ topic for now and let´s discuss something i would call:
What could be an accepted policy for cat photos on twitter in our cat content community?
or
do we respect other tweetycats ?
To analyze and describe the problem, i developed a scheme that classifies our tweetycat community.
I will present and discuss different tweetycat types, so we can discuss the topic better:
Tweetycat type A (original cats):
Tweetycat is/has a cat, has a camera/smartphone. He/she can produce a lot of photos and publish them on twitter and anywhere else.
You don’t have a legal problem. Sometimes you don´t even understand that a copyright problem exists.
Some tweetycat type A don´t mind, if their photos are stolen, others don´t like, if u simply copy one of their photos,
Real evil tweetycat type A cats wait for stupid ppl to copy their photos, call their lawyers and start making money by sueing copy idiots legally.
In Germany we have a complete industry, that makes money from legal copyright issues, its called Abmahnwesen.
Hugo and Masterkillercat are 2 examples of Tweetycat A types:
we have lots of our own photos and we like to share low resolution versions of our original photos on twitter.
We both also don´t like, if our photos are stolen and used/tweeted without mentioning/crediting us.
Because i expect stupid ppl on the net i put a water sign/copyright notice on quite every pic i publish on twitter.
After some bad experiences Masterkillercat also started to use watermarks all her Master and Peppino pics .
We had several long discussions, how to react in case of .. #copycat idiots .
other well known examples of tweetycat A are
@itsmedeaner, @olivertomcat, @cookiefatcat and @mightymolasses
to name a few. I would be very interested in their opinion:
if/and how they react in case of stolen pics?
classification continued:
everycat following now has a problem:
where do i get cat pics from, what do i use as a picture source?
first idea: i will search them on the net (Intercatnet) ..
There are a lot of well known sources (but every source has a BIG BUT included).
FlickR, google pics, 500px and so on..
The big BUT:
every photo u find there has a copyright status and u can get (real serious legal) problems with the photographer.
There is a license type called creative commons license (short cc license),
that allows to to use a photo under certain circumstances,
but even a cc license demands that u (always!)
credit the original photographer.
The only true exception would be pics that are marked public domain (use them as u wish).
We do´t want to to stop tweeting pics, but u should be aware of this points.
Now the next tweetycat types enumerated with some additional remarks
Tweetycat Type B
He/she really likes good pics and searches them to share them.
He/she gets photos from FlickR (500px etc..) mentioning/crediting the photographer
Legally everything should be ok for u (disclaimer: i am not a lawyer)
Problem u have:
you don´t have many chars left for a good pic caption and some mentions on twitter.
example
Medomo2001 ( beautiful Pics, carefully selected, cats and wildlife)
Tweetycat Type C
They have lots of good pics, real good captions and they love to interact on twitter.
U can have lots of fun with them, so everycat likes them.
They don´t disclose the origin of their photos ( they don´t feel a need to do so).
You simply don´t know, where they get their pics from.
Examples (to name a few, no offense, they have really good pics/texts)
Spettrox
LCL
Mainzina
gaiphankai
and a lot more
sometimes u find a pic and u start to think, #wtf, i already saw pic some time ago ..
I asked some of them about sources and i heard several times:
“i simply copy them from Facebook pages ..”
Me and Master have mixed feelings about this kind of tweetycats,
we really like to RT good pics with a good/funny caption and some mentions!
We don´t want to ask everytweet : „where did u get this pic from?“
If we find a tweetycat in this group stealing photos from other tweetycats, we are simply disappointed.
We had several long discussions, how to react in this case and ended with the following conclusions:
there is no simple reaction scheme, u can:
a) ignore it,
b) friendly DM people about the stolen pic
c) send a (more or less) friendly tweet asking about the stolen pic
d) or open call the offender a stupid #copycat
more extreme versions are ( we don´t use them until now):
e) use the block button in twitter
f) use the block and report (for copyright infringement) function in Twitter and hope account will be completely suspended ..
g) call a lawyer to make some money from the stupid idiots behavior
and so on ..
after my experience with Hugo4de, i decided to use versions b) to d) in the “reaction scheme” outlined above.
I will also wait several hours / a day before i will escalate from b) to c), we live in different timezones, no one can react 24/7.
if a new tweetycat ( 50 followers, less than 100 tweets, i call them newbiecats )
just starts tweeting, u can´t expect him/her to know how to handle complicated copyright problems.
A friendly reminder/explanation or DM will do the job for me.
Another case:
An experienced ( more than 1000 tweets, more than 1000 followers) Tweetycat is found stealing pics.
In this case i expect that the offender knows, what is is doing:
He is simply not RESPECTING other tweetycats, and we don´t like it.
Reaction:
see points b) c) and d) above (minus the friendly part ..)
we don´t want to use Options e) to g) ..
(missing Tweetycat Type D and E ..)
Tweetycat Type F (like F*CKING Idiots)
large accounts ( > 5000 followers, following noone or only 5-20 )
Stealing photos on a large scale and crediting no one, completely automated in software,
they react to nothing
call them spambots or
pure attention whore (some with a commercial background)
People stealing Photos, removing copyright notices (with a criminal background ? sell them ?)
Master and Me don´t support this kind of tweetybots,
we don´t RT them and we don´t want to see Tweets and RTs in our timeline.
Our advice:
just unfollow (and block, if u wish) them and forget them .
please discuss (on twitter or the comment section in this Blog
(this text is a draft version for public discussion , it may be updated/edited without further notice,
but i will mark changes)
Hugo and his Friends 