Art Theft: The Next Generation

I have been in the online art community a long time, a lot longer than I wish to admit. At my highest I belonged to thirty different online art communities, but at present I only participate in five of the original thirty and one that is new. I will be the first to admit that I am not very active, though my graduate program is most to blame for that, but I still go and check the sites daily to see what my fellow artists and writers are up to.  In the past weeks there have been a slew of journals talking about art theft and the tidal wave of it that was coming. I didn’t think it would be that bad since there have been times like these before, but with this latest up draft in art theft numbers, I’m beginning to notice a startling trend occurring.

The offenders don’t think that anything is wrong with what they’re doing.

If I walk into a store and pick a piece of candy up and walk out with it, that’s clearly defined as stealing. In the art community the same rules apply, but there are conditionals applied.

When I first started learning to draw I would sit at the computer for hours and pour through hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures. It was an inspiration breeding ground and the perfect place to let a beginner artist begin. I will be the first to admit that I printed out a great many pictures and copied them (not the direct tracing kind). It helped me learn anatomy and that a person should have a softly curving neck instead of a stiff rectangle. The different between what I did when I was a teen and what is going on currently is drastically different.

Most would agree this is a great way to first start out in addition to sketching from life, but I never broke the cardinal rule. I never claimed the drawings as my own and posted them online as such. It seems that the up and coming generation of artists is having a particularly difficult time grasping this concept, though I’m not sure where it becomes confusing for them.

Did you draw the original? No.

Did you at least give credit to the original artist? No.

Then why did you upload it as your own? Because I drew it.

This would be the point where I silently hit my head against the desk hoping to be smited by a lightning bolt.

Even if the artist understands you are trying to learn, if you don’t give credit you have destroyed one potential friendship and mentor. While most artist might spare thieves who give credit, you should run fast if they catch you without a link back to the original. It’s not the pressure even coming from the artist themselves that make it a deadly mistake. Most of the communities I belong to allow you to add friends and to post to each other’s journals and comment on artworks. If an artist has thousands of followers, which is considered popular on one board, you have now not only angered the artist, but their legion of followers. It’s a deadly position to be in.

The part I find harder to swallow is the absolute lack of caring on behalf of the thief. When they are caught they just shrug it off or try to make excuses. They might not know any better, but they do nothing to try and rectify the situation at hand.  I know it is not a lack of morals, and if not, is it the ready access to technology that is changing the current trend in the art world?

A good 75% of the artworks on only one site I visit are created purely from the computer. In past decades and centuries, artworks were created by hand, away from any sort of technology (unless you are talking about photography).  It was rare that the artwork would be seen by millions of people in the lifetime of the artist. In today’s’ world it’s easy to achieve tens of millions of eyes look at your pieces in only a few days.

There will always be art thievery in the world. I am not denying that, but we need broader education about what is acceptable and what should be avoided at all costs.

Cyber Warfare: Protecting yourself while everyone is watching

Picture this scenario: You have just completed your company’s website. It looks perfect and works beautifully. You upload it to your server and marvel at it’s beauty before you retire for the evening. The next thing you know you’re receiving a call at 3am saying that the site has been taken over by hackers and they’ve stolen the database of users and passwords and posted it for all to see. Needless to say your beautifully constructed website was just undone in a matter of hours for sport.
Hackers 1 – You 0

This is becoming more of a reality as the days pass. Internet security has increased, but so has the tenacity of the hacker culture. Normally it’s done just for sport to see who can crack something first, most notable were the site attacks after The Pirate Bay ruling where different hacker groups were all too proud to claim the attacks were there. In these cases, hacking can gain fame and notoriety with their antics with those against such sites, but they are still committing harmful acts then when used in other contexts can lead to disreputable harm.

Instead of a community that only resides in the physical world, we have spread onto the Internet creating a dual society, but this digital world is far more dangerous than the one we wake to see everyday.

We put our lives on the web. We do our online banking through websites, we send money through the use of payment sites, we sign up for numerous accounts to different sites, and we share copious amounts of information we would never share with our best friend. Hackers don’t care about the creed of the person or how good and humble they may be and from personal experience, they definitely do not care what type of site they attack.

Two years ago I was checking on my local Anime Convention for a friend, when suddenly the site went blank. After refreshing numerous times, the site was back, but had been attacked by radical group spouting off ideologist about racism and how we shall all burn for our love of cartoons.  Why on earth would you attack a website devoted to anime? What was the point?

Even though I did not see a point at the time, I definitely do now. If they are practicing with what ordinary people would consider the small fish, what could they accomplish against government agencies that are housed on the web? Imagine in the next few years if we, and we most likely will, see more viruses, worms, and trojans appear. This type of warfare is only to increase with little basis for it to slow down. A physical bomb can take lives and leave destruction, but so can the loss of your identity to hackers.

