Back on the booze

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Well to be fair I’ve not been off the booze, but I am I’m afraid going to go on about the increasing anti-drink agenda. I begin to sympathise with stuck records the world over. They are as Leg Iron has often observed using exactly the same tactics as they did with smoking. Camra and the pub trade are once more, as again LegIron observed, putting up no resistance but just hoping they’ll somehow be spared. The puritans are so blatant and unimaginative in their tactics that even the mainstream media is starting to pick up on it. But then again when they’re talking about “passive drinking” the similarities really do get hard to ignore. I can just assume that in the game of puritan top trumps they have to use the same criteria to know who’s ahead so hence the claim that “alcohol affects thousands more innocent victims than passive smoking.”

So despite the levels of drinking falling over the last 10 years and bringing in more tax than it “costs” the NHS we suddenly have a problem. Once more following the same script as used for smokers, prohibition didn’t work so chip away instead. So we have the suggestion that they’ll water down our beer and yet again introduce minimum pricing. Though they have finally realised that may be a problem legally so instead they’ve hit on that perennial favourite of politicians – higher taxes, despite the fact that the cost of beer is already over 30% of the cost. This is probably why they need to subsidise their own drinking. As we’re all in it together and if this really was a health issue surely our politicians could lead by example and ban booze from all state premises and functions, and as it’s so terrible Mr Cameron will surely be announcing he’s on the wagon any day now? Or maybe it’s just dangerous for us? For added hypocrisy the Lib Dems it seems don’t want to put up the price of cider and Whiskey as their voters like to drink that.

However the thing that actually caught my eye this week which doesn’t seem to have got much publicity was a small article in the Metro (page 31 Mon 13th) which said that Mr Lansley was going to announce restrictions on the supply of alcohol into shops as part of his wider attack on drinking. Of course if they’re rationing booze, they’ll have to put the tax up on it as well lest they lose money.

“1billion fewer drinks in shops to cut bingeing
A BILLION fewer units of alcohol will make it into shops to cut binge-drinking, a report out yesterday revealed. The target is expected to be set by health secretary Andrew Lansley next month as part of a wider alcohol strategy”

So while the country is still struggling to find growth they think it’s a good plan to reduce stock in shops, and all the related trade in producing and selling those goods to us mere peons – all to solve a non existent problem. But then they’re not going to be the brightest given they don’t like to drink. They do seem to be still immune to the lesson of the smoking ban that people will just stop spending.

So beware the water drinkers and in the meantime nip over to the Telegraph to help with their current polls, as they seem to be asking the same question twice to try and get the “right” answer:
How should Britain’s drinking culture be tackled?
How should the Government combat Britain’s problems with alcohol?

So far the option of “fuck off and leave us alone” is attracting far too few votes.

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Modern comparitive hypocrisy

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Travelling into town to partake of a few sherberts in a drinking house of my acquaintance, I happened to pick up the Evening Standard. Being an infrequent reader of the printed press, there was much that caught my eye, not least the very different emphasis on news presented therein compared to what I stumble across within my daily RSS feeds. However it was a fortuitous day to read a paper as Mr Huhne had just been charged, and a certain detail within that article did make my wonder (just as it did Fausty). Mt Huhne is a multi millionaire, though obviously not the bad kind like one of those nasty bankers. So will he take the seventeen grand severance pay he’s entitled to for stepping down as a minister? He does after all have many upcoming legal bills to pay, and I’m sure it’s a totally different situation to bankers bonuses or honours – after all neither of those bankers where charged with anything. If he does take it there then arises another interesting question, assuming he’s innocent as claimed and returns to a ministerial role would he then pay it back?

The other wonderful gem of actual rather than potential hypocrisy the paper presented, which I’ve not yet seen elsewhere, was those charming people down at occupy London decided to occupy a scout hall. That’ll teach those evil capitalist scouts, after all they were only planning on using the hall for a fund raiser for the homeless. The Occupy lot claim it was vacant, but which I presume they simply mean there was no one there when they put to use those occupy bolt cutters. The police of course can’t do anything as they can’t prove the people currently inside squatting broke in, and committed the criminal damage inside. The terribly nice squatters have said they can leave any time but don’t want to until they “leave [their] mark on the community” – apparently depriving a community of it’s scout hall and causing a “reasonable amount of damage” isn’t enough, nope they’re “planning on holding an exhibition” before they leave. They do say that they didn’t do any damage, so obviously the locks broke themselves, as did the cupboards and shelves. Interesting how they’ve not yet managed to actually occupy anywhere that would actually inconvenience that horrid 1% they claim to be protesting about.

Obviously I’m sure that this occupation of a convention warm building had nothing to do with the forecast of snow – which is currently falling.

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Photographing buses

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London Bus of dodgy copyright I was recently linked to an article that seemed to be bad news for photographers (sorry I forget who by), which I reposted on Facebook. I would have left it there, but for one of the comments I got which observed that the judgement was based on not the similarity of the pictures but on a deliberate attempt to copy. Now that being the case I got our fearless (but sadly not talented) in house artist to make a dramatic recreation of the troublesome picture. It should be noted this is a dramatic recreation, not an act of parody as pastiche and parody are not exempt from copyright*

Now being a Londoner of some years, the idea that a red bus in an otherwise grey scale/black and white photo could be though of in anyway special seems odd to me, as for much of the year that’s pretty much how London looks. Red splash of colour from a bus in an other wise grey environment, why it must be spring, autumn, summer or winter but definitely some season and probably about to rain. But I’m told that’s not the issue the issue is that it was a deliberate attempt to copy (a fairly typical picture of a bus within sight of Parliament). Now if that was the case I can only say that looking at the two photographs they did a pretty crap job of it. Now the “original image” was taken in 2005, now my memory was never what it once was but I’m sure the sort of picture as is at the top of this post has been around for longer than that (any photo taken of a bus near parliament in spring, summer, winter… would probably be close enough). The people that brought the case felt their image was famous (never seen it before myself) and that the “Photoshop manipulation of the image played a ‘key part’ in the copyright victory”. So maybe just taking a photo won’t get you into trouble but applying obvious and (almost) out of the box photoshop filters will (Goth photographers with dramatic skies beware).

