The photos are copyright 2008, Sweet Juniper Media, Inc.
“This is a building where our deeply-troubled public school system once stored its supplies, and then one day apparently walked away from it all, allowing everything to go to waste…All that’s left is an overwhelming sense of knowledge unlearned and untapped potential.”
{via metafilter}
hi douglas. those are my copyrighted photographs. a reader tipped me off that you had posted them as though they were your own. because you appear to be a photographer yourself, I am shocked that you would do this.
while these photos are copyrighted and not creative commons, I am not taking legal action against bloggers who post these photos without permission. I am hoping, however, that those who choose to post them will follow ordinary web 2.0 courtesy and provide attribution, including a link to my website. I would also appreciate credit for the photography, otherwise the post appears to say that you took these photographs. The photos are copyright 2008, Sweet Juniper Media, Inc.
There is no intention on my part nor have I taken credit for your wonderful images. There has always been a link to your photos on your website since this was first posted. My main reason for this blog is to post work of others that I find interesting and valuble, to share with others.
I have posted your copyright information as you requested. It is now on the blog page above.
Nowhere on this page is there any copyright information for myself. The post is only about you and your work.
I posted a link to this page on the DetroitYes forum, filled with people who care deeply about Detroit and what it’s become under an inferior mayor. Be aware that we are keeping tabs on this issue. Thank you for the information.
If you’re an attorney, like Dutch/Wood, you would, of course, protect your “art”. But, if you’re an attorney, like Dutch/Wood, you would also think that you’re above copyright law or others who have their images online. It’s a free ride for a stay-at-home dad. His wonderful, re-created stories using others’ images is, of course, beyond reproach. For example, his latest endeavor: a children’s book (drawn by an artist and obviously copyrighted), Metallica’s drummer, use of Metallica’s name, images of Hummel (most definitely copyrighted), and the goofy guy that dresses as Peter Pan from Pixyland.org (who had his head lopped off and Metallic’s drummer’s head placed on his shoulders (after Dutch/Wood flipped the photo). THAT is okay, though. That’s perfectly fine. ‘Cause it’s Dutch/Wood!
Pay no attention to the uber-idiot behind the blog. It’s just Dutch. He’s an attorney and lives in Detroit, you know. His “art” is protected, all others are up for grabs.
I should correct the above post. It is NOT a few Hummels that were used, it was Precious Moments (which is heavily protected).
ISH
uber-idiot here.
I expressed concern to mr. levere because his original post using these images did not provide any credit or attribution—it looked as though they were his images and I just wanted the credit.
ish is correct that I have used potentially-copyrighted materials to create parodies of bad children’s books. I would encourage ish to look up the fair use and parody exceptions to copyright infringement under u.s. law.
mr. levere’s initial use of my text and photography (now corrected) was without any change or adaptation that could have been construed as parody or fair use.
also, to anyone arriving from this site from detroityes, the real story of what happened to the book depository (and not the simple one eastsidedame wants us to believe) is here:
http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2008/04/knowledge-of-what-happened-and-what.html
JDG,
The point is, you do not like people using your photographs without attribution and look for them being “misused” (without permission) on the internet. The same should apply to others. I don’t care about your law degree. Be fair and quit thinking like an attorney and start realizing that others may be hurt by your chopping up their photographs for a quick laugh (Pixyland.org, for example). I doubt you would be very happy if someone chopped up your photographs.
Btw, Precious Moments and (published) copyrighted children’s books are not “potentially” copyrighted.
ISH
ISH,
it’s fairly clear here that you have issues with me personally and are just using this situation to point out what you feel is hypocrisy (i.e. I doubt very much you care so deeply for the precious moments corporation’s intellectual property). fair enough. In my defense, “peter pan” posts no copyright information on his site and I have seen his photographs hosted on hundreds of other sites over the years. I will write him to see if he has a problem with my usage, and if so I will remove it. also, it doesn’t take a lawyer to understand the parody/fair use exception to copyright. I still would encourage you to take a look at it (just google parody and fair use). I’m sure your animus towards me personally will cause you to argue further, but understand that your argument has a equally valid counterpoint.
