The Case fo responsible Adults and identifiable forum members

[RacePhoto]

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/career/the-case-of-anonymity-in-social-media/3874?tag=nl.e101

You can read the whole thing if you want. Some of it has to do with people who are forum bullies. People who write nasty messages. Uncontrolled answers. Anonymous nastiness to be simple. But there's something more in here.

Say someone is repeatedly posting claims and angry untruths about a particular Microstock agency or their current ownership:

“A good rule of thumb is whether or not the accusation is ‘verifiably false,’” Syiek’s attorney, Luke Lantta of the Bryan Cave law firm said. “There is a constitutional right to anonymity on the Internet, up to a point. When you cross that line from protected speech to that which is truly harmful, there’s a good opportunity to hold you accountable for what you posted.”

Lantta also warns potential commentors that there’s no such thing as true anonymity. He reports uncovering several anonymous poster identities in work with his clients over the years. In Georgia alone, 2011 has seen three cases of anonymous posters brought to court and fined in excess of $100,000.

If someone thinks that being anonymous is the answer to attacking people, over and over on this forum. Maybe that's a good reason for making it less anonymous. If you can't say it in public, and stand behind your words, what value and respect do you have?

Why do some people hide? And saying "because the agencies will retaliate" is wearing thin. No one should work for a business that punishes their contributors for free speech. There are some here who refuse to work for one particular agency that has repeatedly threatened contributors.

Bringing it all the way around. What happens if some large agency which is owned by a large investment company, were to file charges against Leaf, and some individual anonymous members, for what's written on this forum, about them?

[luissantos84]

Bringing it all the way around. What happens if some large agency which is owned by a large investment company, were to file charges against Leaf, and some individual anonymous members, for what's written on this forum, about them?

crap 

[Microbius]

There's nothing wrong with being anonymous as long as you are not making unverifiable claims.
There's not much point talking about your specifics under an anonymous account, but if you talking about the industry generally or are criticizing agencies and posting evidence to back it up, it's the strength of the argument that matters, not the identity of the person posting.
The argument can be refuted just as well without knowing the name of the person making it.

[jsnover]

I completely agree that people should behave responsibly but I would not support the notion that anonymity should no longer be allowed.

If you don't like people's posts, use the ignore feature. If someone is way out of line, ask leaf to step in (which he generally does without being asked).

And as far as " No one should work for a business that punishes their contributors for free speech.", that's pretty easy for someone who doesn't earn a lot from that agency to say, but a pretty unreasonable condition to set for forum participation here, IMO. Some IS exclusives are anonymous because they feel they can speak more freely that way. The dials let you see if someone is an active participant in IS or DT - make it easy to see who has skin in the game and who's just trolling.

[lisafx]

Hasn't this subject already been pretty well hashed out in prior threads? 

People have posted very compelling reasons for anonymity.  It's a long tradition, predating the internet.  Furthermore, this forum is pretty mild, and the criticisms made of agencies are mostly justified, and verifiable.  Tyler's good about removing genuine trolls. 

[RacePhoto]

Hasn't this subject already been pretty well hashed out in prior threads? 

People have posted very compelling reasons for anonymity.  It's a long tradition, predating the internet.  Furthermore, this forum is pretty mild, and the criticisms made of agencies are mostly justified, and verifiable.  Tyler's good about removing genuine trolls. 

Did you read the article?

Say agency "Big" comes after Leaf for what's written here? The point is moderation, not censorship.

As for predating and stalking and who reads what we write. Isn't that the same on every forum, or is this one somehow different from Twitter, Facebook, The agency forums, and Fred Miranda, Sportshooter, and most of the others on the Internet that require "real people". Why is it so different here that we need to have protected identities? Smells fishy. You mean MSG is a dangerous place compared to the hundred of thousands of other public forums? Why is that?

Yes, it's in Off Topic for a reason. 

