The Bubble video, watched over a million times since it was uploaded to YouTube and other video sites in early December, is back. It was down briefly when photographer Lane Hartwell complained via her attorney that one of her photographs was used without her permission. The offending (or non-offending, depending on which lawyer you ask and who’s paying them) image was removed and the new video, called v. 1.1, is now back at YouTube. The creators blog about the new version here, and give credit to all source material here. Everyone can now have fun again, and Hartwell and her attorney can sleep well at night knowing that her copyrights are unviolated and her photos unmolested (and unviewed).
By the way, if you want to download the MP3, you can, here.
Wait isn’t that me in a blue shirt? Honey…call the lawyer!
That provided a good break from my reality. Now I have to get back into the bubble I live in.
Sounds like everybody is happier in the end and the producers of the video learned a valuable lesson about courtesy and asking for permission before using the work of others. They might be right or wrong about fair use in the end (I’m pretty sure that it was NOT fair use, since they took the entire photograph and worked it into a commercial video without any transformation of the photograph whatsoever), but they could have avoided the whole mess by simply being good people and asking a fellow artist if they could use her work. It might have been “a pain” to actually ask each person’s work they were lifting, but I’m sure it was no less work for each artist to actually produce the work they piggybacked on.
Those credits are freaking wonky, I think I saw one name and it was Om’s.
Less enjoyable to watch now I must say….
Well I hope Lame Hartwell is happy, now the world never has to hear of her again.
best video ever
Kumbaya!
I’ve watched this multiple times now and I still enjoy it. Nice to see it back on YouTube.
That was a really cool video… Was great to watch!!
And congratulations on being the 2nd most popular web celebrity!! Wherez the bash for that achievement??
Cool! Love that!
I Love It, great one !!!
(but hopefully will not come true)
A funny, relaxing way to reminisce about — and let me be very frank — all the crap we all went through. FANTASTIC video, captures the essence of what is happening and puts it in perspective to what happened circa March 2000. But at least when this bubble bursts, it will be more like a firecracker than a nuclear warhead.
Interesting video.
How about that worthless paper we call the “Greenback?” You know, backed by “thin air” and printed by that other worthless entity we call the Federal Reserve.
In the end, an upcoming bubble nor one’s richest will matter when it’s all based on phony play money. Things only have value because we think it does — Fool the mind to believe and you can achieve anything.
F the bubble, weather there is one or not – just play your cards right, and you live to talk about it
Hi Mike,
My last name is spelled Hartwell, and I did not complain via my lawyer, I wrote them directly. I only contacted an attorney after they informed me that they had one.
Also, my response to their new version is up here: http://fetching...r-scales-video/
That’s a good video.
Lane Hartwell must be joking, right? RIGHT??
“I will be sending the band an invoice for their use of my image in the first version of the video.”
This is just plain ridiculous. Yes, she must be really pissed because her photo was viewed 1 million times. That’s so bad… Poor girl….
funny video
Heh, if Lane gets paid I wanna get paid too. After all they used my video, my likeness, and made fun of me in this video.
I’m joking!
In honor of all this I just changed all my Flickr photos to be “stealable.” I want you to use my content for free in whatever you want to do. If you spam with it, though, I reserve the right to make fun of you. I still won’t charge you, though.
I think it really is lame to take pictures of people (who don’t get a cut of the profits) at parties, without being commissioned, and then send in invoices for that work when it gets used in a parody video.
If photographers are getting paid to take pictures of me, why shouldn’t we get a cut too as subjects? I didn’t sign a model release for commercial work when Lane and other people take pictures of me at parties like she did of Owen Thomas. Did Owen sign a model release? Did he approve for his photo to be used for commercial purposes?
I think that when I do an event or party I’m going to only let photographers in who freely distribute their work without expectations that they’ll get compensated for its use.