I left this initial comment on mr. levere’s website because it was unclear whose photographs those were. I did not tell him to take him off his website. I did not threaten to sue him. I let him know it was perfectly acceptable to me that he posted them, but now that I had seen them and seen that they were posted without credit or attribution, I was letting him know that I would appreciate both of those things.
but let’s get back to what is really bothering you, ISH: you don’t like me. I don’t know you and I don’t know why you don’t like me, but as someone who puts his life out there I am fairly accustomed to having a person come along once in awhile expressing such unexplained hatred. I’m sorry if I’ve written something in the past that has upset you. maybe you just think I’m an idiot. again, fair enough. but if I bother you this much, ISH, I would hope you would write me personally about it rather than using Mr. Levere’s blog as a platform. My e-mail: sweetjuniper@gmail.com
best,
jdg
JDG,
I can recall, maybe about a year ago, when your photographs were not copyrighted on Flickr. A business blog stole a photo of Juniper and used it as part of their masthead. You blew a gasket and then copyrighted all of your photographs.
Why is it that you, an attorney, now use parody laws to protect your site but back before your photographs were copyrighted, they were fair game for all the internet? Why blow a gasket that another website used your image? Could it be that they DIDN’T ASK PERMISSION? Of course, now that your images are protected, it’s perfectly okay to do the same thing to someone else. Parody laws be damned. You KNOW better!
For what it’s worth, Dutch, I don’t know you. You’re not important enough for me to hate you (You use the word much to loosely) and you’re seeing much too much that really isn’t there. I happen to like some of your work (I do not, however, believe you’re promoting Detroit in a positive light. One can only take so much of the blight. There’s more to Detroit than a burnt-out house,graffiti and Lafayette Park). Also, there’s nothing personal in anything I’ve written to you, so don’t take it that way. It’s just become very obvious that what’s good enough for you obviously isn’t reciprocal.
Btw, Mr. Levere’s blog SHOULD be used for this type of issue as not everyone is as educated as you are with regard to parody/copyright law. But then, you also had to learn the hard way, didn’t you?
Nothing personal,
ISH
ISH, I don’t understand why this bothers you so much.
My work has ALWAYS been copyrighted. Since day one. It has always been stated so explicitly on my flickr site and on my website. I do everything in my power to protect my images: specific copyright notices, block on right-click downloads, removal of images from image search engines, and the use of low-res images.
That will never stop everyone from using them without my permission, but in order to protect my copyright I make sure to contact people I see using the images—like mr. levere once did, but no longer is doing—to let them know that I am interested in protecting my copyright. that is all. I NEVER TOLD MR. LEVERE HE COULD NOT POST MY IMAGES.
When a photo of my daughter was used without my permission, I did the same thing: I notified the infringer and that was that. I blew my gasket when I learned that the infringer had been STEALING photos of kids from flickr and using them to illustrate stories about moms smoking pot around their kids. They had done this dozens of times. They were using flickr like a stock photo website—a company that profits $20 million a year. So yeah, I called them out on that. And at the time I wrote this sentence: “I don’t mean to be an overreactive dick, and if they had stolen one of my pictures of Detroit or some random photo of graffiti, I wouldn’t be this upset.”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetjuniper/1398158017/
Most of my gasket-blowing was related to the fact that this was a photo of my child and that this company was doing this to many other people’s children. Can you understand why that is upsetting? Maybe you think it shouldn’t make a difference, but I think you’d find yourself in the minority with that opinion.
So yeah, I occasionally make cheesy parodies of celebrity children’s books on my stupid little blog using creative commons photos or LOC photos and some cut-n-paste pictures of celebrities and freakin’ precious moments figurines. congratulations, what a shining exhibit of my disgusting hypocrisy you’ve discovered. gosh ISH, you’re so right: I’m a horrible, horrible hypocrite who needs to be publicly castigated by an anonymous detroityes reader who calls herself/himself ISH on some poor photographer’s blog. Thank you, ISH, I have learned my lesson. I’ll stop being a know-it-all lawyer who paints a terrible picture of detroit by taking pictures of the things he finds beautiful there.
You deny this is coming from personal animus, yet you clearly know a lot about me (“maybe about a year ago. . .” ???) and clearly you have very strong negative opinions about me (the “uber-idiot”) (but “nothing personal” right?) If it makes you feel better, you’ve given me something to think about. But I hope that aside from legal differences, most reasonable people would see the difference between protecting one’s uncut, unadapted specifically-identified-as-copyright images, and adapting a series of images (some creative commons, some not identified as copyright, and some arguably copyright) into a parody. also, none of these images were of actual children. precious moments figurines don’t have their own privacy rights. parody is a legal gray area, for sure, but you are trying to paint it black and white.
this is the last thing I am going to write and the last time I am going to come here. again, ISH, if this bothers you so much I would encourage you to contact me personally at my e-mail address. I don’t know why you continue to attack me here, perhaps that way it is easier to pretend I’m not an actual human being?