Tinkering Not Allowed

Often times I wonder what Jonathon Zittrain would say about the appearance of the Apple vs. The World fight that is gearing up. I have personally never seen the admiration for one company crumble so fast and to such a great degree in all my life. The reason for the whole debacle is two fold, but both parts play an equally big part.

Apple’s “handing “of their prototypes and their love of a closed system.
It seems like this cut off one of Apple’s mighty limbs more than the other, but I’ll save that for later. The way that everything has gone down in the case from the Apple employee leaving the prototype at a bar, to Apple requesting the police arrest those involve, which led to broken down doors and a fan base that quickly backed off. What are we, the consumer, to do when a company that we own products from shows just how anti-intelligence they really are?

They made the next generation of the iPhone and then let one of their engineers out with it, but things are so mixed up that more people believe that Apple engineered this whole debacle as a publicity stunt rather than it having actually happened by accident. Conspiracists love their conspiracies and no company has had quite as many in recent years as Apple. Though I have to wonder if it is only natural to speculate on the things that we are unable to touch.

Apple has such a vice grip on the control of it’s products and what it sells that they make Nurse Ratched look like the Teletubbies…though the latter could be seen as just as evil, but I digress. They don’t want their consumers adding their own parts to their shiny and sleek computers. Are you tired of yours overheating and want to put in a high RPM fan? Sorry, that’s all but impossible.  Even if you were to do it, it would completely void your warranty and any Apple Care you purchased on your machine. Well if not the computers, surely you can modify your iPod? Try again. It is impossible to get music from your iPod to your computer, but of course you can put it on there. At least they allow you the small concession of being able to play music that is not bought from iTunes…

They claim that this forever-closed system helps keep their customers safe. It is true there are fewer viruses on Macs than PCs, but PC owners make up 85% of the computer world, if not more. All this really does is frustrate their users and creators who want to make something for their platform.

Apple blew up at Adobe over their latest tool that would allow users to port Flash games and applications over into a native iPhone browser, but as soon as it was revealed, Apple quickly changed their TOS to say that only apps developed in strict coding language would be allowed. They keep claiming that Flash kills battery life and lead to poor performance, but something I read last week made me truly question the validity of this statement. Yes, flash is a battery drainer, but I never used to notice it as much on my PC as I do now on my Mac. The article I read explained that on PCs Flash is able to access deeper into the machine in order to draw power from alternate sources so as to not tax the battery life.

If that’s the case, why does my Mac only last maybe an hour on a fully charged battery when watching YouTube? Answer: Mac will not allow Adobe access to the core of their machines and their processes.  It is hard to develop a stable player and software that should function properly if you limit the access it can achieve. Flash developers are good at what they do, but they could be better if allowed the ability to at least try, regardless of the hype over the breeches in security that could happen.

I will fully admit that I love my Mac. It’s my best friend, but I would like to be able to modify it to meet my means beyond what Apple says I can. It is in our nature to create and modify and innovate, but that ability is suppressed in many of us today because we are not allowed to think outside of the box. The Internet has helped significantly with allowing us to generate our own content, especially visual artwork and blogs. Common people outside of the news agencies are creating the news and others are reading their words. The Internet created a culture of tinkers and ponderers. We have the right to question and to explore.

Be Careful About What You Do, Say and Post

We live in an age of information. A whole world of knowledge, visuals and even the occasional YouTube wait for us on the web. We are a connected society, hurtling ever more towards a society that is always on. Is it even possible to go a day without once looking at our phones? I know I can’t because I am actually yell at by my father if my phone is not on and charged at all times, but when I need time to myself I can turn off the phone and throw it into the laundry basket, forgetting for a few blissful hours that it’s my only link to the would outside of my apartment.

But what if you couldn’t turn those images or information off, or how about the most embarrassing or saddening moment of your entire life? Within today’s society our privacy is no longer just ours to guard.  We must hope that the ethics of others hold up and that their better judgment will happen before they decided to hit the “post” button, but in one tragic case, the moral compass on what is acceptable to share went into a tailspin.

For the Nikki Catsouras family, there is no time when they are not reminded of the day their daughter died in a car accident. It’s even harder to forget when images of the aftermath of the crash were splashed all over the Internet. These are the types of photos that no family should ever have to spend the rest of their lives trying to avoid and to have them taken down from sites.  Their privacy was violated as soon as two California High Patrol shared photos of the crash investigation with other officers by email. A normal person would say they had questionable morals, but a judge recently declared that the two officers were guilty of negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The court stated: “We rely upon the CHP to protect and serve the public. It is antithetical to that expectation for the CHP to inflict harm upon us by making the ravaged remains of our loved ones the subject of Internet sensationalism. . . . O’Donnell and Reich owed the plaintiffs a duty not to exploit CHP-acquired evidence in such a manner as to place them at foreseeable risk of grave emotional distress.”