What is it that people keep writing here. "If you don't like what's being written, you can ignore and not read it?" Well if there was ever a forum area to ignore, put off topic as a starting choice.

“The level of conversation on stories turned into a place for racial slurs, name bashing and other negative behaviors,” Gersh said. “We worked tirelessly to resolve the issue, however the problem remained. We began to notice on the same articles shared on Facebook, comments left there were more positive and raised the level of conversation around our content.”

Odd, what's the difference? Oh I see, Facebook you aren't anonymous! 

[BaldricksTrousers]

I don't see any link between anonymity and a "big agency going after Leaf".

Anonymous comments can be libelous or not. Comments from people who openly identify themselves can be libelous or not. Leaf's responsibility for what appears on his site is not affected in any way by whether the participants (who are, after all, known to him) identify themselves in public.

If the comments are fair, then any legal action by "a big agency" would be aimed at silencing criticism by the threat of steamrolling small guys through litigation, a game McDonalds has played - and so did one fraudulent "artist" who photoshopped stock images to win major art prizes and then bombarded chat sites with threatening lawyers' letters to get threads exposing her removed. You don't even need to be a big, rich company to scare people into silence or imposing censorship.

[lisafx]

As for predating and stalking and who reads what we write. Isn't that the same on every forum, or is this one somehow different from Twitter, Facebook, The agency forums, and Fred Miranda, Sportshooter, and most of the others on the Internet that require "real people". Why is it so different here that we need to have protected identities? Smells fishy. You mean MSG is a dangerous place compared to the hundred of thousands of other public forums? Why is that?

Um.  Pete.  Could you please look up the definition of the term "predating"?   I has nothing to do with stalking, predatory behavior, etc.

[RacePhoto]

As for predating and stalking and who reads what we write. Isn't that the same on every forum, or is this one somehow different from Twitter, Facebook, The agency forums, and Fred Miranda, Sportshooter, and most of the others on the Internet that require "real people". Why is it so different here that we need to have protected identities? Smells fishy. You mean MSG is a dangerous place compared to the hundred of thousands of other public forums? Why is that?

Um.  Pete.  Could you please look up the definition of the term "predating"?   I has nothing to do with stalking, predatory behavior, etc.

Oops! I thought you were talking about people who said they had messages and emails, people following them, because their identities were public on the forum, instead of anonymous. How can writing on Internet forums pre-date the internet? Now you lost me? (btw 3.   predate - prey on or hunt for; "These mammals predate certain eggs") Thank you English language for words that have two or more meanings...

BaldricksTrousers, the point isn't what we can write or not write because of identity, it's the tendency for people who are anonymous to write more libelous things that may lead to trouble, because they feel protected by being anonymous.

If people know they are identifiable, they are less likely to write some things. Nasty comments, personal attacks, and libelous things about an agency, all come to mind. Instead of Leaf having to read every message and edit for content, why not remove some of the inclination for negative actions, before they occur?

But back to the start. Anonymous is not protection against agency retaliation. The truth is, which is good.

"Atlanta-based executive Paul Syiek won a substantial defamation case against a former employee who posted accusations against him on an anonymous bulletin board on TheRipOffReport.com. The post accused Syiek of several things, including violations of U.S. Department of Labor regulations. Since the accusations were able to be proven false in court, the poster committed libel against Syiek.

The ruling was for a shade under $200,000. For one post. By one person. On one site."

Want some example of libelous statements about agencies found here? Things like claiming they are stealing commissions or have unreported sales?

[Ed]

There are some pretty serious tests to prove libel.  Negative opinions (of which there are many in this forum) do not constitute libel.

http://www.splc.org/knowyourrights/legalresearch.asp?id=27

It isn’t too hard to find out who I am….personally, if people are going to follow what I do, how I do it, or want to copy the images I create, I’m going to make them do a little work for it.

