It would appear to be a victory. Last week, we here at the Copyright Alliance reported on a brazenly infringing web site, a site that encouraged people to upload professional images over which they held no legal rights. These images were then published on the site in magazine form. The magazine was called Pilfered Magazine, a cheeky name chosen by the founders to trumpet their approach, namely the encouragement of the infringement of visual artists’ rights.

Now the founders of the site have taken down the infringing images, and write they are “re-imagining our perspective” and only encouraging submissions from those owning rights to the images.

In the last week, the visual arts community unleashed fury upon the site. Look at some of the comments on our blog; those were repeated ten fold on Pilfered’s site. It’s interesting that not only did the Pilfered founders take down the infringing images, they also took down the hundreds — yes hundreds — of messages of infuriation posted by visual artists over the last week on their sites. Several of those comments were from IP lawyers, citing all of the illegal activities of the founders. Those founders appeared at real legal risk.

They of course still are, for what they have been doing the last few months. Still, it is a plus that going forward, they claim they will not encourage or support infringement.

Let me quote a few passages from the sole page they now have posted at their web site (the page displays a photograph, let’s hope they have permission to display it):

With respect to our community, we would like to announce that we are officially re-imagining our perspective. Our hopes are to give you a better, more inclusive and suitable place where you can continue to be inspired and participate in creating content.

In pursuit of this endeavor, we would like to continue receiving your suggestions and encourage you to help us build this platform by submitting only copyrighted and permission based content.

What has surfaced in the last week is that some of the founders of this site currently participate in various ways as professionals in the visual arts industry. It hardly behooved them to alienate that community, potentially costing them money and professional opportunities, and most certainly costing them respect, for an enterprise from which they were (not yet) profiting.

In their newly proposed form, of course, Pilfered will find itself in competition with many print and online sites that are permission-based. Will they be able to attract the same quality of images they were posting without permission? Perhaps, it will be interesting to see. I would think, however, that the name of the magazine might not be attractive to professional photographers, nor the publishers’ track record in this area.

The publishers said their site was a poke in the eye to the man. Their tag line was “by the people, for the people,” although a more correct phrase would be “by select professionals, for everyone without the professionals’ permission or compensation.” One founder said Pilfered was a modern Robin Hood (see the third comment on this third-party blog that still posts some of the Digital Utopian rhetoric of the founders) although Robin Hood stole from a ruler ruthlessly taxing helpless citizenry, not talented photographers simply looking to exercise their rights in the pursuit of earning a living.

We can embrace the events of the last week as a sign that pressure from individual artists and creators can prevail against infringement. But we also must recognize that some infringers won’t cave as quickly.

Last week I wrote that I found it hard to believe the founders really, truly, meant everything they said in their Digital Utopian rants. The whole Free Culture language was too stereotyped. The fact that they are “re-imagining” their “perspective” suggests that their ideology could bend when faced with the realities of copyright law and liability.

The challenge increases when the infringers do put ideology ahead of legal risk. We see this often outside the U.S., in jurisdictions that aren’t as likely to have authorities take action, as the Swedish legal system did against The Pirate Bay.

But enough dark talk. As those of us in D.C. dig ourselves out from two feet of snow, it is sunny here today. Those of us who care about creators’ rights also can bask in some virtual sunlight, light that penetrated one dark cloud. Let us enjoy the warmth for a bit before we turn to the next patch of black sky.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 10:47 am by Patrick Ross and is filed under blogging, copyright law, creators, licensing, p2p, piracy, property rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.