So lets look at the actual Judgement, I’m not going to fisk everyline as it’s too long and I’m too lazy but lets look at the highlights.

This is an action for copyright infringement. The claimant claims to be the owner of copyright which subsists in a black and white photograph of a red bus travelling across Westminster Bridge.

Now my inner pedant observes that if it has a red bus then it’s not a black and white photo, also picking out the bits of red in London in buses, phone boxes and post boxes has been done to death and beyond. I’d also observe that the film Schindlers List was made in 1993 which was famous for having only a single bit of colour(red) in an otherwise black and white film (a point mentioned in part 5 of the judgement).

It gets a bit safer for the rest of us as it seems that this was the second version of the infringing image, the previous one being withdrawn presumably because it was too similar. I suspect but don’t know this was a case of “fine if you say that’s too much like every other picture of a bus on that bridge we’ll make it more different”.

So in 2005 the people suing took a picture from a point where most tourists stand and then manipulated in a similar fashion to how Schindlers list was done. Thus putting in massive creative input worthy of copyright. The following year they started printing it on random tat and it’s apparently famous in the tourist tat world.

Then the people selling tea to avoid infringement spliced together a bunch of photo’s (so used a completely different technique) to fit in with their existing theme of “tins and cartons bearing images of English landscapes, Icons of England”.

So the judge accepted that:
“It is quite obvious that in no sense has any photocopying style reproduction taken place.”
The tea purveyors used their own photo’s and stock photo’s so those were all original works. So again the court accepted that they were trying to avoid infringement, on what has to be considered quite a clichéd image.

But apparently the argument is that the images look strikingly similar (not something I buy myself, but that is a matter of judgement), and according to EU law it seems:
copyright may subsist in a photograph if it is the author’s own “intellectual creation”
Which is fine, and photographers should have the rights to pictures they take, thought not I’d suggest the right to stop other people taking similar stock shots. Also it was agreed that the colouring was inspired by a film and the spot for taking the photo was a standard tourist spot so maybe not much intellectual creation there. Interestingly they then referred to an Austrian court, which in a previous judgement held that creative considerations such as “visual angle” contribute to it being “considered photographic works”. I pick out the “visual angle” aspect as those in this case are really quite different.

The judge went on to consider that:
When one is considering a view of a very well known subject like the Houses of Parliament with Westminster Bridge and part of the Embankment in the foreground, the features in which copyright is going to subsist are very often the choice of viewpoint, the exact balance of foreground features or features in the middle ground and features in the far ground, the figures which are introduced, possibly in the case of a river scene the craft may be on the river and so forth. It is in choices of this character that the person producing the artistic work makes his original contribution.

Now I’d observe again a red bus being the only bit of colour in London is pretty much an everyday expereince for most Londoners.

Whilst considering if it was a photograph or a collage, the Judge decide it was a photograph “since what has been manipulated is still ultimately a recording of light”, which I think would cover any collage made of photographs, or really anything else which faithfully recorded an actual scene. It gets more interesting that the same judge in this case had previously heard the case between the two parties mentioned above, which had been steeled resulting in them going out to make a non-infringing image. Whilst not wishing to suggest any issue with the judge in anyway I would question if having heard the previous case might have swayed his judgement some what here (presumably both parties were happy with it).

There were also images shown in court proving the point that this was a common scene, in fact going back to my London is grey point in some cases the judge couldn’t tell if it was a black and white photo with a red bus or not. Amazingly a man who works in the field of tourist tat was completely unaware of all this images of grey London with bright red objects being picked out, to quote the judgement:
These images were put to Mr Fielder. He had seen none of them. I accept his evidence. It follows that they cannot be said to have influenced his work.

This from reading the judgement seems to be the crux of the matter, because the tat seller wasn’t aware of any images picking out red objects in grey London his work was original, but because the tea seller was aware of such images he must have copied the tat seller and so was infringing. The judgement does list after all the many ways in which the images do differ.

Now a final bit which I think is terribly interesting:
But what they cannot have is a southbound Routemaster on Westminster Bridge before the Houses of Parliament at the same angle as the claimant’s work on a greyscale background and a white sky, in circumstances where they have admitted seeing the claimant’s work.

Now go look at the two photo’s again and tell me if that’s the same angle.

I’m quite surprised that the judge considers that:
It is not just another photograph of clichéd London icons.
Red bus, parliament, not clichéd London icons?!

So whilst my more learned friend is no doubt right this was about a deliberate attempt to copy, I fear that the bar for copying what to most people would seem clichéd or at least common images has been set terribly terribly low. Whilst ignorance of the law may be no defence ignorance of other peoples work obviously is. So I’m with amateur photographer on this, this is a problem for people taking what they think are obvious pictures, and I’d suggest that combined with ACTA it’s going to make it very easy for larger media outlets to crush even the most amateur artist selling the odd print via flickr of the like.

* To be fair I suspect dramatic recreations aren’t either but…

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