…same goes for “amount of images” on a site proving validity.  If I have 100 images on Shutterstock, and 1,500 images on Alamy, and 265 images on Dreamstime, is that going to make me any more or less credible in my personal opinion?

[RacePhoto]

There are some pretty serious tests to prove libel.  Negative opinions (of which there are many in this forum) do not constitute libel.

http://www.splc.org/knowyourrights/legalresearch.asp?id=27

It isn’t too hard to find out who I am….personally, if people are going to follow what I do, how I do it, or want to copy the images I create, I’m going to make them do a little work for it.

…same goes for “amount of images” on a site proving validity.  If I have 100 images on Shutterstock, and 1,500 images on Alamy, and 265 images on Dreamstime, is that going to make me any more or less credible in my personal opinion?

And I might add, I'm all for the right of free speech and people to say what they want, but not personal attacks and libel, which go beyond the protection. The Occu-people should be fine to go protest and march, hold up their signs, and shout their slogans, but illegal camping (aka Trespassing) and claiming it's repression of free speech to move them, gets kind of silly. We're back to credibility and someone shouting about some agency, day after day, turning every thread into hate, eventually loses it's meaning and just becomes background noise and a distraction from the real message.

Hey BT you mean this one? Not everyone has been scared into removing the story of Impermanence by Sheryl Luxenburg, which is kind of funny because it should have been called, Impertinence. Only the award for an inkjet print using two MicroStock images done by someone else, was Impermanent.

http://openartforum.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/60/

Keep pushing it to the limits. I just want to be there to say "I told you so" when the 16 tons falls on someone for writing falsehoods about an agency, because they thought they were anonymous.

That and the whole tone of the forum would apparently be more friendly if people knew that they could be identified and stood behind their words as a person, instead of some empty pseudo-person.

[Ed]

OK – so it got a gold medal...if you go here…

http://www.shutterstock.com/licensing.mhtml

You can clearly read…

2.  By this Agreement, Shutterstock grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, right to use and reproduce Images in the following ways, subject to the limitations set forth herein and in Part II hereof:

…

c) As prints, posters (i.e. a hardcopy) and other reproductions for your own personal, non-commercial use and display, not for resale, download or distribution;
d) As a single hand painted reproduction (not as a printed reproduction) on canvas or other material to be used as decoration and not resold;


The painting won a competition…was it resold?  I don’t see the issue or what it has to do with libel?

[RacePhoto]

OK – so it got a gold medal...if you go here…

http://www.shutterstock.com/licensing.mhtml

You can clearly read…

2.  By this Agreement, Shutterstock grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, right to use and reproduce Images in the following ways, subject to the limitations set forth herein and in Part II hereof:

…

c) As prints, posters (i.e. a hardcopy) and other reproductions for your own personal, non-commercial use and display, not for resale, download or distribution;
d) As a single hand painted reproduction (not as a printed reproduction) on canvas or other material to be used as decoration and not resold;


The painting won a competition…was it resold?  I don’t see the issue or what it has to do with libel?

If I promise to stop writing and let this thread die on it's own will everyone else agree? 

The problem is this. She claimed it was an original work and entered it in a Watercolor contest. There's some question as to whether it's just a glicee inkjet print or a painting at all. But lets move on to the contest for "Original Artwork" which is a huge problem. The award was revoked, which should also tell you that, it wasn't right.

Last of all, you might be able to use a work from SS as a composite and paint it, or as a derivative. But you can't claim it's your original work, when it's a direct collage copy, pasted together from two photographs. And you can never claim it's your own original work, in any case, when it's nothing but a direct copy. Yes she could sell it, but that's not what happened. Nothing in the incident has to do with re-sale.

That's the problem.

The libel part is Ms. Luxenburg, and her attorney, went around to websites and threatened to sue them, for printing the information about her painting the alleged fraud, her getting caught and basically anything to do with the incident. She and her attorney attempted to censor and make the story invisible by threatening legal action against the websites. Many of them, including some agency forums, removed all traces of the discussions. Censorship and I'm against it.

