skittles – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Photographer Successfully DMCAs Trump Jr.'s Skittles Image

So, just last week, we wrote about how David Kittos, a refugee from Cyprus now living in the UK, had taken the photograph of a bowl of Skittles that Donald Trump Jr. had used in a tweet about banning refugees. Kittos said he was thinking about taking legal action, but said he wasn’t sure he had the patience for it. But, of course, thanks to US copyright law, if you want something to disappear, you don’t have to go through a whole litigation process, you can just use the DMCA. And that’s exactly what David Kittos did (first noticed by The Washington Post, which may have a paywall).

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== Description of original work: Photography of a bowl of Skittles from my flickr library which was copied WITHOUT my permssion

== Links to original work: https://www.flickr.com/photos/david\_kittos/\[REDACTED\]/

—

== Reported Tweet URL: https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/\[REDACTED\]\[REDACTED\]

== Description of infringement: The image of a bowl of skittles is mine and has always been set as “ALL RIGHTS RESERVED” in my flickr library It was copied and is being used WITHOUT my permission. I have never been contacted by Donald Trump Jr or any representative about the image, before of after it was used in the Tweet.

——-

And it worked:

Now, of course, there’s a question of whether or not Trump Jr. will file a counternotice, and then if Kittos would actually follow through with a lawsuit. I’m guessing neither will happen, but who really knows? There’s a possible, but not really that strong, argument that Trump Jr.’s usage was fair use. And it does seem like Kittos’ takedown is much more about his objection to the speech, rather than the possible infringement — and, once again, that suggests it’s another example of using copyright to censor speech someone doesn’t like. As I made clear, I think the Skittles analogy is incredibly stupid (and racist), but that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with using copyright to silence it.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, david kittos, dmca, donald trump jr., fair use, skittles, takedwon
Companies: twitter

from the 2016-is-quite-a-year dept

As you may have heard, earlier this week, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out a ridiculous image comparing Syrian refugess to poisoned Skittles. No, really.

FWIW, this is an old and a dumb and meaningless meme. It’s not always Skittles, though. Last year failed Presidential contender Mike Huckabee used the same concept, but with Peanuts — and John Oliver mocked him for it, noting that “peanuts themselves have killed far more people than terrorist refugees.” Another version involved M&Ms, and it was used by a variety of groups — including a feminist “Yes All Women” campaign. Some are arguing that the switch from M&Ms to Skittles is even more racist, because it’s based on the fact that when Trayvon Martin was shot dead by George Zimmerman, Martin had a pack of Skittles in his pocket. And, of course, the Intercept argues that this meme goes all the way back to a top Nazi propagandist making sure that the meme is sufficiently Godwined.

But… of course, most of that has little to do with what we normally cover around these parts. But what we do often cover is copyright related issues — so it’s interesting to find out that the image used in that Skittles graphic that Trump Jr. posted was copied from Flickr, where it pretty clearly has an “all rights reserved” copyright notice on it. Oh, and the guy who took the photo, David Kittos, happens to be a former refugee himself, who is not at all pleased that his image is being used in this manner.

“This was not done with my permission, I don’t support his politics and I would never take his money to use it,” Mr Kittos told the BBC.

“In 1974, when I was six-years old, I was a refugee from the Turkish occupation of Cyprus so I would never approve the use of this image against refugees.”

So, yeah. But what can he do? Well, apparently he’s considering taking legal action, though he (rightly) notes that that may be a hassle:

“I would like the Trump campaign to delete the image, but they are probably not interested in what I have to say,” he said.

“I was thinking about getting lawyers involved but I don’t know if I have the patience.

“This isn’t about the money for me. They could have just bought a cheap image from a micro stock library. This is pure greed from them. I don’t think they care about my feelings. They should not be stealing an image full stop.”

While I might disagree on the use of the term “stealing an image” there, it certainly could create an interesting copyright legal battle — raising serious questions about fair use in political discussions. Thankfully, though, it seems unlikely that any lawsuit will actually happen. Instead, we can just sit back and think about the number of meetings and conversations that must have happened before Mars Inc., makers of Skittles, decided to put out this statement:

Skittles are candy; refugees are people. It’s an inappropriate analogy.

Indeed. But is it copyright infringement…?

Filed Under: copyright, david kittos, donald trump jr., memes, refugees, skittles

DailyDirt: Be Careful What You Ask For

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The internet can be a rather dangerous place to ask people for suggestions. This is especially true for big brands and pop singers (eg. Taylor Swift’s promotional contest that voted for her to play at the Horace Mann school for the deaf) who have a significant number of haters just waiting for an opportunity to troll. Marketing folks have been trying out some experiments in gathering “user generated content” from the internet, and here are a few of cases that didn’t go quite as well as planned.

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: advertising, brands, campaigns, coke, crowdsourcing, marketing, share a coke, skittles, ugc, user generated content
Companies: coca cola, mcdonald's, twitter