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Hong Kong9178 Posts
I don't normally browse Reddit, but when I do I don't expect to see a major North American ESPORTS tournament organization blatantly infringing my copyright.
In August of last year, I went to MLG Anaheim and I brought my camera along. I had lots of fun and learned how to use that camera while discovering a passion for taking photographs of progamers and fans of ESPORTS, something that has really made me feel a part of the community. I've gone on to cover a number of other events and always brought my coverage of said events here to Team Liquid. You can find that in the blogs that I have composed over the past few months.
Now, among the photos I took that MLG Anaheim weekend was this one of Sheth:
What a handsome nerd baller.
Notice in the link, copyright status is "All Rights Reserved."
Imagine my horror when I browse Reddit /r/starcraft and I click on an innocuous looking thread title, "Good or Evil?," and see this:
That is clearly my photograph, reversed, and used without permission on an MLG pay-per-view broadcast.
How did this happen? I have a theory. In the past, one ESPORTS organization, Liquipedia, asked me for PERMISSION to use that photograph on Sheth's Liquipedia page.
--- Log opened Sun Feb 12 18:33:16 2012
18:33 -!- Irssi: Starting query in QuakeNet with Koorb
18:33 <Koorb> Hi there itsjustatank are you here?
20:23 <justatank|bnc> yes
20:23 <itsjustatank> whats up
20:24 <Koorb> Hi there! I was looking for a good picture depicting Sheth,
and I found this one, which if I'm correct is yours:
wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/File:Sheth_at_MLG_Anaheim.jpg
20:25 <itsjustatank> yeah
20:25 <Koorb> And I wondered if you were confortable with me uploading it on the wiki?
20:25 <itsjustatank> yeah, that rezie looks weird though
20:25 <itsjustatank> resize*
20:25 <itsjustatank> did you keep the aspect ratio
20:26 <Koorb> I just cropped the upper side,
maybe your browser need to refresh the page without the cache?
20:27 <itsjustatank> oh that's why
20:28 <itsjustatank> well id kinda prefer the uncropped version but that's just taste
20:41 <itsjustatank> dl.dropbox.com/u/12650804/pics/IMGP1160.jpg
20:42 <itsjustatank> this is at 1000px longest side
20:42 <itsjustatank> how big do you need it
20:42 <itsjustatank> or small
20:42 <Koorb> I'd say, around 400px wide
20:43 <itsjustatank> ok
20:43 <itsjustatank> dl.dropbox.com/u/12650804/pics/IMGP1160.jpg
20:43 <itsjustatank> there it ids
20:43 <itsjustatank> is*
20:43 <Koorb> Looks great, thanks a lot!
20:44 <itsjustatank> no problem
My theory is that MLG just looked up Sheth on Liquipedia, found my photograph adorning it, clicked it, ignored this...
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XZEH3.png)
... downloaded the photo, put it through Photoshop to reverse and resize it, and aired it.
MLG, if you can charge the ESPORTS community $20 dollars to view a pay-per-view stream with no free option, you can certainly pay an employee to ask me for permission to use my photographs. Because it was to be used on a pay-per-view basis, and because you are obviously a for-profit enterprise, we would have worked out an acceptable licensing fee or you would have chosen perhaps not to use my photograph after all.
The fact is, however, that you didn't go through the proper legal and ethical channels in putting on production for MLG Winter Arena. I couldn't afford to buy your product this weekend because I've been out of work for a while now, so I wasn't able to see whether or not you pirated any other of my photographs; I can only rely on screencaps from Reddit, I guess.
I still haven't figured out what I want to do about this, but I am certainly really, really angry.
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rofl, i dont know what else to say. mlg kinda dropped the ball on this one.
makes you wonder about the rest of the player pictures they are using really ;D
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They need $20 so they can take your work that you did for free. MLG man, come on D=.
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Someone isn't "taking photos for fun" if they are being so lame about their photo being used on a versus screen. You should quit pretending there isn't something at stake for yourself here.
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Damn. Good eyes people. Yeah, I like MLG and all but this ones a pretty unequivocable goof
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On February 27 2012 03:24 jarf1337 wrote:
Someone isn't "taking photos for fun" if they are being so lame about their photo being used on a versus screen. You should quit pretending there isn't something at stake for yourself here.
