Arrington’s post about photography and copyright is excellent.
Of of all the media wars: Video; Music and Images – photography is the most important. The reason – everyone is now a photographer with unlimited film and photographs can’t be quoted as a snippet.
1. Zero cost trial and error creates professional looking results. The photography marketplace is decreasing.
The zero cost ubiquity of digital images mean that the sum total quality of amateur output is often better than the sum total of professionals. Search on Flickr for something that you would normally buy from a stock library.
The professional photography market is moving from a craft dominated industry of recording events to an artistic one with room for a minority of top creatives, in the same way that it did for painting in the 19th Century.
The same number of photographers are fighting for less dollars.
2. The Internet creates cheaper publishing costs, more media is produced. The perceived photography marketplace is increasing.
The biggest recent change to online publishing is the ubiquitous inclusion of images and clips in things like blogs posts. Gizmodo launched without images, today every post has an image or video.
Video is sometimes ignored by the copyright owner if it is a clip, but a photograph cannot be clipped. Since there is no real mechanism of cheap pay per view photographic distribution even people who want to pay cannot afford the rates or the time it takes to purchase distribution rights. The whole industry is geared around print production and professional publishers. Gizmodo can afford a Getty subscription but most Tumblr bloggers can’t.
Overall usage of images in media is increasing, because of the internet and zero media distribution costs, meaning that photographers perception is that there should be more dollars.
3. You cannot quote a photograph. There is no Internet compromise with teaser clips, as there is for music and video.
The final problem is that other media have settled on a compromise which benefits professionals in a digital age – distribute a teaser. But there is a problem, you can listen to a clip of a song and a video and you can quote a piece of text.
A shrinking marketplace is perceived to be increasing. The current law is on the side of the photographer but the de facto practice isn’t and there is no available solution for those who want compromise.
This is why there will be war.
Fair Use Vs. Free Speech in the Internet Age: The Lane Hartwell Problem