Brangelina

Hello visitors from The Showbuzz and CBSNews. Thanks for stopping by.

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A day or two ago I published information given to me by anonymous tipsters about a duo who may have been involved in the stealing of a digital camera memory stick with 450 private photographs from the Jolie-Pitt family's time in Namibia.

Well, there have been rumors of some arrests as reported by both The Daily News' Rush & Molloy and TMZ.com. I have yet to confirm any arrest(s), but it seems like the information we provided on our site led to one of the suspects.

Here's the story so far: The camera which held the memory stick is owned by Angelina Jolie's brother, James Haven. A series of unfortunate events happened to Haven and the camera : The camera broke, he sent it for repairs to the store where he bought it but ... oooooops! Haven forgot to take the memory stick out of the camera. The camera got sent from Malibu to a repair center in Connecticut. That's were the illustrious practitioner of extreme vanning, a Mr. Bill Keyes, pops into our story.

I have been on the net for ages now, going as far as 1992-1993 when I got my first email account. And I think I was in the first wave of web surfers to get an actual site back in 1994 (eventhough I didn't really get a domain name until 2000). And yet ... and yet.

I still get shocked at how fast things move on the internet. Which is why I always wonder about how much did the Bush Administration really wanted to catch Osama Bin Laden. Had they googled him after September 11, they would have caught him by the 13th. Just saying.

An anonynmous tipster sent me this yesterday :

I'm not sure how reliable this is, or if it's even the same person but the email address from that guy belongs to this website and myspace. He's some dude from Massachusetts who lives in CT as a computer programmer. Bastid!

http://lowrdr27.home.comcast.net/
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendi...

And people wonder why I love the net.

Lowrdr27 seems to be the pseudonym for two guys :

Tim Barnes

and

Bill Keyes

Let's just say that after reading Foxes in the Henhouse : How the Republicans Stole the South and the Heartland and What the Democrats Must Do to Run 'em Out, I can tell you this is the kind of down home country guy Mark Warner wants to spends his afternoons courting for presidential votes and inviting over the next four years to the White House. Yeehaw!

I just got today an email from a Yael E. Holtkamp working for a Lavely & Singer, Professional Corporation. Interesting that nowhere in the email does it say this person is an attorney or that she is working on behalf of attorneys.

The email seems to be a hodge podege of human unreadable legalese with a custom paragraph relating to the photos tacked on at the beginning:

Dear Sir/Madam:

Recently, a digital memory card containing a number of personal copyright protected photographs of our clients was stolen. The police are currently investigating this matter. The photos depict, among other things, private moments and images of our clients and/or their minor children, taken in Namibia, including images from a private baby shower (the “Stolen Photos”). It is obvious to anyone viewing the Stolen Photos that they were taken in private, on private property and that they could only have been taken by our clients and/or a family member, who own all right title and interest thereto.

We understand that the person who stole the Stolen Photos, or an accomplice, has been offering them for sale to the various media outlets and celebrity content websites, and may have offered the Stolen Photos to you.

I hate it when lawyers try to put words in my mouth.

Honestly, it was not obvious to me that the photos were taken in the privacy of their Namibian home. On the contrary, both on the post related to this incident, not only did I think I was a hoax, but I watermarked the image with a plea, asking people for information on where I had seen that photo before.

By the way, the original photo was scrubbed from the server and now substituted with the sign we have above this post.

This is an instance when I really had to contend hard with the "should I or shouldn't I". I felt that if it was a hoax, then I would have loved to punk the seller. But if the photos were indeed stolen, then I honestly wanted whomever was behind this to be taken to task.

The problem with blogging is that, as an outsider, I have no idea who to turn to in cases like this one. Seriously, who do I call? How do I get in contact with the stars reps?

Indeed, eventhough culturekitchen may seem like an operation, it is not. We are just people with access to the technology used by the big publishing companies. Maybe it's time for these representatives to start amicably reaching to people like me, not through illegible pseudo-legal emails.

