Picture Lobbyists Association of America
About two weeks ago, James Duncan Davidson’s comment traffic shot up after he politely complained about online photo attribution. Although he lamented about opening a “can of worms”, what I saw publicly was a civil discussion about image netiquette.
Really, photos have got it pretty good these days. We “manage rights” by the good old-fashioned techniques of asking, encouraging, trusting and forgiving. When necessary one can complain, informally or formally. I haven’t heard of any photography coalitions sobbing before Congress about the Internet-induced collapse of all that Is Right and Proper. Google Images lives on, for better or for worse, with no federal agents seizing servers. Nobody’s putting pressure on Apple to make iPhoto automatically delete “pirated” images — my wife can even drag a picture from my shared library into hers when she wants.
The biggest threat to a photographer’s livelihood is competition, not piracy. But unlike certain other industries, this is not a new phenomenon. A new market condition like crowdsourcing (further reading here, here and here) isn’t the end of the world for the photographic trade, just like the Brownie camera wasn’t the end of anything much. I’m glad to be a developing participant in a guild that reacts to change with creative solutions and resolute improvement.