I like seeing my work in respectable publications like the North Coast Journal and the Anderson Valley Advertiser, and on popular websites like LoCO, but there’s something unique, and uniquely satisfying about the way I present my work on my blog, Like You’ve Got Something Better To Do (www.lygsbtd.wordpress.com). I don’t make any money from my blog, but I also don’t spend any money to produce it, and even though I have other outlets for my work, I still enjoy putting it together, as a labor of love, for the thousands of people who come back to read it week after week. I don’t own the domain name. I have no control over any advertisements you see while you are there, but at my blog, I can say whatever I want, and have fun with how I present it.
I understand that the internet is a weapon. It is a tool of war, and a tool of oppression. Any useful information you find on it is incidental to it’s purpose, and it probably only saved you a trip to the library, but you have and will pay dearly for that convenience. I don’t enjoy being online at all. I find the internet vulgar, vapid and voyeuristic, and I don’t have to spend very long online before I’m disgusted, pissed off, and disappointed in humanity, but the internet has become the most affordable way for one individual to reach a large number of people, provided you are willing to compromise quality for convenience. Despite the drawbacks, I find some aspects of digital technology, interesting, creatively and aesthetically, and despite my very limited internet access, and even more limited expertise, I do my best to put together the kind of blog that I would enjoy reading, if, God forbid, I ever became bored enough to read a blog.
One aspect of the digital arts that interests me is how easy digital technology makes it to re-contextualize old cultural elements into new artistic expressions. I’ve been into collage since before the days when I made photocopied collage fliers to promote my band’s gigs, and lately, half of the new music I hear seems to be made, almost entirely, from bits of old records remixed together. To me, the one real highlight of the whole crass, ugly, pixilated wasteland we call the internet, is it’s vast potential for juxtaposition.
It was in that spirit that I began adding photos to my blog posts. I added pictures for aesthetic reasons, and for no other. Since I wasn’t making money, I didn’t worry about legalities. When I started www.lygsbtd.wordpress.com I saw the opportunity to re-contextualize photos, memes and cartoons into my essays, and found that it added another dimension to the experience. There is no way I would pay for pictures, and I don’t even have enough time online to ask permission. I add photos and pictures only because the internet makes it easy and convenient. Since we lose the directness of face to face communication and all of the non-verbal cues that go with it, in an online environment, the ability to share a low-resolution reproduction of practically any image in the world seems like an odd but reasonable trade-off to me.
In order to be re-contextualized, these images must first be de-contextualized. That is why I do not attribute most of the pictures I use on my blog. Just because I want to use a picture of a lion, that doesn’t mean I want you to go to the zoo, or even the zoo’s website. I have chosen those pictures to illustrate the ideas conveyed in the text, and that is all I want them to do. That’s why I choose to add pictures to my blog in the way that I do, and that’s the way I intend to continue to do it.
Is this legal? I think that’s a gray area that depends on the definition of “fair use,” and a slew of other thorny legal technicalities. I’m sure we could litigate it for years. Fortunately for me, however, it has never been an issue. After seven years, and thousands of pictures, no one has ever complained about the way I used their work. That is, except for one person, Kym Kemp, of kymkemp.com, the Redheaded Blackbelt.
Kym has asked me to remove her pictures from my blog a couple of times. I make a point of avoiding Kym’s pictures because I know that she doesn’t like me to use them, but on occasion, one of her pictures will show up in a google search, on another site, and I will use it, not knowing that it is hers. What can I say? I write a lot about SoHum, and she takes a lot of great pictures of SoHum. Sometimes her work is hard to avoid. When this happens, and she tells me about it, I’m always quick to remove the picture, and replace it with something else, but last week, Kym got all self-righteous on me.
Kym Kemp told me “I hate what you do.” She told me it was “wrong,” that I was ripping off struggling artists and photographers, and that I am “freeloading.” Give me a fucking break! This, from the woman who could never admit that there was anything wrong with “Mom and Pop growers” exploiting the violence and racism of the War on Drugs, “just to put new tires on their old truck.” Kym would never condemn SoHum’s Drug War profiteers, on principle, but she has the nerve to berate me for my creative re-appropriation of digital images online. I think that’s a truly Trumpian level of hypocrisy.
