{"id":1129,"date":"2009-01-29T16:37:55","date_gmt":"2009-01-29T07:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-01-29\/1129"},"modified":"2009-01-29T16:37:55","modified_gmt":"2009-01-29T07:37:55","slug":"where-has-the-basic-sense-of-right-and-wrong-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-01-29\/1129","title":{"rendered":"Where Has the Basic Sense of Right and Wrong Gone?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Some things just leave me totally dumbfounded....<\/p>\n\n

Carolyn Wright has an interesting article on her Photo Attorney blog: Update\non the Lawsuit against Benjamin Ham for Photographing Private Property<\/a>. It's about<\/span> the legal wranglings surrounding a photographer<\/span> who took a\npretty<\/span> photo of some trees while trespassing on private property. The owners<\/span> of the property sued him to stop selling copies of that pretty\nphoto, and much legal paperwork ensued.<\/p>\n\n

There was, apparently, no dispute over whether the photographer,\nBenjamin Ham, trespassed on private property (“passing through\nlocked gates and ignoring 'no trespassing' signs<\/i>”) in order to\nmake his photograph, but he apparently contended that the fruits of his\ntrespass – the pretty photo – is an unrelated matter, and thus\nthe photo is his to do with what he wants. The bulk of<\/span> the discussion on\nCarolyn's post is about the legal stretching that the property owners tried\nto employ – invoking copyright and “conversion” arguments – to\nsue the photographer into submission.<\/p>\n\n

In the end, after much legalese, the court threw out those claims by the\nproperty owner (they were apparently too much<\/i> of a legal<\/span> stretch),\nand so without anything to stand on other than a claim<\/span> of trespass, the\nproperty owners resolved the case in mediation. In the end<\/span>, Ham is still<\/span>\nallowed to sell the photo, but it seems he's out a bundle<\/span> of cash in legal\nfees.<\/p>\n\n

So, that's the story and if you're interested in the legal aspects of\nit, the details are perhaps interesting, but here's where I'm totally at a\nloss<\/span> to understand.\nCarolyn ends her post with...<\/p>\n\n

Ham has done much for photographers. If you'd like to support his efforts, purchase one of his wonderful prints from his website<\/p>\n\n

WTF?<\/i><\/p>\n\n

I realize that Carolyn is a lawyer – one who might stand to profit\nfrom an increase in this kind of illegal behavior – but wow, how was\nshe raised? Didn't her parents teach her anything<\/i> about right and\nwrong?<\/p>\n\n

“Criminal” is perhaps too strong a word<\/span> for the photographer, but if\nCarolyn's representation of the situation is accurate, Ham is a<\/span> freakin'\njerk<\/i> for such explicit trespassing, and an even bigger one for not\napologizing profusely when caught.<\/p>\n\n

Regardless of what loopholes may or may not be in current law, the law\nshould be<\/i> such that one is sufficiently deterred from this kind of\naction, and if you trespass (or steal or intimidate or destroy or\nwhatever), at a minimum<\/span><\/b> you shouldn't be allowed to retain gains\nthat are directly related to your illegal activities. I think<\/span> this idea is\nalready present in laws that prohibit serial murderers from selling movie\nrights to their story, for example.<\/p>\n\n

The deterrent should be more than simply “give up your gains” because\nthat's not much of a deterrent<\/span> (that would simply mean “try not to get\ncaught next time”). The law should be<\/i> such that the moment Ham made\nhis decision to trespass, not only was he choosing to risk having to give\nup any photos he ended up with, he was also risking jail time or a hefty<\/span>\nfinancial penalty.<\/p>\n\n

In the end, he got the penalty (one paid to lawyers instead of the\ngovernment's general fund), and, for what it's worth, my personal contempt.\nHam has “done much for photographers” all right, much\ndamage<\/i>. The world<\/span> is already full of people who think everyone with a\ncamera<\/span> is a terrorist,<\/span> a paparazzi,<\/span> or a child<\/span> molester, and now we have\npeople like Ham and Wright only making it worse.<\/p>\n\n

Sigh.<\/p>\n\n

Carolyn's blog is interesting and I read<\/span> everything she posts, but one\ndoes have to read with a grain<\/span> of salt. She's made lawyer-like technical\nmistakes<\/a> before, and she sometimes tends to come across as if it's okay\nto do anything you want so long as you have a camera.<\/span>... but her post today\njust left my chin on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some things just leave me totally dumbfounded....<\/p>

Carolyn Wright has an interesting article on her Photo Attorney blog: Update on the Lawsuit against Benjamin Ham for Photographing Private Property. It's about the legal wranglings surrounding a photographer who took a pretty photo of some trees while trespassing on private property. The owners of the property sued him to stop selling copies of that pretty photo, and much legal paperwork ensued.<\/p>

There was, apparently, no dispute over whether the photographer, Benjamin Ham, trespassed on private property (\"passing through locked gates and ignoring 'no trespassing' signs\") in order to make his photograph, [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}