But let me take this one step further. As someone who cherishes privacy, I would never, ever publish knowingly anything on this site that would breach anybody's right to privacy; especially celebrities. I have a huge issue with the fact that many people believe that celebrities or anybody famous have relinquished their right to privacy just because they are famous.

In this day and age, when anybody can indeed have more than their 15 minutes of fame through self-published digital media (for exmaple, blogs), "paparazzi attacks" can and will be used for their chilling effect. Breaches of people's privacy will be used to silence them and neutralize the power of their dissent, creativity or uniqueness. No wonder so many people blog anonymously.

So, just so we are clear, attacks against 'fair use' by major corporations is one thing. Invasion of privacy? That's a whole other ball game and one I am not willing to play.

I guess I have arrived ... although I am sure this is a hoax.

An alleged paparazzo only identified as lowrdr27, contacted me along with other bloggers and several publishing companies, in an attempt to sell 450 pictures taken during Angelina Jolie's and Brad Pitt stay in Namibia. The email is actually a forwarded original that included the text below and 3 photos attached.

The quality of the photgraphs is relatively good although there is one, of Angelina holding Zahara, that looks just a tad too professional.

-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
From: lowrdr27@XXXXX
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 22:11:25 +0000
Dear Sir or Madam,

I am contacting you because I have recently acquired some digital photos (450 pictures). On this memory stick are personal photos of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and their children. These photos are in thier home and on vacation, are good quality and are close up. These pictures have not been seen by anyone else. I am contacting you and several other Papers, magazines and websites to see what these photos may be worth. I am attaching 3 photos so you can verify the authenticity of them. You can contact me through this e-mail address:
Lowrdr27@XXXXXX

The list of people contacted includes :

eforu.com
celebritypicturesla.com
celebrity-babies.com
ew.com
howardshrine
deansplanet.com
celljournalist.com
verycool.co.uk
thebosh.com
paperunicorns
entertainment.ie
fotofama.com
celebrity8x10s.com
starmagazine.com
americanmedia
starmagazine.com
people.com

My views on fair use and the future of the internet struck a major chord at the Take Back America panel on "Blogs : The new insurgency" because I spoke about the realities of blogging politics as a business and as a form of activism and was not going to bow to the pre-packaged sound bites of "we are taking back the Democratic party" or the "we have changed politics for good" that people like Matt Stoller are so ready to spechify on these conferences.

Yes, some changes have come. If you want to count the fact that the blogs published by a Puerto Rican black feminist and their contributors are getting quoted in major media; then, yeah, it's a sign of change. But it's only the beginning.

I am not going to bullshit people about what needs to be done because I am not doing this to run for office of get a job as a political consultant for candidate X. I blog because I want to go beyond effecting politics. I want to help build a network of activists who use effectively the internet for social change. The kind of change that creatively effects the very cultural infrastructure of our democracy through heavy doses of progressive libertarian dissent.

Yeah. I do want to change the world. I'm not interested in sounding good for the next job.

I had people stopping me for questions about the issues I raised there; the most important being that in order for progressives to truly empower a blog insurgency we need to own the pipelines to the internet from IP to hosting to open source companies. That there are decades of digital insurgency before the blogs came on the scene and if we don't learn from past experiences and mistakes progressives will never be able to effectively use this very itsy bitsty bit of new media to truly Take Back America.

By the way, most of the people who came to me were women. Not only did they thank me for keeping it real; but they were impressed with the fact that I was the only who could fluently talk about the technology issues surrounding blogs. That in a panel that had two guys who called themselves the face of "net neutrality" and the "netroots".

Sigh.

I will be putting up the podcast in a minute but I wanted to update you one bit of alarming news that supports my points of contention and another one that that made my whole effing year.

First the good news.

