Picspam: hiatus

[sigma7]

You know, it was always supposed to be a pleasant diversion and not a method with which to inflict misery or evoke ire. But I guess it was inevitable, and yet it seems already to be disproportionate. For all its good intentions, I don't know that picspam can continue if it means more of this.

It doesn't help that I'm already in an abysmal mood, but for right now, I'm just putting it on indefinite hiatus. I do welcome your input and insight, though.

Comments

[anw.livejournal.com]

Stick to your guns, Sig. I think your rules are very civilised, and people who get histrionic about the trivial expense of a little bandwidth theft need to get over themselves. It's not like you're placing a permanent and exhaustive drain on anyone else's resources. Besides, if I took a photo and people thought it was interesting enough to send the link around, I'd be flattered. It's not like where a person sees a photo makes any difference to the quality of the photo itself.

God, these whingeing bastards really piss me off.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm not even interested in arguing about it right now. The "infringing copyright" and "stealing bandwidth" and "you should ask everyone you link" points -- maybe I'm just not feeling well right now, but I can't even begin to think about arguing them right now. I realize she's probably angling to have a rational debate and not a screaming match of talking points. But maybe it's just the characterization of the entire picspam concept as a parasitic process instead of being inspirational and informative...that just really takes the wind out of my sails, and I'm not convinced that any time I spend to speak about the issues rationally will be a wise investment.

At the very least, I need to think about this for a while.

[ex-mightygo.livejournal.com]

You've picspammed, what, over a hundred times now with like forty images per post? That's four thousand images and only now have you received your first complaint. I've passed on picspam image links to multiple folks numerous times and it's always been welcomed by them.

Seriously, the complainer was off her frigging chump. "Infringing copyright", wtf. "Stealing bandwidth" - it's fucking LIVEJOURNAL. And so on.

[neonnurse.livejournal.com]

People like her who think they're all that and the taco plate piss me off. Looking at your picspam was always a highlight of my day, and it sucks that one grouchy self-important bitca can ruin it for everybody. *sigh*

[rewil.livejournal.com]

Not to be all BoingBoing-y, I'll just say I'm with Wheeler.

[jkgriffin.livejournal.com]

As far as I am concerned, you put something up on the web, you take your chances. If you want that kind of control over your work, you need to either put it on a controlled access site, or put in copy protection. I don't want pictures of Jamie on the web, so I don't put any out where strangers can see them.

For pity's sake, you provide links to the originals. That's better than most people already.

I understand if you want to quit, but I hope you don't.

[erica-roo.livejournal.com]

Phooey on grumps. I always enjoyed your linkspam. I will miss it should you not continue.

[patchsassy.livejournal.com]

I love your picspam, especially the kitty pictures and the ones that are just OMGamazing (like the moving Mario level yesterday. That was awesome!) Even when I'm having a shit-tastic day, it always puts a smile on my face. I say just don't link to that person anymore (if that's possible, I don't know exactly how you do the picspams) and continue on with it. :)

[kitblonde.livejournal.com]

Can I just say "On Noes!!!"?
Picspam's like my favorite thing on the interweb! Of course, I understand your decision completely, but I really don't think what you're doing should bother anyone. I know if a picture I took ended up there, I'd fall over myself with glee. And any photographer should want people to see their work! If the TFD LJ image generator thingy is ok, the picspam is extra ok.
Also, I am sorry you're in an abysmal mood.
Hopefully, this vidio of a scuba-diving kitteh will make you feel at least a smidge better.

[beeform]

That scuba-diving kitteh is the cutest thing evah! Woo!

[missmiah.livejournal.com]

Picspam makes me happy, to put it in extremely simplistic terms.

However, if it's causing you more trouble than grins...

I was going to go into this big long thing about you having a clearly outlined TOS, and the photos being available for public consumption on the lj generator, and how you make it clear the photos do not belong to you but since I'm barely awake and not able to form a coherent argument right now I think I'll just leave it at "Picspam can brighten my day. I like the kitties and the occasional ferret pic."

[beeform]

Grr! I hope that you don't let ONE self-important little ... um... woman ruin the fun that is teh pic-spam (wooo hooo!<-Monkey says). I'd be sad to see it go.

[snazzykathy.livejournal.com]

I have actually visited websites from photos you have linked from and ended up buying stuff from the people hosting the sites, so at the least you would think that the free advertising people get from picspam (and your blog in general) would be a plus, and not a minus.

Besides which, speaking as a professional videographer/photographer, I would never post anything on the internet which I wasn't willing to share.

Has this used ever heard of google images for pete's sake??? Picspam is the least of their worries.

Sounds like somebody who just has a bone to pick, and a pickle up their butt.

I love picspam and wait each day with baited anticipation for the next installment. Thanks for sharing them with us!