I think you are getting way out of hand Lane. Just draw a line under the episode and be done with it as its getting embarrassing
Well said Robert Scoble
Invoice for use of the image !!? The reaction of the internets to this will be fun to watch.
nice move Lane, now hundreds of thousands(millions?) of people know who you are
well played
Lane Hardwell has officially had her 15 minutes of fame. Now all we have to do is remember the correct spelling of her name and she won’t sue us either.
Well played Halfwell, now any potential client who google’s your name will instantly stay away from your troublemaking business attitude.
Sombody please let this crap photog take you to court and bring some clarity to fair use. As Scoble states, she is trying to capitalize on taking pics at parties. Any friend of mine that did that would be immediately de-friended. What kind of world do we live in? This is total commodity photo taking. Better start looking for a new job when your friend at wired gets fired, Lane.
Pure Drivel!
Where’s that Shelley freak?
You all need to get real lives and real jobs soon.
P.S. You can put “took picture of Owen Thomas” on your resume too, it’ll be sure to up your salary…
Brilliant video!
That video is hilarious.
LOL LOL LOL.
Sweet.
Liked it.
Lane is now asking for payment for the first rendition of this video because she got left out in this one. Someone give this person a job, she obviously needs one. Come on, she ook a picture of Owen Thomas and nobody has one of those. They are very rare and hers is the best ever.
I mean come on, it is for a good cause (some charity) and her lawyer fees?
I think she needs to pay those fees herself to remind herself this was horrible usage and abuse of the DMCA.
All the people that have a vested interest (lazy, uncreative photographers) encouraged this, so maybe they need to pay too.
Dear EFF, please take this to court. We need to set the record straight. The lazy folk are trying to justify a picture of some blogger at a party as creative and artistic.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Great point where you say unmolested and “UNVIEWED”
Well said, Robert Scoble!
This could have gone away but I see Lame is seeking a few more seconds out of it by sending an invoice!?!?
All of this for ONE second of a photograph in a video that is leaning towards “fair use”.
Astounded by her response and thinking this is starting to be less about principle and more about exposure (heh…) and money.
First it was “pay me because you used it and I deserve payment…that’s how I roll. Fair use, Fair schmuse” but at the same time “They could have easily apologized, removed the video from YouTube and re-edited without my image and reposted.” but when the RS *gasp* refer to a lawyer because somebody is telling them they owe money and they aren’t sure if said crazy person knows what they’re talking about…she’s offended by their “cavalier attitude” and goes with the smackdown pulldown. Not everybody is on your time table, Lame. They re-edited without your image and posted…and it could have SHOULD have been the end of it…
You might want to see about getting that day job back…doesn’t sound like you’re cut out for this community.
Hey, you know what they say about jokes here in Finland?
It only hurts if there’s some thruth to it… say pop!
Extremely well said Scoble.
Mike,
Your Techcrunch content gets republished on a lot of blogs without attribution to you or techcrunch. But I guess that’s OK too.
Well I don’t know about you but this has ruined it for me. I only watched it to see Harball’s art. I suggest she hires Richard Figaro (or whatever his name was), Ace Attorney and Pet Detective, to get the million dollars coming to her and her ‘chosen charity’.
You know, I have a theory. The video illustrates very well how everyone in Web 2.0 is expecting money for nothing, buying into massive valuations for businesses that don’t actually make any money and have little more than a silly name and another variation on Facebook/Digg. What on earth could be more ridiculous than that? Well, probably professional photographers. A million photographers take a million photos of something that happens a million times a day (like a wedding or a school disco, what the Americans call a ‘prom’) and each believes that each single creation is art. And they believe that the fabulous prices they’re allowed to charge the wedding guests and mothers of schoolgirls make their art expensive art, at that. (In fact the prices are all about status and group pressure – no-one is going to be the only mother to tell her child that she won’t stump up for a professional photo because her own digital camera will do the job perfectly well.) Hence the massive feeling of entitlement revolving around ‘their’ photos. To us, a picture of a party used for one second in an amateur video is a picture of a party like any other. To them, it’s thousands of dollars of lost income.