These men were in charge of keeping the family’s privacy so they would not become what they have today. Their daughter is the butt of sick jokes and the fantasies of morally questionable individuals.  Even though they are fighting to have the pictures taken down, I do not believe they will ever be rid of them. The Internet is the size of the universe and when things are removed from one location, they inevitably pop up in another. In some ways I admit that this blog post is even a slight against the family’s privacy. People will search for Nikki’s name after reading it here and continue the never-ending cycle.

If our privacy cannot be protected even after our deaths, how can we even hope to think we can remain private in life when we have the ability to speak out?

There might be a small ray of hope in this dark tale of caution. On January 7, 2008, Meredith Emerson’s dismembered and unclothed body was found in the north Georgia mountains six days after she suddenly disappeared. It has taken two years, but the family of Meredith was finally giving the ruling that would spare the anguish felt by the Catsouras family. A Georgia Superior Court Judge issued a temporary restraining order barring Hustler magazine from acquiring the gruesome crime scene photos and not a day later the Georgia House Government Affairs Committee passed “The Meredith Emerson Memorial Privacy Act”. The passage of this law prohibits gruesome crime scene photos from being releases or disseminated.

Now, the bill does allow official members of the press to go to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to view the photos, but under no circumstances are they allowed to make copies. Why Hustler magazine would even want to print the photos is beyond me, but they are adamant that they should have the right to view and copy the images. I guess no one at the magazine has ever been on the receiving end of an Internet meme depicting the decapitated body of a family member.

What we have to look at concerning these two cases is the effects that will carry on after. Journalists that is will cause a chilling effect and no one will even want to cover the stories, which in turn will not provide their readers with adequate information, but do we really need to see such photos to learn that there is a sick individual out there who has already done this to one girl? The press has printed such photos before, most notably of “The Black Dahlia” a.k.a. Elizabeth Short. Short’s naked, dismembered and mutilated body was photographed and printed in papers for the world to see, but there is one key difference: there was no Internet at the time.

While it was still a shameless invasion of privacy on behalf of the press, those photos could not be shared around the world in less than a day and most likely not less than a month if they deemed it necessary to share the story across the country. I will be the first to agree that our society has become overly censored and politically correct, but I draw the line way before the belief that crime scene and autopsy photos should be shared openly in the Sunday paper.

DRM: Digital Restrictions Management

Those invested in the technology industries know the term very well, but it is rare to find many outside of that field whom can accurately explain was DRM is and how it is implemented. DRM: we have often heard the acronym passed around idly in conversation or heard expressed on the news in relation to a story, but how much of this acronym do we really know or understand? Digital Rights Management, otherwise known as DRM, is a term attributed to numerous and varied access control technologies that can be used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals in order to impose limitations on the usage of digital content and devices. Upon first glance DRM seems to be the solution to many problems facing certain industries that deem it necessary to protect their content with such a heavy hand, but in reality the use of DRM is the cause of more problems than solutions. In order to understand how a seemingly good-natured technology can be the cause of major problems, it is imperative to look at how DRM works.

DRM works by controlling the access one has to the digital content or item that is was implemented on. There is no solitary way in which DRM is utilized. It can be used to limit the devices digital content can be played on, who can access the information and/or content and even dictate when the consumer can use the product they purchased. In one of the most well known examples, Apple chose to use DRM in their iTunes Music Store and the subsequent Movie, Book, TV Show and App stores. Negating the personal feelings of this author about DRM, this move by Apple was a very intelligent and savvy use of the technology. At a time when there were multiple competing online music stores and competing MP3 devices, Apple needed and edge over the competition.  Their use of DRM only allowed purchased products to be used on their iPods, iPhone and other mobile devices produced by them. This easily defeated the competition because of the sheer size of the iTunes store and the eye-catching technology of their products.

They broke away from the pack and today iTunes the number one online entertainment content downloading platform. Apple kept DRM on their music tracks until the beginning of 2009; it was deemed no longer necessary since competition was nonexistent. Although customers are now free to do whatever they want with their purchased music, they are not allowed to do the same with the other media they purchase from iTunes, such as audiobooks. Author, blogger and columnist Cory Doctorow discovered this first hand in his battle to release a DRM free audio version of his latest book “Makers”. It was the wish of Doctorow, the author, to have DRM removed from the book, but Apple staunchly refused.  In the end, the good deed Apple achieved by releasing iTunes music from DRM has been partially eclipsed by their need to keep it on everything else they offer in their online store.

