robinsavonius @robinsavonius - Tumblr Blog

untitled on Flickr.

#staircase #canoneos70d #photographers on tumblr

THANK YOU VERY MUCH GREY-CARD

Top 5 of 2014

#photographers on tumblr #top 5

untitled on Flickr.

#photographers on tumblr #riverbank #sky #water #canon eos 70d #Aurajoki #Turku #finland

Reflections on Flickr.

#photographers on tumblr #bridge #reflections #river #aurajoki #canon eos 70d #Turku #finland

butisitartphoto

On Tumblr’s culture of ignoring the world’s creators

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I am constantly finding photos that I’ve taken re-posted by other blogs with credits and source removed. On one level, my inkling is to just accept it as the nature of the Tumblr beast. But why should I? Tumblr promotes itself as a tool to “follow the world’s creators.” Tumblr functions and profits solely upon the work of those creators. Why should the culture of Tumblr, then, be based upon obscuring the identity of those creators and upon removing their claim to their work? I have been extremely fortunate to have had photos that I’ve taken shared and promoted by many blogs devoted largely to sharing and promoting the work of others. But there are many blogs that function not by re-blogging, as the platform makes quite simple, but by intentionally reposting this work with the source obscured, in fact a greater effort than reblogging, as if keeping the source hidden somehow offers the blogger cachet and preserves a mystique of exclusivity about their tastes. These bloggers are then reblogged by a Tumblr culture that doesn’t value creators, perpetuating the theft. But that’s the nature of Tumblr, and we should just accept it, right? This can be stopped easily and simply. All the users from Tumblr have to do is stop reblogging material that is posted without a source. If unsourced images and content were not reblogged, the theft would end there. Instead, we have a culture where, in one instance, a photo stolen from my blog has been reposted without any credit to the receipt of 36,000 notes (and counting). I’m not a professional photographer. I take pictures for fun. Stealing these pictures from my blog doesn’t hurt my career. But there are plenty of creators on Tumblr whose product and livelihood is being taken along with their credit. People have contacted me through my blog for permission to use or publish even my amateur photos. How many of those requests did I miss because my credit was removed from a photo? How many opportunities has this practice cost the “world’s creators” as a whole? If Tumblr really wants to support the world’s creators, the culture here needs to step up and help the creators that keep the dashboards moving along every day. Tumblr bloggers often refer to themselves as “curators.” If you want that title,take the responsibility it implies and only reblog sourced content. If you reblog unsourced content you are complicit in theft. If you do not want to make the effort to avoid unsourced content, then you are not entitled to reblog. If you disagree, I’m interested to discuss the issue further.

Corey Goldberg

lensblr-network

Dear Corey,

We at the Lensblr-Network are in complete agreement with your thoughts and suggestions regarding the problem of theft of copyrighted work on Tumblr and are reblogging your post as a sign of support.

We have never knowingly posted material that wasn’t properly sourced but we have made a mistake or two among the 33 thousand plus photographs we have published and we are quick to own up to them and print a retraction as well as banning the blog (from our system) where we found the stolen material. As photographers there is not a member of our staff that hasn’t been affected by theft in some way or another on Tumblr and each member of our team diligently checks and rechecks photographs before they are published on Lensblr. We have made it clear to staff that if they are not certain, beyond a reasonable doubt, about the authenticity of a photo actually belonging to the blog owner we won’t publish it, period.

Unfortunately, relying on exif data to prove the authenticity is unreliable as not all photographers export it to file after any digital post production and it also wouldn’t apply to film scans and is not carried over on all accepted file formats used by Tumblr. Even searching Google for the image on the web can be frustrating and inconclusive.

Calling Tumblr Management out to try to find a solution, at least to this editor, seems to be the best course of action. I personally find it hard to believe that a solution can not be made available especially with all of the technology at our fingertips. We just landed a space vehicle on a comet but we can’t protect the photographers, who without their beautiful work, Tumblr would become a very boring place? I find the lack of attention to this problem by Tumblr distressing to say the least. Can we get a vote of confidence from our 1.845 million followers?

I hope so…

Cpleblow, Editor in Chief, Lensblr-Network

PS: I think the other major curation players should show their support by reblogging this as well! Luxlit? Gray-Card? The Photographers Society? Photosworthseeing? Photographers Directory? Biutiful Pics? Telescopical? And many, many, many more?

gray-card-deactivated20171221

Gray-Card understands that the bedrock tumblr is built on consists mostly of thieving 13 year olds with less than zero regard for copyright.

That said, Gray-Card strives to properly credit photographers and always welcomes correction when we screw up, which we do from time-to-time.

lensblr-network

Among the millions of blogs on Tumblr, only a small number are contributors of original content: “the world’s creators”

And if you’ve ever looked at Tumblr’s Explore Page you might notice that Photography is oddly absent.

There’s #design, #art, #architecture and even #artists on tumblr — but no mention of anything related to the art of taking pictures with a camera. Even #film is a trap — it’s for movies, not analog photography!

We don’t think this situation is acceptable. So let’s Fight it.

We’d like to ask all original photographers on Tumblr to start putting the #photographers on tumblr tag on every single photo you post.

Photographers deserve more recognition among the Creators on Tumblr. Hopefully, by using this tag we’ll help the entire community of Tumblr photographers get noticed — and maybe one day we will see that tag on the Tumblr Explore page too.

Reblog this post and spread the word.

Sincerely, Photographers on Tumblr