You don't understand how this works at all do you?
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Wow, that's pretty bad. You'd think they have enough of their own photos.
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They could just as easily say you took this picture at their venue that they allowed you to be in. So any photos that you take, they have equal access to to use. If they didn't let you in their venue, you would have never taken the picture.
(2) Evidence.—For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to
establish willful infringement of a copyright.
(3) Definition.—In this subsection, the term “work being prepared for
commercial distribution” means—
(A) a computer program, a musical work, a motion picture or other
audiovisual work, or a sound recording, if, at the time of unauthorized
distribution—
(i) the copyright owner has a reasonable expectation of commercial distribution; and
(ii) the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially distributed
Still bad practice.
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"Imagine my horror when I browse Reddit /r/starcraft and I click on an innocuous looking thread title,"
sorry i somehow fail to feel the horrifying effect of this situation
you should feel proud they deem your picture worthy of using, i sure as hell would be excited. If u feel liek they stole from you (lol...) message them and say you dont allow them to use your picture. If they answer in a stupid manner or ignore you mayeb start complaining.
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If you ask them not to use it they'll probably not use it anymore. Any more would seem like a bit of an overreaction and a waste of your time.
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I'm glad i didn't pay for MLG. I hope you get some compensation out of this, but most importantly public apology from MLG.
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Oh get over yourself, it's a fucking picture. For all that MLG has done for e-sports including help TeamLiquid as well as every single one of you people with entertainment with their events, this isn't the end of the world for you and it won't destroy your photography career and/or hobby.
What do you want to do? Sue MLG for $100,000 because they don't have written consent from you? Oh, please. Someone just get Lee on here or something and give this guy a free Gold Membership or something so he calms down. This happens in e-sports every minute of every day with articles, news posts, and everything else that goes on in the scene.
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There is a clear copyright on the photo so I think you got a good point of contention here.
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On February 27 2012 03:24 jarf1337 wrote:
Someone isn't "taking photos for fun" if they are being so lame about their photo being used on a versus screen. You should quit pretending there isn't something at stake for yourself here.
doesnt matter if it's just for fun or not MLG should have had the curtisy to ask for permission to use that picture.
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On February 27 2012 03:24 jarf1337 wrote:
Someone isn't "taking photos for fun" if they are being so lame about their photo being used on a versus screen. You should quit pretending there isn't something at stake for yourself here.
This reply is shamefully bad. You are not contributing anything useful to this thread and quite frankly it doesn't matter whether or not he is taking pictures for fun or not. It is a copyright infringement and while the community is quite relaxed on that issue, a big company like MLG should cover things like that.
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Copyrighting is a serious matter. Do not take this lightly.
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Hong Kong9178 Posts
On February 27 2012 03:26 nihlon wrote:
If you ask them not to use it they'll probably not use it anymore. Any more would seem like a bit of an overreaction and a waste of your time.
It already aired, there is no way to ask them to remove it. The damage has been done.
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I'm assuming you asked Sheth for his permission to take the picture?
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I'm sorry sir, but I'm going to have to ask you. Are you going to go starving because of this? They are doing what a few tournaments have done and that is simply take photo's from Liquipedia. I feel like you are angry for all the wrong reasons.
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On February 27 2012 03:26 k1mjee wrote:
Oh get over yourself, it's a fucking picture. For all that MLG has done for e-sports including help TeamLiquid as well as every single one of you people with entertainment with their events, this isn't the end of the world for you and it won't destroy your photography career and/or hobby.
What do you want to do? Sue MLG for $100,000 because they don't have written consent from you? Oh, please. Someone just get Lee on here or something and give this guy a free Gold Membership or something so he calms down. This happens in e-sports every minute of every day with articles, news posts, and everything else that goes on in the scene.
Ah yeah man let's just allow major corporations to rip off whoever they want because they 'help the community'.
It's nice when we can choose when the law is applicable 
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EPT![[image loading]](https://farm7.staticflickr.com/6007/6000722072_49475630c8_z.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Cv93O.png)