…and on the topic of ripping off artists, I’ll bet that if you asked all of the artists and photographers who’s work I have used over the years, and gave them this choice:
- I John Hardin will graciously remove their image from my blog, and give them all of the income I have received for putting it together, or
- Kym Kemp, will give them back half of the money they spent on overpriced black market marijuana because of the War on Drugs.
I’ll bet Kym Kemp would still be the only one who wanted me to remove an image from my blog.
It isn’t wrong if nobody gets hurt. Nobody ever died in a shootout over my blog. Nobody ever went to jail because of my blog. Nobody ever had a gun stuck in their face, or their kid’s face, because of my blog. My blog didn’t wreck the economy, destroy the forest or create the housing crisis. My blog doesn’t keep women as slaves, or rape women who come here looking for work. My blog doesn’t sell meth or heroin to your kids. People don’t go hungry because of my blog and my blog does not take food out Kym Kemp’s mouth. Maybe Kym Kemp should find someone else in Southern Humboldt who’s deeds are a little more deserving of her expressed hatred.
She probably hates what you do because your rants are useless, your images worse than useless, and you’re using her hard work to further your uselessness?
Oh, and she’s not the only one who wants you to remove images from your blog. I think most everyone who ever sees your blog wants them removed. Every one of them.
Of course, the usual solution is simply to not read your blog, and what’s the solution I usually take. I only clicked this one because I wanted a laugh about how anyone could complain about Kym Kemp’s work.
Thanks for reading!
Betcha Kym has copied and pasted pics off the internet, which makes her a hipocrit.
She has plenty of other faults that you need not speculate about.
So, you are oblivious to link of original content in Picture search on Google, think you are an artist because you discovered memes and write a long and winded article about it… God forbid your internet masturbation.
Glad you had nothing better to do today.
Usually if you put your little finger on the picture, a box will pop up that gives you those credits, not to mention the links to The Who…..
“Won’t Get Fooled Again”
Go BushyTails: John, you’re being a grumpy jerk and you’re wrong. You need to give credit for all images used. And Not Use Images if You Don’t have Permission.
Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t mean it’s free.
Just because it goes against your personal freedom doesn’t make you right.
And btw, I don’t usually read your shit because it’s… SHIT just like this rant against someone who does and has done a lot for this community and takes a lot of ill-conceived, and poorly stated dimfuckery for it from various – usually penis enabled – idiots like yourself
Thanks. Glad you had nothing better to do today
Usually, if you just put your little finger on the screen and hit the picture you’ll get a nice little box that will give you all the credits
I know that.
Years and years of the same defense mechanisms response rant that Kym Kemp has done so much for the community blah blah blah……. Explains why Southern Humboldt is so screwed up….. Bunch of doped out morons trying to make a fuss….
defense mechanisms yes, but don’t for get the denial.
Fuck Kym Kemp and her dope-promotin’ self stroking bullshit. I read the haps over there but I sure as shit don’t gush all over her and tell her how wonderful she is like others do…we need you to counterbalance the rosy picture she paints of ‘community’ and ‘farm life’. Keep keeping it real, John!
RIGHT ON Katya! Thank you very much.
Wow, HOJ would just keep it at hipocrit, character defamer, libelust, liar, slanderer, public pentioner school teacher married to a public pentioner Cal Trans trooper…… to be nice…… Oh and that there’s word out there that the only hit and run driver in Humboldt County that Kym Kemp has not posted on her blog apparently was a family member of hers with the same last name, go figure maybe her son…..but she has yet to come out to confirm the allegation.
news to me
For god’s sake, John, try not to overdramatize yourself. I specifically said I admire your writing and like you but I hate the way you take photos without getting permission to use them or attributing them.
