The plaintiff, Kai Eiselein of Idaho, posted the photo to Flickr back in 2009. You can see it here. It shows a female soccer player with a ball apparently hitting her head. BuzzFeed ran a compilation called “The 30 Funniest Header Faces,” which included the photo in question. The compilation has now become the “The 29 Funniest Header Faces“.

Industry watcher Jeff John Roberts at PaidContent shares the complaint:

As noted in the complaint, “A copyright notice appears on each page where the photograph appears, along with the phrase ‘All rights reserved’. In addition, right clicking on the image brings up a copyright notice.”

“The photograph was registered with the United States Copyright Office on June 25, 2011 as part of a collection of photographs taken by the plaintiff,” it says.

While the complaint says that the plaintiff sent BuzzFeed a takedown notice, and that the photograph then “disappeared from the collection,” it also says that BuzzFeed failed to remove the image from its server, so it was still available via URL. It also asserts that BuzzFeed is responsible for 61 “contributory infringements” because of other sites that picked up the image after seeing it on BuzzFeed. SItes are listed in the complaint.

BuzzFeed has historically claimed fair use on things like this, suggesting that its compilations are transformative.

The complaint makes points to say that BuzzFeed has millions of monthly visitors and “uses this fact to help convince potential advertisers to place ads on the BuzzFeed site in hopes that the ad will get a ‘viral lift’ from the content being shared and reach a wider audience,” that it “actively encourages its users to share content, regardless of whether or not that content is owned by, or licensed to, BuzzFeed,” that the plaintiff is “an award winning photographer,” and that Getty Images had requested the image in question for licensing.

“The plaintiff feels the marketability of the image has been irretrievably damaged by the scope of the infringement and has not agreed to Getty’s request,” it says.

It’s also worth noting that the BuzzFeed compilation does not link to or credit any of the image sources. One has to wonder if a suit would have been pursued had this been the case, or even if BuzzFeed simply removed the image from its server after receiving a takedown request.

Either way, some are skeptical about Eiselein’s case. Roberts, for example, writes, “It’s unlikely that the self-represented photographer ‘contributory infringement’ theory will succeed on a legal basis,” but adds, “If he does, the case would throw a large chill over the sharing culture that has become a fixture of the social web. More likely, the case will just show once again how traditional copyright law — and its frequently abused enforcement tools — is ill-fitted for the digital age.”

Andrew Beaujon at Poynter points to comments from copyright attorney (and Verge managing editor) Nilay Ptel, who said, “the common etiquette of the Internet is not reflected in the law.”

Beaujon adds, “That inconvenience may for once be to BuzzFeed’s advantage.”

It will be interesting to see what comes of this case, as it could have some pretty big ramifications for not only how BuzzFeed operates, but for how many sites on the web do.

This also comes at a time when Google is making publishers think they should probably not be using stock photos if they want to rank in search.

Are you doing it yet?

What you’ll find is a wonderful little Easter Egg from Google, who have turned the image search results for the classic Atari game into a fun little game of their own. Each time you complete a level, Google auto-generates another set of image results for you to bust. From our experience, it’s usually some sort of food like “milkshake” or dog like “mastiff.”

Once you’re done busting up image blocks, you can share your high score on Google+. The game, while fun, doesn’t get any harder as you progress. So there will be some really high scores to beat, I’m sure.

Atari’s Breakout first launched back in April of 1976, which means that it’s currently 37 years old. Nearly four decades old, simple as can be, but still addicting as hell – as any great arcade game should be.

Link for the lazy.

When the News Feed goes live, users will see the News Feed appear in the top right corner of the screen. All of the feeds will be organized based upon how much a user utilizes them with the most used feeds appearing near the top.

So, what kind of feeds can we expect to see? The first is the “All Friends Feed” that lists every post from every friend in chronological order. As rumored, Facebook will provide a redesigned “Music Feed” and “Photo Feed” as well. The “Music Feed” will show what musicians are posting alongside what friends are listening to. It also shows any albums that were recently released alongside any nearby concerts from bands that you’re following. The “Photo Feed” is more self-explanatory in that it features every photo posted by friends and family in chronological order.

Outside of those feeds, the other feeds get a bit more interesting. The first of these more unique feeds is the “Following Feed” that lists all the posts from the brands, pages and public figures you follow in chronological order. Facebook was sure to emphasize that those on this feed will see every post made by pages they follow. It seems to suggest that promoted posts won’t have an effect here, and brands concerned over users not seeing their content will have a safe haven here.