Word has gotten to me that yours truly had the Getty Images lawyers and executives panties in a bunch. I am told by my sources that they haven't had this much fun in all the years they've been working at the company. It's seems my writing about the stupidity of exclusives had the bosses internally debating their strategy and well, getting pissed off at the fact that maybe, just maybe, I made sense.

Heh.

I know from published reports on Yahoo!News that Getty Images lawyers were adamant about muscling bloggers with the DCMA (I'm too lazy to look up the link). Here's the link :

[via Shiloh Not Ready For Close-Up, Gets It Anyway - Yahoo! News]:

As for Getty Images, which Pitt and Jolie announced earlier this week would market the photos, they claim the picture could be seen more as a teaser, enticing the celeb-savvy public into seeing the rest of the shots.

"Our legal team are looking into it and we will take it from there," spokeswoman Alison Crombie told Reuters. "But I really don't think it will devalue the pictures as everyone is dying to see the full set."

I am going to speculate that they were pushed by TimeWarnerAOL lawyers to follow in on their footsteps or else. And I am going to speculate we will be hearing more about the evil TimeWarnerAOL empire now that the debate over net neutrality vs. DMCA is getting not just heated up here but exported and imposed on other countries.

Which takes me to the bad news.

I am looking for a new hosting company. I can't out of principle stay with company who'll cave-in to bully tactics and ennable complete lack of legal procedure in dealing with DMCA claims. The DMCA can be used in an abusive manner by IP and hosting companies and I believe this has been the case with me.

I used the cover of Hello! to not even discuss Brangelina or Shiloh but the idiocy behind the idea of exclusivity in the digital age. Meanwhile, there are at last count 15+ prominent gossip blogs running not just front cover pages but scans of the whole magazine article.

I have been discussing this issue with some people who have had a lot of experience on this issue (I will be announcing them soon) and the comment of one of them struck me as totally ironic. I can't tell you who said this to me, but the quote is priceless : "You may have to get a hosting company with servers in another country ... like Russia.

Unfruggingbelievable.

To exercise my first amendment and fair use rights I may have to get a server in the former Soviet Union, the bastion of European communism and the reason the world was caught in the deep freeze of the Cold War.

UPDATE | 9 June 2006
It is amazing what money will do. While there are more then 15 prominent sites running the Brangelina photos --the embargo is over after all-- I was insulted and berated by one of the lawyers of the company that serves the IP to my hosting company.

There are proper procedures that IP and hosting companies have to go through when there is a C&D. A C&D is not necessarily an order for a take down. Can you imagine if everybody could invoke the DCMA on an email everytime they didn't like something written about them?

I have been informally adviced that it is illegal to not follow certain steps and procedures and so I am weighing my options. Especially since I did not use the image to write about gossip but to criticize corporate tactics meant to curtail fair use and freedom of speech.

I am writing a longer piece on this issue especially the need for cultural creatives and progressives to invest in rock hard IT businesses. Back in the days art collectives like The Thing [ www.thing.net ] where dial-up networks themselves, 20 YEARS AGO, because they knew of the danger of being shut down for unpopular art.

To save democracy we are going to have to build a new infrastructure capable of sustaining it. That means, investing in businesses that will fight for fair use and freedom of speech instead of cower to the bottom line.

I get an AIM from Lynn and her husband saying to call them immediately. I freaked out given her recent health woes; but they reassured me it had all to do with the Brangelina photo.

The lawyers for TimeWarner AOL and Getty Images invoked the Digital Millenium Copyright Act sent a Cease and Desist letter to AboveNet, a company that services hosting companies.

With no questions asked, AboveNet immediately contacted Simpli.biz, the company that holds our servers. They ordered a "DCMA TAKEDOWN". It means, it does not matter if TimeWarnerAOL is lying about the infringement of copyright allegations. They would force Simpli to force me to take down the image within 24 hours or risk losing their IP and their business by having it blacklisted. And they can force them to do so because this kind of harrassment is protected under the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act.