So what Baldrick wrote was a very good point: You don't even need to be a big, rich company to scare people into silence or imposing censorship.

My point is that we are dealing with some big companies. And the reason people claim they want to be anonymous is fear of retaliation from those same big companies. So what's to prevent those big companies from coming after the website, forum and the "anonymous" people who may have written something they don't like?

Answer Is? Nothing.

So the claimed reason for being anonymous is invalid and empty.

[Ed]

Ahhhh….got it   

[digitalexpressionimages]

Freedom always has a price. It comes with a risk and responsibility. You say you're against censorship because it's a violation of freedom of speech and yet you seem to advocate a violation of another freedom, that of anonymity on the internet (such as it is). There's the rub.

Should Leaf impose a rule that all members have to give their real name? Seems draconian considering the risk of liability you're talking about. The truth is it doesn't matter why individuals want to be anonymous to deny them their anonymity is a clear case of taking their freedom and tossing it.

Sort of like saying "why would you want a right to privacy--UNLESS YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE!!! Bum bum bahhhhh! (dramatic music)

That's the price of freedom, we have to risk legal action, put up with bullies, negativity and verbal abuse from anonymous people. But the alternative is not a road I want to go down.

[gbalex]

OK – so it got a gold medal...if you go here…

http://www.shutterstock.com/licensing.mhtml

You can clearly read…

2.  By this Agreement, Shutterstock grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, right to use and reproduce Images in the following ways, subject to the limitations set forth herein and in Part II hereof:

…

c) As prints, posters (i.e. a hardcopy) and other reproductions for your own personal, non-commercial use and display, not for resale, download or distribution;
d) As a single hand painted reproduction (not as a printed reproduction) on canvas or other material to be used as decoration and not resold;


The painting won a competition…was it resold?  I don’t see the issue or what it has to do with libel?

If I promise to stop writing and let this thread die on it's own will everyone else agree?  

The problem is this. She claimed it was an original work and entered it in a Watercolor contest. There's some question as to whether it's just a glicee inkjet print or a painting at all. But lets move on to the contest for "Original Artwork" which is a huge problem. The award was revoked, which should also tell you that, it wasn't right.

Last of all, you might be able to use a work from SS as a composite and paint it, or as a derivative. But you can't claim it's your original work, when it's a direct collage copy, pasted together from two photographs. And you can never claim it's your own original work, in any case, when it's nothing but a direct copy. Yes she could sell it, but that's not what happened. Nothing in the incident has to do with re-sale.

That's the problem.

The libel part is Ms. Luxenburg, and her attorney, went around to websites and threatened to sue them, for printing the information about her painting the alleged fraud, her getting caught and basically anything to do with the incident. She and her attorney attempted to censor and make the story invisible by threatening legal action against the websites. Many of them, including some agency forums, removed all traces of the discussions. Censorship and I'm against it.

So what Baldrick wrote was a very good point: You don't even need to be a big, rich company to scare people into silence or imposing censorship.

My point is that we are dealing with some big companies. And the reason people claim they want to be anonymous is fear of retaliation from those same big companies. So what's to prevent those big companies from coming after the website, forum and the "anonymous" people who may have written something they don't like?

Answer Is? Nothing.

So the claimed reason for being anonymous is invalid and empty.

It is interesting that you bring up an example of someone who has no problem at all using their own name.

There are many people in the world who conduct business in a similar fashion to Ms. Luxenburg.  I would not be surprised to learn that this site and others in the micro industry had received similar emails threatening legal action and asking for removal of threads and posts that expose the scams these people are currently using to profit from deceiving and manipulating its members.

I am sure that type of individual loves this type of thread because it helps the process along and no mater what happens they will still have no compunction in regard to using their own identities to misleading people for their own gain. They will continue to do it anyway.  The only people you will scare into silence are the ones who are honest and above board to begin with, the people who should be speaking out.  