The other feeds include the “Best Friends Feed” and “Games Feed” which are pretty self-explanatory. The former collects all the posts from those designated as best friends, and the games feed will display every game that your friends are playing.

Last but not least, the “Most Recent” feed isn’t going anywhere. This will collect all of the posts from friends and pages in chronological order.

Some desktop users will begin seeing the new News Feed on Facebook starting today as Facebook is rolling out in a limited fashion. Mobile users will see it show up in the coming weeks.

Anyway, Imgur has a lot to be happy about. According to the site, they counted 364 billion image views in 2012. Not only that, but 300 million new images were uploaded this year alone.

That all totals out to 42 petabytes of data being transferred.

And the leading image, with just over 1.5 million pageviews, belongs to a brave Kenyan named Omari:

Here’s Imgur’s story behind the photo:

At the end of January, we met Omari, a hero who single-handedly defended the Faraja Orphanage in Kenya from attackers, and, in doing so, was hacked in the face with a machete. OP, who was in Kenya for an internship, posted this initial image with the title, “Think we could raise the $2,000 needed for the remainder of the cement/barbed wire wall to keep both him and the children safe?” Not only was his call to action answered, the goal was far surpassed. $80,000 was raised online for the orphanage. Omari’s assailants were never caught, but the donations allowed the orphanage to complete the wall as well as purchase two cows, food, medicine, bunk beds, an alarm system, guard dogs, a guard, and allowed them to look into purchasing their land. Not to mention Omari’s lovely mug has been viewed 1,553,236 times now. The power of the Internet is strong!

The next top image on Imgur belongs to Tard, or grumpy cat. You may know him from every single cat meme from the last few months. Rounding out the top three is the President, whose reddit AMA proof photo has generated over 2 million views.*

Back in October, Imgur launched a pretty significant update, with a focus on sharing. One of the goals of the update was to help Imgur break out of the reddit shell. Imgur is the top image host for the majority of reddit users, so a significant amount of its traffic comes from reddit.

“The interplay between Reddit and Imgur is interesting as well, so no doubt Imgur giving its community the ability to bypass Reddit and share images directly on Imgur will be perceived as a shift,” Imgur told WebProNews at the time.

*Note: Imgur’s “Top Images” list is editorial, and doesn’t simply rely on views.

The last such milestone the foundation announced was 10 million media files, back in April of 2011.

“Credit is due to the Wikimedia Commons community, who is largely involved in a variety of projects, processes and negotiations that are intended to improve the availability of public domain and freely-licensed educational media content to the public,” says Peter Weis on the Wikimedia blog.

“The last two years have seen an increasing number of cultural institutions (GLAM) and other organisations providing content that would have otherwise not been freely accessible,” he adds. “Two Wiki Loves Monuments contests have also been responsible for more than 500,000 uploaded images. Moreover, constant technical improvements, such as the UploadWizard introduced in May 2011, and the new HTML5 video player, facilitate the contributions of current and future participants and encourage them to expand niches like audio and video.”

Wikimedia projects attract 480 million unique visitors per month, according to the foundation.

“The upgrade means images and memes can spread even faster,” a spokersperson for Imgur tells WebProNews. “Where sharing on Facebook may elicit a handful of likes from your close-knit community, positive or negative feedback from communities where sharing is so deeply engrained, like Reddit and Imgur, can generate tens or hundreds of thousands of responses.”

“The interplay between Reddit and Imgur is interesting as well, so no doubt Imgur giving its community the ability to bypass Reddit and share images directly on Imgur will be perceived as a shift,” she adds.

Imgur gets 1.2 billion views per day, and there’s no question that a significant portion of those come from Reddit.

With the update, Imgur is bringing its image gallery to the forefront, essentially making it the homepage, and users will be able to share images directly from the site with a new icon in the navigation bar on every page. The company says the update “sharpens the company’s focus” on creating an image-sharing platform upon which anyone can share with everyone.

In the past, users have had to share images on other social sites (like Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to get many views, but now, the company says, images will have a better chance to go viral because users will be able to discover, vote, share and discuss images on the site itself.

It seems to me like the sharing on Reddit, Facebook, etc. would make them go more viral, but okay.

“This is the biggest update we’ve made to Imgur since we launched, and we’re stoked! Our community has been asking for this and we’re committed to giving them the absolute easiest and best way to share images, and to give those images a chance to go viral,” said Founder and CEO, Alan Schaaf.

The company had this to say about image and comment sorting in a blog post:

This new gallery also allows for easier and, dare we say, better sorting. Use the header to change from new (images being added in real time to the gallery) to hot (highest scoring images) to top of the week, month year or all time. You can also sort by virality, score or time. Virality is a score that combines views, votes and time into one to give you the most popular images at the moment.

