Does Comedy Trump Copyright?

(via smosh.com)

I love photo memes. For the uninitiated: a photo meme is created when someone takes an image (or video still) completely out of its normal context and adds either text or some other image to make it hilarious. These, like the Zuckerberg gorilla face one above (The Social Network) and the Thor one I posted yesterday, are generally made by creative people who do *not* have rights to any of the images involved.

So, readers, my question to you is: does that bug you?

There's not much that copyright owners can do when a meme erupts. Here's how it works.

1. Say a photographer shoots princess Beatrice wearing a batdung crazy hat.
2. Maybe they sell that image to Getty or another photo distribution company.
3. Someone in the publishing industry buys that image and publishes it.

At this point, we are basically on the honor system for usage of this photo. Anyone can screenshot that image and have their way with it.

4. Someone ballsy superimposes text or another image onto the image for comedy value.
5. Someone else has a better idea (or so they think) and superimposes something ELSE in there.
6. Ten of their friends do the same, then ten of their friends, and so on, until it's the hottest, most viral and hilarious thing happening on teh interwebs.

Let's say you're the photographer or the copyright owner. What can you possibly do at this point? You have provided geeks and bystanders with hours and hours of entertainment, but you can't be paid for this. Perhaps this is a value that is "other than" money.

I'm normally pretty strict about intellectual property rights and protecting the work of artists, but I think we all have to accept at some point that the vigilante art of the photo meme cannot be prevented. The photo meme is the graffiti of the internet. You can keep taking it down (or painting over it), but it's just going to pop up somewhere else. Whether you consider it an art or a crime, one thing's certain: it's not going away.

The only way I can imagine this could be controlled would be if there were a new kind of photo file type that couldn't be written over, was invisible to screenshotters, and could always be tracked, so that every use of that image could be pulled at will. But even if you were a genius and created that filetype, there would be someone smarter than you in their parents' basement with a lot of time, and they would find a way to steal the image.

Internet law: There is always someone smarter than you in their parents' basement with a lot of time.

The internet has a tendency toward "share and share alike." When you think about it, it's pretty amazing that copyright laws manage to get enforced at all. It's like picking up pieces of confetti. And when it's a photo meme -- not just blatant thievery, but an act which involves using the image to create something else -- why would you want to throw away those pieces? It's like killing fireflies. Wow, way too many metaphors.

Anyhow, what do you think? How do you solve the epic copyright disaster of the photo meme? Is comedy more valuable than copyright?

What if photographers could file a claim of some kind if their image is used over 100 times without permission, and be given some kind of payment? Well, I guess a lot of photographers would sit in their basement and fake-steal their own work.

There has to be a value other than money.

Anyhow, the next post will be The Ten Greatest Photo Memes of All Time. I have the list written, but don't have time to pull all the images. ME AND WHAT ARMY?? I have to go to work now. :)