Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Pole Vaulting Jail Bait

Let’s see if I get this timeline right.

With Leather, a sports blog, posts pictures* along with some snarky commentary of high school pole vaulter and Olympic hopeful Allsion Stokke. The Stokke's lawyer contacts the blog and demands they take the photo down. They comply. The Stokkes talk a big game about respecting their privacy.

The next day, they give interviews to both The Washington Post and FOX News (on TV, no link). The original photographer responds by giving With Leather written permission to post the pictures. With Leather enthusiastically resposts the offending pictures, which really are nothing more than a high school girl pole vaulting.

Um, let’s try and pinpoint exactly where the Stokkes went from sympathetic victims of drooling computer geeks to publicity whores. Go. It's moments like that make the internet worthwhile. It's so meta, it makes my head hurt.

*Ed Note – I was going to post the pictures here, but I really don’t feel like getting sued. The Stokkes seems to be fans of suing people. So you have to click the link.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hate to be the bearer of bad IP news, but if anything IP related was the grounds upon which the Stokkes' were protecting that picture, then (and this is becoming a common theme on this blog) if you don't police it, you loose it. On the other hand, there is something to this whole "public domain" bullshit. Once you post something on the internet, it should become the property of the internet. When you feed yourself to the tiger, you shouldn't be surprised when you come out as shit on the other end.

Love,
Matt

Anonymous said...

By the way:

"anonymous said... Love," is a unregistered trademark owned and operated by Matt G.P. and anyone using such mark will be pursued to the fullest extent allowed by law. Deepest and kindest regards and have a nice day.

Love,
Matt

Anonymous said...

Matt,

A picture clearly falls under copyright. I don't remember any "police-ing" being necessary to retain a copyright. There is a notice issue to copyrights (putting the (c) on the material) that could result in losing a copyright. Otherwise once you have a copyright, you own it for your lifetime plus 75 years. But it has been a while since I took copyright.

Thomas said...

the chick is FINE