So my theory is that Hardwel is a fiction, created by Mike Arrington to distract us from the ridiculousness of the Web 2.0 biscuit bash. (If you don’t know what that is, find a friend who was at an English boarding school and ask him. Suffice it to say that you don’t want to be the one who finishes last and has to eat the biscuit, but either the entrepreneurs or the VCs or the consumers are going to be left holding it one day). Everyone’s talking about fair use instead of speculating about the video’s actual point. Brilliant.
Incidentally, I’m fully aware that photography can be art and that some photographs belong up there with the Mona Lisa in the halls of our collective cultural consciousness. None of them were taken for a ridiculous fee at a wedding or school disco, though.
@Ronald Lewis
So what is given value, that isn’t just fabricated in our heads? Who’s to say gold has any value? It’s just a rock from the ground.
Lame Hartwel… you really know how to piss people off. I hope no one ever uses any of your crappy images.
People should remember the fact that Weird Al asks for permission for every song.
Fair use is not a clear cut legal argument, and smart commercial content producers of parody or satire ask permission to avoid the risk of a lawsuit.
Some may a Lane Hartwell shirt…talk about a fun hater.
Someone make…god, it’s early.
This entire controversy is yet another non-event that only has significance within the inbred blogsphere. One female “A-list” blogger told me that this whole issue was “important to women in tech” and “is a major issue with regard to open media web”.
Huh?
I think we need to move along to the more important issues of the day, namely will you or won’t you be serving eggnog at your holiday party?
In response to Scoble’s quips about photo subject’s consent & the photog getting paid: If the subject poses willingly for the camera, that is consent. That is saying “Yes, you can have my image and even make money for it”
The art of photography and images will be around a lot longer than web app companies, their founders, their users and certainly longer than TechCrunch.
“People who post their digital photos online should be able to do so secure in knowing that their imagery will not be used for commercial purposes without their permission.”
How is using a photo in a video that’s available for free and that made zero money “for commercial purposes”?
I’m going to send Lane an invoice for the amount of time I’ve wasted over the last several days reading about her dumb ass. That will be $500 please.
everytime I see this I laugh
Mike, you took a lot of heat over your first post. I am happy to see that you have been vindicated on all fronts – the abuse of the DMCA on the original takedown and the “hurt feelings” characterization. You nailed it, Scoble nailed it – the invoice is the most ridiculous thing ever. I thought all she wanted was either the photo removed or credit? Guess not. Anyone defending her before has to feel very stupid right now.
I think the photographer was a little shrill, yes, but I don’t see why attribution should be a problem. I bet if I were to repost the content from this site without attribution I would hear something from Arrington. Right, Mike?
Mike – every post we write is copied to dozens of spam blogs without attribution. I couldn’t care less, and I certainly am not hiring lawyers to bully people.
love the mp3, thanks for it. it is my ringtone now.
First of all, name-calling is cheap and pretty childish. If you agree or disagree with an issue, address the issue.
On to the issue …
If you upload a photo to a hosting service, like Flickr, and you specify that you are NOT releasing the image into the public domain (i.e., you are retaining all rights) and someone then takes that image and uses it without permission and/or payment, then that person has, quite simply, committed an illegal act.
Arguments about fair use are unsettled in general, and particularly here. (Fair use isn’t clear to me in this case.)
I also don’t think the invoice thing will work, but it seems clear that “Richter Scales” was in the wrong. It’s frustrating and baffling to me when people have a hard time understanding this.
Now, had the photo been CC licensed or in the public domain, this would be a different discussion. My understanding, however, is that it was not, and that all rights were reserved.
The lack of respect for other people’s work is a depressing, and increasing, blight.
hah she sent them an invoice. can we get Richter Scales to post it online??
Description of work: took a picture of a guy at a party
Hours billed: .0003
Total: $10