Read some of the responses Ms. Luxenburg wrote to local papers to manage public perception leading up to the point the truth was uncovered and you will see how that mind set functions as they move through life. Her modus has not changed and she used her attorneys to continue.  

The article below was written before she contacted the paper to proclaim innocence, notice how she has become the victim.

Ottawa artist says innocent mistake has led to threats, accusations
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Ottawa+artist+says+innocent+mistake+threats+accusations/1012502/story.html

Moments Frozen in Time
Source: http://www.allbusiness.com/services/museums-art-galleries-botanical-zoological/4359647-1.html#ixzz1kZfHBQkG

I enjoy watching people walk up to my watercolors, take a step back, and then move up to the glass to make sure they are paintings, not photographs," says Sheryl Luxenburg. "They have perplexed facial expressions as they scrutinize the pictures to see if they are indeed made with a brush, not a camera. I wait for them to discover the tiny dots of paint that come together as an illusion, as well as the small particles on the surface of the paint that suggest the motion of people, cars, and water.

"That stark realism is very important to my mission of capturing life as it actually is during one specific moment in time," Luxenburg continues. "I spend a lot of time deciding on the time of day, the exact angle to view the scene, the total perspective scope of the picture, and the best combination of animate and inanimate objects. As is the case with Photo Realist art, the scenes may appear arbitrary and detached, but believe me, I put a lot of thought and emotion into my choices of subjects and compositions."

Those choices and the painstaking process by which Luxenburg creates her watercolors are determined by her personality, training, and influences. "I studied both art and psychology in university, and I spent nearly 20 years as a psychotherapist," she explains. "I know myself to be a practical person who tries to accept life as it really exists; the good times and the tough times. I am passionate about becoming immersed in my complicated, time-consuming painting methods, and find the challenge of complexity to be very relaxing. My approach to art is influenced in part by my maternal grandfather, who was an enthusiastic Cubist painter. I've also been inspired by my mentor, the Photo Realist artist Tom Blackwell."

Luxenburg admits that her painting technique is so complex that people often have trouble understanding the various materials and procedures she employs. She finds it best to describe the steps in sequence, explaining the reasons behind each development.

When considering subjects for a series of paintings, for example, Luxenburg spends weeks and months observing the light, drawing possible compositional arrangements, and shooting dozens of photographs. When the optimum conditions are determined, she makes detailed drawings of the subjects on paper. Once the Canadian artist is back in her Ottawa, Ontario, studio, she soaks an oversized sheet of 140-lb cold-pressed paper, tapes it to a board, and allows it to dry completely. She then lightly rules grid lines to guide her as she redraws the subject on the watercolor paper. "Tom Blackwell taught me to draw inanimate objects?especially buildings?upside down so the accuracy of the drawing wouldn't be compromised by my recognition of the subject," she states.

Using a wide assortment of transparent watercolors, Luxenburg takes a pointillist approach, developing the image with small overlapping dots of color. "This technique allows me to use a variety of colors within one small area," she notes. "For example, shadows usually incorporate a spectrum of deep blues, violets, greens, and browns. As long as the colors are close enough in tone, they will read as one hue while creating a more ambiguous, evocative color than would be realized with a flat wash of violet or dark green." Luxenburg paints those dots with sharply pointed round sable brushes while she looks through a swing-arm magnifying glass illuminated by an attached halogen light. She spends days applying dots of color on relatively large sheets of watercolor paper until the entire image is complete.

Next, she brushes over the paint with a thin coat of Winsor & Newton Lifting Preparation. "When dry, the fluid causes my graphite lines to fade a bit, and it enables me to correct any mistakes that occur when I apply the next layers of paint and medium," says the artist.

