Comments on: White House Makes Full Copyright Claim on Photos

By: bklein

bklein — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:28:38 +0000

It's not a copyright issue. There are other terms and conditions imposed by a variety of laws that affect public use of U.S. Government materials.

See "Use of Government Personnel Uniform and Insignia in Promotional or Advertising Materials" by L. Victorino and K. Szeliga at http://www.governmentcontractslawblog.com/2009/... or at their firm's website www.martindale.com <http://www.martindale.com/>

By: jardenberg kommenterar – 2010-02-09 | jardenberg unedited

jardenberg kommenterar – 2010-02-09 | jardenberg unedited — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:02:57 +0000

[...] White House Makes Full Copyright Claim on Photos | The Moderate Voice [...]

By: EricaThunderpaws

EricaThunderpaws — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:37:08 +0000

And maybe the White House simply doesn't like his political opponents using his picture in any portrayal that gives him negative PR. Do an image search of his name and you will find thousands of such images. Try some keywords like: obama fascist socialist marxist communist coward fraud narcissist

You get the idea. I believe it's a serious mistake to think he's concerned about his picture appearing on a commercial billboard. The man is a narcissist. He can't handle criticism.

By: Change! «

Change! « — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:23:17 +0000

[...] House photos in the public domain, since January the Obama White House has been asserting that no one but ‘news organizations’ can use its Flickr photos taken by the official White House photographer, who is a US government employee. This change [...]

By: pks4» Blog Archive » Linkpost | 2.8.2010

pks4» Blog Archive » Linkpost | 2.8.2010 — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:20:58 +0000

[...] White House Makes Full Copyright Claim on Photos – Even though U.S. government policy requires [...]

By: White House asserts copyright over Flickr photos « Internet Scofflaw

White House asserts copyright over Flickr photos « Internet Scofflaw — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:52:16 +0000

[...] House asserts copyright over Flickr photos The White House is trying to assert copyright over the work of the official White House photographer. They are attaching this notice to each [...]

By: Then dont put your photos on Flickr, Mr. President. - www.hostzi.com - deep web news radio

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:06:42 +0000

By: Then don’t put your photos on Flickr, Mr. President. - Moe_Lane’s blog - RedState

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:01:12 +0000

By: Then don’t put your photos on Flickr, Mr. President. - Moe_Lane’s blog - RedState

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:01:12 +0000

By: Then don’t put your photos on Flickr, Mr. President. - Moe_Lane’s blog - RedState

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:01:12 +0000

By: Moe Lane » Then don’t put your photos on Flickr, Mr. President.

Moe Lane » Then don’t put your photos on Flickr, Mr. President. — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:58:10 +0000

By: JWindish

JWindish — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:21:30 +0000

Great post, Kathy! You make some very good points. All the more impressive is I find myself in rare agreement with DLS (the latter comment, D, not so much the former).

By: » La casa bianca vuole il copyright su foto pubbliche

» La casa bianca vuole il copyright su foto pubbliche — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:40:27 +0000

[...] White House Makes Full Copyright Claim on Photos | The Moderate Voice. [...]

By: WTF? - MM - - MLManley

WTF? - MM - - MLManley — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:25:31 +0000

By: wooster

wooster — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:13:21 +0000

I'm with mecredis. Further information supporting the White House's position can be found here: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_...

By: mecredis

mecredis — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:19:32 +0000

You don't appear to be reading the White House's statement closely enough: they aren't making (or using) a copyright claim to assert the restrictions they put on the photos. They're saying that you cannot use the photos to imply endorsement, advertise and so on. These are rights that are outside copyright law: the right to publicity and the right to have one's likeness commercially exploited. The clause that the photo may not be manipulated in any way is actually a subordinate clause to the one regarding endorsement. In other words, the photos can be manipulated in any ways so long as they do not imply endorsement and are not commercially exploitative, etc.

My guess is that the WH counsel specifically tailored this language to appear as copyright-like in order to discourage non-agreeable uses, but also wrote it with the understanding that they couldn't actually assert the rights granted using the copyright statute. So it may be misleading, but its not actually incorrect or even that relevant to copyright law.

By: Who can use White House Flickr photos? « John Thomson: Thinking out loud

Who can use White House Flickr photos? « John Thomson: Thinking out loud — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:25:34 +0000

[...] White House Makes Full Copyright Claim on Photos | The Moderate Voice (via Slashdot) [...]

By: Kathy

Kathy — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 02:33:18 +0000

The slashdot discussion thread includes this tidbit: Techdirt wrote about the change in November, as did The Least of All Evils.http://techdirt.com/articles/20091106/0222346823.shtml and http://leastevil.blogspot.com/2009/11/lolotics….

By: Kathy

Kathy — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:40:34 +0000

The original article (at WiredPen) has been seeded at Slashdot, http://bit.ly/asC1kF

By: White House Makes Questionable Copyright Claim On Government Photos « WiredPen

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:38:42 +0000

[...] 2: cross-posted to FlipTheMedia, TheModerateVoice and Newsvine. Seeded at Slashdot by Hugh [...]