Lan Bui is a friend of mine and he produces a wonderful videoblog that I rarely miss called Noodlescar. When he told me about the situation he was going through with Podtech several weeks ago, I was pretty surprised. If you're not up to speed, Lan's blog post will get you there in a hurry. To sum it up quickly, Podtech used a photograph of his (pictured at right) in a poster promoting The Vloggies at SXSW. Lan originally published this photo on Flickr under a Creative Commons license, so someone from Podtech took his photo and used it for commercial purposes without compensating him, which in turn also violated his usage license.
I've met John and Linda Furrier a couple of times and found them to be intelligent, charming folks. Robert Scoble is a very prominent blogger and an important member of the tech community, and is always responsive to people. I don't know any of the other higher-ups at Podtech, and I don't deal with them for business on any level. Some of my colleagues in the videoblogging world such as Irina Slutsky, Eddie Codel, Ryanne Hodson, Jay Dedman, Oscar Grimm, Tanja Andrews, and Bill Streeter have content partner and/or employment contracts with Podtech. There are others, but I know these folks the best.
I think the most alarming thing about Lan's issue is the disrespect paid toward Creative Commons licenses. It's one thing to be dismissive of a single individual, as wrong as that is. It's another to knowingly violate a license that we have all sacrificed a lot to support. Jon Phillips's keynote at Pixelodeon showed me as much.
So what is so hard to understand about this issue from Podtech's perspective? Ok, you used something you shouldn't have. It's not the end of the world, we've all done it at some point or another. But when you're called on it, you do the right thing and spare yourselves the shitty PR. Duh. It's a business move. Better to pay Lan a few hundred bucks for his photo than start seeing blog posts like this one, which damages your credibility with content creators. No amount of money will get that back for you.
Maybe they don't care about content creators. Then I could understand flaunting a licensing violation for this long without proper compensation. I sure hope that's not the case. We all need companies like Podtech to succeed at what they do, but apparently they are not even responding to Lan's continued inquiries at the present time.
Please blog about Lan's situation so we can demonstrate that this community must be taken seriously. It could be any of us in this position, so let's make our voices heard.
missb said:
This situation is mega-weird. I left a longer (read: rambling) comment on Lan's blog...another thing I'm wondering about is the other picture that's on the poster. Who took it? Are they experiencing the same problem as Lan? Do they even know or care? What's the licensing of the second photo?
Mystery...
Linda Furrier said:
Ouch! so hard to hear about all of this for the first time and to know that someone is hurting. Lan, so sorry that this has gone unresolved for so long. John (PodTech CEO) is a fair man. If you are too, I feel sure that you can work something out. In the meantime, mea culpe. I know no one intended to dis you, but maybe it would be helpful for you to know that too?
Chuck Olsen said:
FYI, on my blog Scoble commented "it's not cut and dry. You're only hearing one side of it and I can't go more into it yet online."
Looking forward to hearing the other side of the story from Podtech and some resolution.
mike said:
Power to the people :D
@Chuck: Actually, this is more "@ Scroble", but it's a CC license... it's not exactly a "he said, she said" situation. Podtech has had months and months to fix this... and have just given Lan the run-around. Not cool.
john furrier said:
Lan portrays a completely different picture in public. We have been in communication with him since he contacted us months ago. Lan has had access to PodTech in many different ways from 1 degree of separation to having our direct phone numbers and emails. He has not been treated badly but in fact we have been in contact with him from the beginning.
John
Mike Feorde said:
John I'm with you on this one. I just went to flickr and their slogan is "Share Your Photos". I also checked out the picture in question. You can hardly see the CC there. If he really cared then he would have taken more attention to highlight the cc. Even worse I just check out his photos on flickr and he's a total amateur. I just don't get this guy Lan.
Lan Bui said:
Steve, thank you for posting this to your blog. I agree, we must be heard.
Missb - I wonder the same.
Linda Furrier - I'm sure he is, but I was not given the chance to talk to him when i was trying to get this taken care of. I too am a fair person.
Chuck Olsen - I replied to you on this on my blogs comments.
Mike - Thank you for your support.
John Jurrier - I sent you a private email in response.
Mike Feorde - How do I contact you? I hope you see this response. Yes, flickr is the best way to share your photos!!! They are awesome for that, and they give you the tools to properly share your photos the way you want to. I'm sorry that the font was too small for you to notice, wait you did notice the CC, so it is noticeable. It is the responsibility of someone looking to use photographs commercially to find out the copyright of the photograph. Just because it isn't as big as the title of the photograph does not mean it is not there and is not valid. Please come up with good arguments next time you try to argue. Please do not hire me if my photographs are amateur.
Steve Woolf said:
If Lan and Podtech are talking, that's great. My understanding was that Lan could not get a response from Podtech and move forward with negotiations.
While the Creative Commons issue issue is still troubling, hopefully this can be resolved quickly and we can all move on.
