Censorship or Copyright Infringement? Flickr Takes Down ‘Obama as Joker’ Photo

that’s insane to remove that photo
apparently, it’s been up for months and only recently was appropriated by the anonymous person who added the “socialism” banner.

search YouTube for how to Jokerize photos with Photoshop or The Gimp and you’ll find many tutorials… why is a political cartoon no longer okay if the subject is Obama?? I saw one editorial denouncing the image because Obama is in “white face”?????????? ummm, it’s the Joker: his face is white…. his eyes are black.. his hair is green… his lips are red (at least in the modern Dark Knight versions).

if he uploads the same image without the Time logo and it stays, then Flickr has an argument, but if they delete it again, then it’s censorship..

all politicians know they they will be the subject of parody and criticism, and adding Joker elements to a photo is a pretty harmless way to make a statement, or in this case, with the original photo, not the “socialism” one, no statement at all.

Fair Use.
The image is a parody and should be protected by the Fair Use principle both for using the copyrighted Time photo and the copyrighted Joker likeness. The argument for copyright would then only apply if, as the previous comment notes, the original spoof doesn’t have the ‘Socialism’ tag. Then this version might be infringing on the original parodist’s copyrights.

Freedom of Speech.
(continued from “Fair Use” and “The Death of Wit”)

As for removing the image, if there’s a copyright issue, Flickr is entirely within their rights to pull it down. Also, if for some other reason it doesn’t fit in with the policies of Flickr, they can pull it down. Flickr can set its own rules.

Sure, this is protected speech/expression. The Freedom of Speech guaranteed by the Constitution is precisely for this purpose. The right was undeniably established to — at a minimum — protect the right of a citizen to speak out politically, even if that means insulting the president.

(Sitting members of Congress compared Dubya to Hitler, for crying out loud, and they weren’t censored.)

But then, the Constitution is the basic rulebook for THE GOVERNMENT. Washington can’t censor the image. Your local police department can’t censor the image. But Flickr is a private business, not a branch of the government. (“Not yet!” I hear the Socialism-paranoid replying.)

Flickr may face the wrath of its user community for taking the image down. (My advice: Take a lesson from Whole Foods, folks, and keep your business politically neutral.) But they’re not stepping on anybody’s constitutional rights. It might be censorship, but if it’s a private business, it’s not illegal or unconstitutional.

Hmmm
They didn’t take down this one yet… http://www.flickr.com/photos/30040318@N08/2804385836/