Andy Baio was sued for using a pixelated version Jay Maisel‘s iconic photo of Miles Davis for his Kind of Bloop project (a chiptune cover album of Davis’s classic Kind of Blue). Andy is a popular guy on the internet (rightfully so) and, as expected, many people came to his defense.
When I say “defense” I mean name calling. Jay Maisel is now a”dick”(here and here) and a “joyless putz”1. People coming to Andy’s defense are also defacing Maisel’s Facebook page according to this thread on MetaFilter.
All the name calling is unfortunate. Andy even asked people to “be cool”:
I understand you may have strong feelings about this issue, but please don’t harass him publicly or privately. Reasonable discussion about the case is fine; personal attacks, name-calling and abuse are not. We’re all humans here. Be cool.
As someone who enjoys photography and takes it as seriously that I can possibly take it without doing it for a living, I can understand why Maisel would be upset. Would I sue Andy if he didn’t get the rights to my photos before using it? No, but that’s because I know of him and all the good he’s done on the internet. I would actually be honored but would want credit for it. I highly doubt Maisel ever heard of Andy before the lawsuit. All Maisel knows, it someone used his photograph as a basis for a derivative work2 and he didn’t authorized it.
The web is full of examples of designers and other creatives getting upset about their work being ripped off (rightfully so). What makes Maisel different? Is he different because he has to resources to file a lawsuit instead of complaining about it on a website? Or is it because he is preceived to be affluent simply because he owns a 72 room mansion3?
Under current U.S. law Maisel has every right to file a lawsuit (this is evidence by the fact that he actually did). Whether you think the law is broken or not, calling him names and defacing his Facebook page is simply not fair. All the guy did was exercise his right. It’s the same right you can exercise if you want – whether you do or not is up to you.
Sidenote: Before I get called a dick for holding a contrarian view, you should know that I purchased Kind of Bloop to show my support for Andy. Kind of Blue was one of the first jazz albums that I bought and it remains in my top ten list of jazz albums. I’ve known about Kind of Bloop since it came out, but chiptune isn’t my thing.
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For the record, I have nothing be respect for the people I’ve linked here, but I think their emotions got the best of them while coming to the defense of a friend. ↩
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I’m not even going to down down the rabbit hole as to whether the dervative work is “fair use” or not. That’s not the point of this post and I’m woefuly unequipped to make any kind of assessment. ↩
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Maisel purchased in the house 42 years ago. Its probably worth millions but that doesn’t necessary mean that he has millions in cash in the bank. The reality is that we don’t know Maisel’s financial condition and we probably never will. ↩