Luxenburg then uses Winsor & Newton Colourless Art Masking Fluid to mask out the perimeters of large areas that she wants to isolate. With a pen nib or a Q-tip, she then applies Grafix Incredible Nib White Mask Liquid Frisket to small shapes that need to be covered. "I can later lift the frisket off with tweezers to get a clean, crisp line that promotes the look I want my paintings to have," she comments.

To capture the rough texture of walls, stones, or concrete, Luxenburg thins her paints with two Winsor & Newton watercolor mediums: a mixture of four parts granulation medium with one part blending medium. The combination creates tiny, irregularly shaped cells that look mottled and grainy. She uses a blow-dryer to set her paints and fix them permanently in place. When she wants a transparent wash to represent a sky, to glaze a smooth-surfaced object, or to add small areas of transparent color, she mixes her watercolors with Winsor & Newton Ox Gall Liquid medium. "That gives me a wash or a point of color that has more body and is therefore easier to control than paint thinned with just water," she explains, pointing out that she applies the Ox Gall medium with a paintbrush.

Perhaps Luxenburg's most unusual technique is the application of small drops of Winsor & Newton aquapasto medium on top of her small dots of watercolor paint. Describing this final step she states, "I squeeze tiny drops from a bottle or, more often, I airbrush the aquapasto and, when dry, the area looks like convex lenses. The medium magnifies and blurs the colors, which creates the sensation of motion. I apply the medium on objects that would be moving in the scene?people, cars, boats, streams of water?or on distant objects that should appear less focused. It took me years to determine the correct ratio of gel to use with the paint, as well as the amount of time to wait before blow-drying the medium. It's important that the finished dry surface not reveal much convex contouring. The technique is meant to create a blurred illusion, not to create texture. I think the contrast between the sharply focused and blurred shapes is one of the hallmarks of my paintings."

[lagereek]

Ah, what BS!  just keep insulting people, keep giving them hell! so you end up at the Old-Bailey,  so what. Who cares.

[lisafx]

Thanks for posting the link to that follow up article on Luxenburg, Gbalex.  I remember the "moments in time" article and the controversy here when she was first discovered, but never heard any follow up. 

To anyone who actually saw the pictures and her "paintings" side by side there is absolutely no question they were not done freehand.  Each and every stray hair and wood grain was identical. 

[BaldricksTrousers]

The way in which the AWA side-stepped the question of whether it had been tricked into mistaking a print as a watercolour was ... interesting.

I'd love to know what happened over the "paintings" of a nude woman in a shower which had, shall we say, an extraordinary similarity to Iophoto's work .... all of which, I believe, has its copyright registered with the US Library of Congress. I've long suspected that there was some "non-disclosure" arrangement at the end of that little affair.

[RacePhoto]

The way in which the AWA side-stepped the question of whether it had been tricked into mistaking a print as a watercolour was ... interesting.

I'd love to know what happened over the "paintings" of a nude woman in a shower which had, shall we say, an extraordinary similarity to Iophoto's work .... all of which, I believe, has its copyright registered with the US Library of Congress. I've long suspected that there was some "non-disclosure" arrangement at the end of that little affair.

Yes to the last three or four messages. Denial was interesting and the dodging from all quarters to avoid more embarrassment was fun to watch.

Sad that people will go to these means to get attention or win a competition. Inside she knows the truth.

While there have been many others my ultimate favorite is Rosy Ruiz. I had to look, it was 1980 and she's still synonymous with sports cheaters. And more famous than many honorable and long retired people who are forgotten. Here's an older article but I can still remember the expose and the showing her faking the finish out of nowhere to win the Boston Marathon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/16/sports/backtalk-20-years-later-the-legend-of-rosie-ruiz-endures.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Luxenburg"I am passionate about becoming immersed in my complicated, time-consuming painting methods, and find the challenge of complexity to be very relaxing."

Please help me up off the floor, I'm going to hurt myself laughing.

Nice that a thread about controversy, to bring up questions, not answers, could turn into something that so many people agree upon.