I didn't interpret the tone as smugness so much as someone who's tired of having people illegally use his images and then try to argue with him about it.
His tone doesn't even come off even as just barely smug.
My take has been people who work with code build up a view of copyright that is completely biased by the way open source model works. A model where sharing everything benefits your peers, because most people using open source will generally make their living off of products or services that are built using those tools.
The end result of photography is not a tool, it is an original creative work that is how professional photogrpahers make their living. Besides the very limited scope of fair use there is no general benefit for the community to be able to freely use the creative works of others who have licensed that work as All Rights Reserved other than to be a cheapskate.
He doesn't want you to take his position personally. He does want you to pay for using his work, and gives plenty of reasonable justification why. If he's coming off as smug, then I imagine it's because he's dealt with people/entities that feel that infringing his work is a benign act when it takes a big financial toll on him.
I liked the tone: "just the facts, ma'am" simply doesn't work in this case, mostly because of the tone of the questions - which is 100% accurate.
His answers may be a little snarky and sarcastic, but the questions he is answering properly represent the attitude and tone of the people who use creative work without permission.
It's hard. When something is easy to reproduce, it's easier for humans to devalue it. "It's just a photo/mp3/movie/tv-show"...
The problem is while things like oil and food and human labor are physically scare, information is not, and not because that information was easy to initially create, but just as a matter of fact, it is terribly easy to reproduce.
It might have more to do with psychology than anything.
We may be smug about it and criticise his business model, saying "he should give his image for free and charge for making custom picture or work for the BBC or another imaginary plan based on whatever works in our field".
But that should not be difficult for us to understand the value and the work there is behind a single picture. That's too similar to making a small fortune writing code which is what most of us are doing here.
It is not easy to reproduce capturing beauty. If the product is information than any random bits will do. What we care about is aesthetic bits, which his is the provider of.
Look, for most people here, we understand that something like the linux kernel took decades of man hours, if not a century by now. However, it's trivially easy to copy the result of those years of effort, even if the initial effort wasn't that easy, as I hint in my post. It turns out that such copying is legal and desired by the original authors, as it is much easier for them than it is for artist; still, it is a fact that the product is easy to reproduce while the act is not. This is at the heart of this whole conflict between the content-creators and the content-consumers today.
The matter of fact is that artificial[0] constraints on the product of such creations are the best method we have developed to ensure that the creators continue to be paid for their work, and I'm not sure of another, feasible way. Things like generous benefactors, be them individuals, institutions, or governments, are too few and not with enough capital to support enough creators without selling their products.
If anyone has a better idea, they could revolution history forever. Apart from Copyrights, Trademarks, and Patents, however, I know of no other way that will work.
[0]when I say artificial, I am speak matter-of-factly, not to offend anyone. The interesting thing is such talent and experience needed to produce such works is scarce, it's just the product isn't.
>The product is easy to reproduce while the act is not.
The act is getting easier and easier to reproduce, up to a certain basic level - which seems to be good enough for commercial purposes.
The arts have seen an unbelievable explosion of activity. There are more people writing, making art and music, taking photos, creating code, and everything else besides, than ever before - not just by a little, but by an astronomical amount.
The problem is that most of the work is eh-okay. Average-and-worse mediocrity is very easy to fine. Basic entertaining competence is less common, but still not rare.
And that seems to be all most consumers want - hence the success of 50 Shades of Grey, Twilight, and the rest, and their equivalents in other media.
In the past, culture was good at distilling out the extreme talent, so historically the arts have amassed a fine collection of game-changing geniuses, while allowing the eh-okay creators to drop into oblivion.
It's Salieri vs Mozart - commercially Mozart was the loser while alive, but not so much a few centuries later.
Today it's harder to find a Mozart because the modern equivalent is probably working for an ad agency, and has limited time to produce truly game-changing genius-level work.
And it might not sell anyway. And it would probably get lost in the noise even if it did sell.
The answer is probably the much-discussed living wage. Let everyone who wants to make art get on with making art full time, without having to worry about starving or being homeless.
Most of it will suck, some of it will be okay, a little of it will be jaw-droppingly awesome.
tl:dr; It's the socially-enforced dogma that art exists primarily for profit that causes the problems. Get rid of that, and a lot of the issues go away.
I'm sympathetic to his cause. Imagine having your work stolen and having to deal with this for years. It would be very disheartening work. It looks like he's trying to only go after those that are using his images to make money. If that's the case, they most certainly should pay for the service that he has provided.
In that case the value of a digital copy with of one of his photographs in full resolution with commercial license is about $350 (or more). That's what he charges and "The Market" is evidently willing to pay that.
I don't find it smug at all. I work in film, and whether I'm on set or writing a screenplay I make my business to know my responsibilities in regards to other people's copyrights and trademarks. And this is at the low-budget end, I don't collect a fat salary for rubber-stamping clearance forms or anything like that. I do the research, I write and ask for permission or information about authorship, and if I don't the reply I hoped for then I shelve the idea or rethink it. As a creator, I have a responsibility to treat the creative work of others with the same respect that I would like them to treat mine.
Yes, it's often tedious and frustrating, and involves hours of work that I'd rather spend writing or photographing new material. On the other hand, I don't live in fear of demand letters.
It is well-known and well-documented that our ability to infer tone from electronic communications is poor, so your chances of being correct in judging his tone are not much over 50%: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239121
That's better than chance, but not really enough to pass judgment on someone. This may be why you have been downvoted. It may also be that others read his tone (with 56% accuracy) differently.
The tone of this message is meant to be neutral and informative.
I disagree but don't understand why you were down voted... it seems that others disagree and think that's who they should express themselves. Maybe they are smug?
Criticizing tone is one of the least productive ways to engage with an idea. It doesn't address the idea itself, and perception of tone is very subjective, so it stimulates an exchange of opinions, which is not what we want to read in the HN comments.
Refer to DH2 in "How to Disagree" by Paul Graham (2008) http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html (not that this is a disagreement... but the article is still relevant)
Perhaps the commenter I replied to above wasn't interested in engaging with the idea. Maybe he just wanted to express his displeasure with the tone. Not every interaction is going to be the type of interaction you expect (i.e. "engaging with an idea"). Sometimes, critiques of written works have to do with the tone. There is nothing wrong with that.
The reason that comment got down voted and the reason I got down voted had nothing to do with PG'S 2008 post. It had everything to do with an abrasive community...
Yet, as my old man used to say, "Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and only the pigs like it." So it is on HN...
Evidently the law is on his side, but reading the way this page is written makes me wish that it weren't.