After you responded to my request that you take the photo down by blaming me by saying that I should watermark it. I wrote you:
“I feel strongly that photographers are a vastly underpaid underclass for the most part. And taking and posting their images without their permission or credit is stealing from folks who are mostly barely making it financially. Most supplement with other work because they don’t get paid enough for doing their art/journalism. Your lack of respect for photographers is why I don’t generally share links to your otherwise very thoughtful writing.
I don’t watermark my photos because a) it takes effort I don’t have b) then I can’t sell them generally. In this case, the photo was used in the news media (MerryJane) and generally, they don’t post watermarked images.
You will continue to do what you think is right but freeloading on other’s work is, in my opinion, beneath an intelligent and otherwise concerned about fairness person.”
Take a deep breath, John. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that someone who criticizes others so freely by name would take such a public exception to such private and relatively minor rebuke of you using my images without permission or credit, but I am. I’ve always admired your courage and your willingness to stick up for folks who are badly treated–apparently though my feeling that you were the kind of person able to hear criticism and either accept it or rebut it thoughtfully directly to the person you were in conflict with was mistaken.
Yes, you were mistaken. You were mistaken about your opinion of what an intelligent and fair person would do, and you were mistaken to think that I would keep it private.
I’m not ashamed of what I said, John. I just thought you might be.
Not a chance, Kym.
At least John did not call/text/email all his groupies to leave comments demanding Kym Kemp get blocked, banned and censored…….
Cuz everyone knows to go to Kym Kemp’s site for censorship and other malcontent rubbish + Kym’s Op Ed slam job…….. What else are bad teachers good for……
I don’t know because I never read her blog
what happened? not on LOCO today? i print you off weekly and read at my leisure, and the search box is not there anymore either, hmm…
that was over-the-top criticism of Kym but it shows you have no sacred cows, well, i do think i will come down to kmud soon and try to see what financials i can see, a bit concerned about local nonprofits and just heard (via Julia M) that kmud costs half a mill to be on the air yearly, that will probably have to change, si?
Kym does plenty over the top stuff….. It’s why she left Loco to come back to her own blog because she needed to shield herself from Loco so that she didn’t look like loco because she is no different than Loco…..
Has Kym Kemp ever done a multi-page slam job on you and printed it for tens of thousands of people to read?
Hank has no appetite for revolutionary ideas. Good luck with KMUD
Kym has delusions of relevance.
That is why I never read her crap.
I respect Kym and I understand her point. But I don’t agree. My view: the internet is a public space. Everything anyone puts in that space is accessible to be copied and misused. Right or wrong doesn’t really matter. It’s easy to copy images so it’s going to happen. So either people put their images in a public space knowing they can be ripped off, or they don’t want that to happen so they don’t publish them on the internet. Get smart people! I don’t put my family photos of Facebook. I don’t want those personal items to be misused. Is it unlikely? Yes. But it’s possible, so I protect myself. I have a personal blog where I sometimes post photos of my family, which I always watermark. Everything else I post without a watermark, I am completely okay with someone copying, reusing, whatever.
It would be like if I left a bunch of my belongings in a busy public plaza, with my name on it, but otherwise unsecured. And then I came back and all my stuff was still there, but someone had used a ray gun to make copies of my stuff so they could use it. And then I got mad at them because it’s “mine”, well maybe, but I shouldn’t have left it laying around… It’s my own fault.
Respect only goes as far as its meaning until a person actually does something for you to lose respect for them…… It reads you have escaped the wrath of Kym Kemp in all her forms up to this point and to that congrats!
Thanks HOJ. I Appreciate it.
Well put. Thank you.
Also, I wrote about this exact issue back in 2014 in my post
it’s getting hot in here so take off all your photos I wish more people would take the unsolicited advice I offered there, it would save a lot of grief and confustion.
How about a public anti-facebook campaign, that would be a start
Facebook’s platform sucks donkey balls. But I still like having an online connection with those people. I would prefer an alternative. That would not solve the problem of people misusing a public platform. You can’t fix stupid.
and two wrongs don’t make a right.
I suppose.
good post. Worth a read.