DRM is constantly in consumers’ lives. If they are unaware of it’s impact, they need only turn over a DVD case and read the region code. DVD region codes are another type of DRM that is rarely thought about in these same terms, but the effect the code has on the playability of the DVD limits consumer access to their merchandise. If an individual in the UK (region 2) buys a movie from the US (region 1), they would be unable to play their purchased DVD due to the difference in codes. Region 2 DVD players can only play their prescribed codes and no other. This is another technique employed by companies to retain control over their content by deciding what countries are able to receive which DVDs and on what dates they will be released.

DRM technologies have been around since the late 1980s and have continuously proven why they are, in most cases, ineffective, yet the controversy still continues. Just recently Ubisoft, a well-known video gaming company, released updated DRM technologies with their game Silent Hunter 5. This newest implementation requires players of the game to maintain a constant connection with the Internet during game play in order for the game to function. Members of a popular Silent Hunter gaming forum Subsim were asked their opinions on Ubisoft’s decision and results were definitely not what Ubisoft would have imagined.

Of the 1,237 users who responded, 84.56% said they would put their planned purchase of the game on hold or cancel their order entirely if the new DRM was not removed. Only 15.44% said this new development would not hinder their purchase of the game. “This will be the second time I have forfeited a game I am passionate about because the DRM system won’t let me own the game after I have paid for it,” one user responded. This statement mirrors countless others on the forum who also proclaimed their dislike for Ubisoft’s newest innovation. While Ubisoft’s might have thought their new DRM would decrease piracy, not a day later the game was cracked and available on the Internet without the intrusive technology. In the end they only served to alienate their customers and drive them further towards piracy instead of steering them away.

Through the decades since DRM technologies were introduced, companies have refused to abandon the wasted time and effort it requires to be developed. Sony Music learned the hard way when they couples popular CDs with their version of DRM software “Sony RootKit”. This decision would become one of the biggest blunders in history in regards to DRM. Upon insertion of a CD from Sony, the software would be installed automatically, and usually without the customers’ knowledge or permission. The Sony RootKit was later found to be an access point that malware and viruses could easily exploit, often harming the customers computer in the process. Sony lost in nearly all of the lawsuits filed as a result, were required to pay damages and had their DRM technology ruled as illegal.

As the examples written here have shown, controversy is no stranger to DRM, but with that said, it is more remarkable that there have only been a limited amount of studies conducted in regards to this topic. Writers and have publicly stated their opinions and there are decades old studies examining the effectiveness of DRM, but with the evolution of technology, it is advisable that new studies be performed and old ones revisited. Due to the recent development of Ubisoft’s DRM, it would be strongly suggested to conduct a formal study on the effectiveness of DRM in the gaming industry. With the informal Subsim poll garnering a heavily one-sided response against the use of DRM, it would be interesting to see how a formal study done on a large scale would conclude. There are companies other and Ubisoft using DRM, but not everything is known about their technologies or how they choose which ones to implement on their games. Yes, a major reason game companies rely on the fossilized remains of DRM is to offer themselves some small protecting against the growing digital piracy culture, but investigations should be made into other reasons as well.

It may seem as though DRM is limited to music and movies, but in the past two years it is has managed to be applied to digital books as well. eReaders were first invented with the idea that they could replace the increasing weight and price of college textbooks. A student would only need to purchase a reader and then could buy a digital format of the book at a much lower cost than a hardcover book. Instead of spreading across college campuses, the technology was adopted and reworked by numerous booksellers in the hopes that regular consumers would find the idea of having the equivalent of a small bookcase in one portable handheld device appealing. Amazon was one of the first with their Kindle, then followed Sony’s eReader, Barnes and Noble’s Nook and now Apple’s iPad. Of the ones mentioned, only the Sony eReader allows the consumer to purchase books from multiple sources for use on the reader. The other devices have a strict coupling with their online stores and do not allow for cross device sharing. If an individual owns a Kindle and wishes to transfer their books onto the iPad, they will find it impossible without hacking both devices and the subsequent book files. Instead, they are forced to buy the same books from Apple’s online bookstore if they are to be read on the iPad.

In regards to the ethical conundrum detailed in the eReader world, research into the fairness of DRM device coupling would be a high priority. We have seen the growth of Apple’s iTunes over the years because it was coupled with only their products and no other. They have virtually no competition now in terms of digital music sales and their only competition at the time was Microsoft’s Zune MP3 player. It is evident their business model in the early days of the iTunes store was a success, because the Zune vanished for nearly five years and is only now seeing a slight resurgence. Is it truly ethical to allow a company to use such techniques to eliminate all opposing competition until none remain? What areas of the law could they possibly be in violation of because of these practices?

In conclusion, it is highly debatable as to whether or not DRM technologies are still needed or relevant in today’s current digital climate. Out of the cases examined in this paper, only one began as a positive outcome and worked in favor of the company, where all the others are only serve to frustrate consumers to a greater degree. It is time to retire DRM and look towards the next evolution; outdated technology deserves to be put to rest.