Notwithstanding my earlier comments about the availability of amateur photo reporting on the bombings today in London, it's important to point out that many of the pictures in this photostream are either screencaps from other media or out-and-out grabs from online mainstream media sources -- and of course, none of it has been paid for. This is so interesting because conceptually there's no difference between photo sharing services like Flickr and the music sharing services that are under attack from the recording industry -- they both facilitate the exchange of valuable digital information. The difference is in the way the two kinds of services are used: for whatever reason, there hasn't been the same culture of content theft in photography as there is in digital music.
Anyway I doubt anybody is going to go to war over these stolen photos, and I certainly don't expect to see a shift in Flickr, but the line between content creation and content is continuing to blur, and as usual it comes at the expense of mainstream media.
I guess conceptually there's no difference, but I think the word "valuable" does not equally apply to both. People who otherwise would purchase music on CD download it instead...I don't think there is the same market for photos. I'm sure that if the owners of the images stood to lose millions of dollars, they'd start to make a fuss.
Media owners are using millions if you think about it... theyr'e just not losing hundreds of millions like the recording industry. The mainstream media is having some serious problems these days because their paper sales are flagging and their advertising models for their online news is basically subsidised by that paper business. Stolen photos mean less traffic, which means less online ad revenue for an online busienss model that's already pretty much unsustainable.
Anyway, I think you're right that this effect is relatively small, but when you think about it cumulatively all this content appropriation is going to mean the end of mainstream media news if they don't find a new business model.
Of course a major shift is going on in terms of communications, and it has taken media conglomerates too long to catch up (too accustomed to ruling the world, I guess). My point is not so much that the effect is small, it's more that it is hard to measure, compared to the direct correlation between music downloads and lost CD sales.
The direction it has to head in is more accountability for the content creator by the content user. This could preserve and create new jobs and, considering how much time people spend perusing or creating content, the infrastructure and staiblity that comes with it is an important thing to have.
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