Images will still be added based on the popularity algorithm that is part of the “old gallery.” The difference is that these images are no longer considered new. They have already been shared around the web and stood the test of time, therefore they are added straight to the hot section. The “new” section you are used to is now hottest images sorted by time.

By implementing a smarter algorithm to sort comments, we hope to combat the idea that the first post will be top comment regardless of its overall quality compared to the other, later comments. Introducing the “best” ranking. Simply put, it uses lots of math to come up with a confidence score for each comment that does not factor time. When a few people have voted on a comment, you get a rough idea of its quality. A comment with 100 upvotes but 50 downvotes has a lower confidence rating than a comment with 30 upvotes and 0 downvotes, despite that it has more overall points. The algorithm will create a hypothetical situation and assume that, if everyone were given the chance to see the second comment, it would be ranked higher. We hope that this improves the quality of top comments and make your votes count more.

The update goes live for all users on Monday, October 29th.

When we spoke with Imgur earlier this year, the company indicated that we’d see mobile apps this fall. When asked about it again, we were told that a mobile app is “still coming at some point in the future, but no official word yet.”

Obviously, this new update would have a significant impact on the nature of an app.

The interview was conducted by Michael Kan, and it appeared in both PC World and IT World, and it paints a less-than-glamourous picture of leering attendees, long hours (8 hours is long?) and perpetual smiles. The article featured quotes from four booth babe models who don’t seem to enjoy the process anymore. Examples include 22-year-old Amanda Lin discussing long days in heels:

“They can hurt,” Lin said of her shoes. “But the work is pretty relaxed and you don’t have to do a lot in order to get paid.”

Lin also discusses the leering passers-by and those who stop to take pictures, something the author relates directly to sexism:

“I’m used to it,” she said, when asked how she felt about Computex visitors ogling her and taking her picture.

“Used to it” or knew it came with the territory, considering the position? Or did she expect men to ignore the fact she playing the role of booth babe, or are men not supposed to react? Another model, 25-year old Eileen Lee also indicates the work is taxing:

“It takes a lot of energy, because you stand for a long time,” she said. During her eight hour day, Lee stands for 30 minutes holding a product, then takes a 10-minute rest and repeats the process. “You have to look happy all day and smile, but it’s not that easy,” she said. “It gets very tiring.”

Furthermore, an issue with a company tweeting a exploitative image of one of their booth babes has caused her to reconsider this kind of work:

“I’m very sensitive to these kind of things, and I really want to leave this career,” she said. “The industry is now moving towards making models show more skin,” she said. “People will look at you, but do so in a way that’s more sexist and sexual. There’s no respect.”

With that in mind, how should conference attendees look at these models, especially if the audience is largely male and the models are female, who, in some cases, are dressed like the two models who lead this post? Are the attendees supposed to ignore the models, regardless if they are dressed in bikinis or in cosplay outfits?

Negative aspects aside, the booth babe “industry” is booming with many women looking to join up. Says model Ashley Hsu:

“It seems like more and more young women want to do this kind of work,” she said. “It’s easy to do, you can make money. You just need to talk to people and get your picture taken. I’m seeing a lot of people wanting to do this part-time.”

If showing too much skin is the issue, not every booth babe is dressed like she’s at the beach:

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But then again, maybe some get uncomfortable if they’re asked to dress like this:

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[Lead image credit]

Disney, just go ahead and take another wad of cash from my hands. It wasn’t enough to get my hard earned money for The Avengers, but now you are really hitting home with a 3D animated movie, based around a group of video game characters. Many of which I really like and grew up with, based on what has been shown in the teaser image below.

I want this image as a poster.

(Click to Enlarge)

Here’s the official synopsis for the movie…

Walt Disney Animation Studios and Emmy®-winning director Rich Moore (TV’s “The Simpsons,” “Futurama”) take moviegoers on a hilarious, arcade-game-hopping journey in “Wreck-It Ralph.” Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly, “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” “Step Brothers”) is tired of being overshadowed by Fix-It Felix (voice of Jack McBrayer, “30 Rock”), the “good guy” star of their game who always gets to save the day. But after decades doing the same thing and seeing all the glory go to Felix, Ralph decides he’s tired of playing the role of a bad guy. He takes matters into his own massive hands and sets off on a game-hopping journey across the arcade through every generation of video games to prove he’s got what it takes to be a hero.