I would be very interested in knowing what parts of Detroit I should photograph to paint the city in a more positive light. That was never my intention (I don’t exist as a one man PR machine for the city and I never claimed to only be interested in portraying the city “positively”) but I am always interested in new places to take pictures. Also, I would encourage you to bring this discussion over to the comments under the Metallica parody on my website— I’ll bet some other people would be able to provide more perspective on this issue.
Thanks,
jdg
Jesus Christ, Dutch, it is what it is. Knock off with the excuses, already. If “Stealer” stole from Flickr to create a book about kids’ mothers smoking pot, WTF is the difference with you taking someone’s photographs to create an online book? It’s the SAME thing. Flickr has copyrights on subscriber photographs, copyrighting there doesn’t seem to matter to anyone. And yes, I DO understand blowing a gasket when the photograph is of your child. I’ve had it done to me.
You’ve actually made this longer than it needed to be. Whether you read it or not, it doesn’t matter to me. You shouldn’t go off on a tangent when you’ve stated yourself that you “put yourself out there”. It goes with the territory but some are watching a lot closer than you think. I don’t mean stalking, I mean being fair and consistent with what you write and what you photograph (I really don’t want to go into it here but your opinion (on DYes) of the differences between Eastern Europeans and Western Europeans and your comments on how blown away you were to see so many white people in Corktown? Aren’t you from Der Klomppin Kountry? Aren’t they the whitest of the white? – Also, your comments on the suburbs. Where are YOU from? You’re not from Detroit. Who are you to go on about the suburbs and how you’ve been there and never want to see them again? Those suburbs are PART of Detroit, whether you like it or not. I’ve had enough with everyone using dividing lines. Wayne County IS Detroit. Get over it. Why would you NOT think that people reading your posts wouldn’t want to figure out what you’re about? I’ve read everything you’ve written, I’ve seen your photographs, I’ve read your comments on Dyes. You’re a 30-something snob with a bug up his ass. You live in a protected area of Detroit and you slam others who don’t live in Detroit. In actuality, you don’t live the Detroit experience, either. Walking through Eastern Market to get to Poletown ain’t much, dude. Parking your car to photograph graffiti isn’t experiencing Detroit, either (Sorry. Some sore points.)
I am asking you to be ethical and treat the rest online as you want to be treated. And while I know you believe in promoting Detroit, selling blight on Etsy that showcases Detroit in a negative way isn’t promoting anything. I don’t see beauty in a gutted book depository – unless you are referring to all the colors (in that case, it’s lovely – you’re also leading other people there which causes the place to deteriorate more). If you want to take photographs of burnt up homes in Detroit and add actual interest to it, head to the Deeds Department and research the house, the street, who lived there, how much it cost to build, how many people lived there throughout the years and the history of the neighborhood. THAT promotes Detroit in two ways; history of the community that used to be and PEOPLE and the possibilities of what it may become. It takes a lot of work, I know, but people like history.
Detroit IS not about burnt out homes. But the people, I know you’ve met them. Most are wonderful. Promote the people. That’s what makes a city. Learn the history that goes with the photograph you’re taking. Detroit isn’t THAT simple.
I’m off my wobbly soapbox. These are my issues with the photographs you’ve taken and the things you’ve written for PUBLIC consumption. I won’t post on your blog. You have too many butt-kissers there.
If YOU want to contact me, I am at justish at mac dot com. Please tell your minions not to email me. They’re annoying sometimes.
Holy cow!
I stumbled on this post when googling images of urban decay. I discovered some beautiful pictures and a whiny soap opera. For someone who is so concerned about Detroit’s image, Ish doesn’t have a clue that he/she comes across as bat-shit insane. Hopefully, for Detroit’s sake, I hope this person is more the exception than the rule.
Glad I’m from Chicago
You have got to be kidding me, you all are nuts who cares about a few photos.
if you are worried about your photos watermark them with your name or website.
Just quit bitchin about it
matter of fact im headed to your website just for spite and STEAL all your photos and watermark them with my name,i will start with the ones on here,,,, got em sue me haha.
YOU MUPPET