Alex WildPretty fucking bold of these scientists to scrape one of my copyrighted photographs off the internet and then re-release it uncredited under a Creative Commons license because they used it for training data for an algorithm.
Using copyrighted images to train algorithms is a kind of grey area, and I can see some decent arguments in favor of either.
But you can't act as someone else's agent and distribute their work without permission.
Brian Hawthorne@alexwild @questauthority Arguably, this falls under fair use. Under the standard 4-part fair use doctrine:
1. The use is transformative and for educational/research purposes.
2. The nature of your work is more factual than fictional, as it documents actual living organisms in situ.
3. The authors display only a thumbnail of your work, likely only a small percentage of the pixels from your photography.
4. The use is unlikely to harm your ability to profit from your work.
1. The use is transformative and for educational/research purposes.
2. The nature of your work is more factual than fictional, as it documents actual living organisms in situ.
3. The authors display only a thumbnail of your work, likely only a small percentage of the pixels from your photography.
4. The use is unlikely to harm your ability to profit from your work.
@bhawthorne @questauthority Lol, no.
MDPI is a for-profit publisher; this is not classroom use, and it is not educational *about my image*, which is not even credited.
Your arguments about "actual organisms in situ" is just dumb, really, since you have no idea. It was a 2 hour studio session I had to arrange, including sets and lighting.
@bhawthorne @questauthority Points 3-4 are likely have some merit, although it's worth noting that they did display the entire work, not a crop, even though the resolution is much reduced.
@alexwild @questauthority That’s a really good point. I’m not aware of any case law yet on whether down-sampling qualifies for that prong of the fair-use test.