On his quest, he meets the tough-as-nails Sergeant Calhoun (voice of Jane Lynch, TV’s “Glee”) from the first-person action game Hero’s Duty. But it’s the feisty misfit Vanellope von Schweetz (voice of Sarah Silverman, “The Sarah Silverman Program”) from the candy-coated cart racing game, Sugar Rush, whose world is threatened when Ralph accidentally unleashes a deadly enemy that threatens the entire arcade. Will Ralph realize his dream and save the day before it’s too late?

If you clicked on the image above and looked further into the details of the image, you’ll notice a few things. Beyond the obvious Q-Bert and Street Fighter characters in the foreground.

First, if they’re going for the glorious arcade days, then Mario and his friends wouldn’t be too hard to imagine showing up in the movie. In fact, below you can see what looks to, perhaps, be a Koopa. We know Bowser is showing up. If so, there’s a strong possibility we might get a Mario cameo in Wreck-It Ralph.

Moving to the right a bit, we see yet another Capcom staple with M. Bison from the Street Fighter series. If Capcom is throwing in on this, then there are all sorts of amazing possibilities for cameos.

Freaking Burger Time, are you kidding me. Even I forgot all about this gem from the heyday of arcade titles.

Along with Capcom, Konami looks to be another developer/producer who will be providing possible characters. Proven by what looks to be a portal to ‘Dance Dance Revolution‘.

The movie will follow core characters, so established properties will be provided by cameos, which is perfectly fine. Below are the images for Sergeant Calhoun and Vanellope von Schweetz, each from hardcore FPS and sugary sweet kart games, respectively. I like both FPS’s and kart games, so consider me signed on for these side characters.

I really like the director choice, Rich Moore, who has worked on both The Simpsons and Futurama. For a movie such as this, you need someone who has a finger on the pulse of pop culture. The “Will NPC in FPS 4 food” sign made me chuckle. In fact, everything they’ve announced concerning this movie has me sold.

What do you think? Do you like the idea of a video game based Disney movie, which looks to feature cameos from a wide list of developers?

The first thing you will notice is the impact the Pinterest can play when sharing online content. When an image is all you have to go on, it is truly important to select one the conveys all of the messages you want as concisely as you can. The accompanying line in the description can bring the whole thing together.

A key figure to remember is that an article with an image can bring 94% more traffic than one without. Articles that cover news, politics and sports particularly benefit from relevant images.

In the realm of press releases, the general rule is that the more multimedia content you can include, the more effective the campaign will be. Total online views are directly related to the number of multimedia elements.

Local search for local business also benefit from a good image. 60% of consumers are more likely to go with a business that has images in their local listing. Getting an inside peek at the establishment and/or the products that they feature make for a more open and friendly online business front. If you are selling items online exclusively, a detailed quality image of the product for sale is imperative. With the large amount of competitors offering this feature, you would be hard-pressed to remain viable without.

And finally, is the strong relationship between a quality image and social media campaigns. Whether this is for your personal page, or a company page, it should be given that people will be more likely to identify with people and places that they can see, and not just read about.

The terms on an Olympic ticket read:
“Images, video and sound recordings of the Games taken by a Ticket Holder cannot be used for any purpose other than for private and domestic purposes and a Ticket Holder may not license, broadcast or publish video and/or sound recordings, including on social networking websites and the internet more generally…”

And the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) internet guidelines says:

“Participants and other accredited persons can post still photographs taken within Olympic Venues for personal use. It is not permitted to commercialise, sell or otherwise distribute these photographs.”

These instructions clearly say that images cannot be broadcast, published, or otherwise distributed. That pretty much eliminates social media posts.

But The @London2012 official twitter account posted these messages a few days ago:

Which clearly say it is okay to post photos on social media.

In reality, neither of these rules matter, because IOC officials will have no way of policing every attendee for pictures posted on their social media accounts.

It would, however, be easy to find a person who is posting on a third party blog or online news publication, and that is what they are trying to prevent. People trying to make money by selling or distributing photos of Olympic athletes.

The Twitter posts are most likely a PR move from the Olympic Committee, who realize along with everyone else, trying to prevent people from posting pictures on the internet is an impossibility.

Besides, everybody knows NBC owns the Olympics and anything that happens while they are going on. No one is allowed to report the Olympic Games except NBC and their affiliates, who would like to own the media for the rest of eternity. Thank you.

(I wonder if it’s okay to post that insignia for the London games? It’s also interesting to note, any image you see of the Olympic logo always has NBC’s logo above the Olympic Rings and is always much larger.)

[Source: paidcontent]