SEATTLE — Here we go again.

At the end of the Federal Trade Commission Town Hall here on digital rights management at the University of Washington School of Law, during the time the FTC had set aside for audience ranting — I mean feedback — an FTC official read a question from someone watching the webcast. The question? To what extent is the FTC taking into account photographers when they think about DRM and regulation? The answer was blunt and honest. The FTC isn’t.

That prompted me to line up for an open microphone, something I had no intention of doing since I had already said my piece as a panelist. But I couldn’t let photographers be dissed yet again.

I pointed out that we have many individual photographers in our one voi(c)e network, and many organizations as well, such as the American Society of Media Photographers, the Professional Photographers of America, the Professional School Photographers Association, and the Picture Archive Council of America.

The lifeblood of the photography industry is licensing, I said. And the only way to do licensing properly in the digital age is to give photographers tools to manage their digital rights. I pointed out that photographers use technologies to mark their photos digitally and track them online, watching for infringement. I pointed out that photographers use technologies to make it more difficult to scan or otherwise duplicate photos, such as school photographers who send samples of the photos home to mom and dad for review.

It’s imperative that the FTC think about photographers if they are to take any action on DRM beyond individual enforcement against bad actors. Regulation intended to go after major players such as motion picture makers, videogame developers or other large industries would inevitably harm photographers as well, and these are by and large individuals engaging in specific licensing transactions with individuals or organizations.

I implored the FTC to try and see the broader picture, to see all of the various creators producing copyrighted works today, and all of the creative ways they use technologies to manage their rights. For what it’s worth, I saw a lot of nodding heads. It may have been the first time these officials thought of photographers, but at least they were likely thinking the right way.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 11:44 am by Patrick Ross and is filed under FTC, creators, drm, events, licensing, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.