[eternalei.livejournal.com]

I think Picspam is one of the only reasons I check my friends page on a regular basis. It's like visual crack-cocaine for the soul. If that makes any sense at all...

[blemt.livejournal.com]

Picspam good.

More seriously, as a photographer there are things that should be done to protect images online. There are a wide variety of methods that may be used. All of us who are professionals either don't put it up if we don't want it copied, or include copyright on the image. You've covered the bases, your rules work perfectly fine, and I don't see a good reason for you to stop.

Besides, I need my kitten fix!

[gloomchen.livejournal.com]

You can always friends-only it. Someone can look at their logs and see that they were getting requests from your LJ and they could contact you directly if they wanted, but usually if they don't see it with their own eyeballs, they shrug and walk away.

[dancinastrophys.livejournal.com]

I'm with the other commenters here: Picspam GOOD!!! I do look forward to looking at them each time they're up - I was quite frustrated when I couldn't look at them while visiting the fam - not enough time... But you know, they were the first things I looked at when I had the time - I got an overdose of picspam a couple of days ago and it was good :)

I don't want to reiterate any of the other arguements here as they are quite good and you would do well to listen to them, take them to heart and then decide. We'll all respect your decision by the way but...

WE LUVS THE PICSPAM!!! :)

[foenix.livejournal.com]

Add my voice to the chorus for keeping up the picspams.

Your rules are very reasonable, and asking very single person to use their photos just isn't. That would be, what? 40+ emails a day you have to wait for replies on? You're not doing anything different than the LJ random image generators.

I'm normally for asking people to use their photos, and I definitely get swiping bandwidth, but you've made a good compromise in that regard.

J

[hrhjahi.livejournal.com]

Picspam brings me joy.

[kateshort.livejournal.com]

Keep the picspams.

[The only thing I'd maybe change is to add a "picspam disclaimer" linking to your philosophy so that new visitors can understand the what and why of it. And I don't even really think that that's necessary, but if it makes you feel better about posting them...]

[aardy.livejournal.com]

More picspam, please!

The idea of friendslocking picspam posts would seem to have some merit, though; that way, the "stealing bandwidth" argument has less traction--it's immediately obvious that the post is not intended for public dissemination and any "stolen" bandwidth is basically negligible, as you don't have a friendslist the size of Manhattan. (Well, not the size of Manhattan, N.Y., anyways.)

Personally, when it comes to copyright, I'm in favor of an inalienable right of attribution (which the linkback does handily, assuming whomever posted a pick to LJ in the first place had the right to do so), but with the possible exception of an "exclusivity" period a la patents, everything else should be open. (As, if the only way to profit is to create new material, then that will either encourage people to create more, or will deter them from creating anything--but either way, we don't have the current situation of people making an exclusive living off of royalties from the creativity of people who lived a century ago and preventing anyone else from doing squat with that stuff and generating competition.

[paraxeni.livejournal.com]

Your picspams are great. The kittens, squirrels, and assorted funny pics really cheer us up when we've had a bad day.

[mitzimaybe.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'd really like to respond to some of the comments in this entry, but I'm well aware that it's your personal journal and don't want to start a fight on here. But some of your friends clearly have no understanding of intellectual property rights and others have misrepresented me, so I'd really like to respond to them. I'll do it politely. Would that be OK with you?

[ex-mightygo.livejournal.com]

But some of your friends clearly have no understanding of intellectual property rights

Oh, this is rich.

[kateshort.livejournal.com]

No.

Trust me, our group includes lawyers, librarians, writers, and other such folk who are well-versed in these discussions. We have an excellent *understanding* of intellectual property rights.

However, that does not mean that we always *agree* with them, or with your interpretation of them.

Please, if you want to respond to me about my comments, email me at my livejournal.com address. Otherwise, please let it drop. Don't fill sigma7's journal with discussion. He doesn't need any flamewars in his in-box. [This is not to say that the flames would come from you, either.]

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

While I do agree with kateshort, if you do still feel the need to reply on this LJ, of course, you may. But a few things concern me. For one, I can't guarantee that this discussion will in any way adhere to a civil tone -- passions were obviously pretty high last week, and they may quickly reignite. And sadly, given my level of interest in sustaining this discussion, were it to turn ugly, I'd probably just let it rage out of control, and I'd kinda like to limit the amount of personal injury and offense that's going to result from this entire maelstrom. I'm perfectly willing to walk away from this whole thing and return to status quo ante.

But at the same time, I realize you probably feel the need to reply to the things that were said to/about you, and I respect that. If you still want to in this LJ, go ahead. If you want to take it to e-mail, even better. But my f-list does astonish me every day with its collective knowledge, experience and wisdom, and I wouldn't underestimate them.

[jerrygarciuh.livejournal.com]

ORLY?©

[jerrygarciuh.livejournal.com]

copy pasta!

[jerrygarciuh.livejournal.com]

wut?