It really does not matter if I claim Fair Use. If I did not comply within 24 hours they would blacklist the hosting company and all IPs they held. What that means is that, once they blacklisted the IP, they would in effect put Simpli.biz out of business.

So what exists in place with the DCMA is a legally allowed harrassment system in place. If you are writing a blog that a big media company like TimeWarnerAOL finds to their dislike, they can use the DCMA to take you down, no questions asked. And the cost to fight to get back online makes it almost impossible for anybody to fight these kinds of battles.

So I asked Lynn what to do. She knows that ten years ago a similar thing happened to my kids' father with his Barbie spoof, The Distorted Barbie. It was the first in a string of actions that would culminate in Mattel v. Walking Mountain Productions [PDF].

This is what came out of our conversation :

My friend Joy Garnett, who is the the source of culturekitchen's guerrilla man logo, has also become an expert on fair use. She sent me this bit posted at the FairUseNetwork mailing list:

The fair use doctrine permits anyone to use copyrighted works, without the owners' permission, in ways that are fundamentally equitable and fair. Common examples of fair use are criticism, commentary, news reporting, research, scholarship, and multiple copies for classroom use.

[...]

News reporting = blogging.

TimeWarnerAOL owns People Mag. They happen to be one of the biggest lobbyists behind the DCMA (after the RIAA). They also declared with their new "anti-spam" policy how the stand against net neutrality : they want to create different paying levels of access to email, rss, web, ftp, you name it. The want as many tolls they can lay and control along the information superhighway as they can.

Which is why it puts into a whole different context these comments from the people of Hello! and Getty Images :

[via Shiloh Not Ready For Close-Up, Gets It Anyway - Yahoo! News]:

"It's a complete mystery," Hello!'s Herd told Reuters. "And we are very concerned at this breach of copyright.

"It is very difficult to control the Web and this proves how rampantly out of control it is. We have absolutely no idea how the picture was leaked."

A spokesperson for People magazine, meanwhile, had other ideas.

"Somebody from Hello! must have leaked it," the unnamed rep told BBC News. "I don't know how it got there."

However it did, it makes for a particularly pricey stealing of thunder.

As for Getty Images, which Pitt and Jolie announced earlier this week would market the photos, they claim the picture could be seen more as a teaser, enticing the celeb-savvy public into seeing the rest of the shots.

"Our legal team are looking into it and we will take it from there," spokeswoman Alison Crombie told Reuters. "But I really don't think it will devalue the pictures as everyone is dying to see the full set."

The C&D's are after the jump.

This is meant within the context of, the "fair use" provision of copyright law, under which this site posted the new family's image. It's meant to raise important cultural issues here where we can examine them as free citizens:

Now retired from a public education career and home with my own children, I dedicate daily effort these days to supporting parents in making their own (legal, non-abusive) discretionary decisions about their own children, from whether to have them in the first place, to how to help them learn without signing them over to the government. Parents are the creators of, and therefore the primary protectors-decision makers for, their own baby and child. That's one important principle at play here.

But that doesn't make everything biological parents decide to do wise, or ethical, or best for the child. Or for modern society at large. That's a whole different conversation and one that society MUST be able to have. I don't see any parent's right to sell exclusive images of such private moments as a given, any more than I'd reflexively defend Michael Jackson dangling his baby out of a hotel balcony for the world to gawk at, as long as no actual physical harm resulted - in other words, if he got away with the exploitation without immediate, demonstrable and actionable injury to the child. (Dropping it)

Because every single media outlet will link back to you as well.

We're experiencing some incredibly heavy traffic. Please be patient with us. In the meantime, check out at Perez Hilton's how Brangelina have, all by themselves, devalued the fabled exclusive.

Ah ... the power of the internets.

WELCOME PEREZISTAS!
WELCOME CBS READERS!
Media Advisory
Liza Sabater is available for comments about this post. Please use the "write to the author link" to get in contact with her.

UPDATE | 08 June 2006
TimeWarnerAOL has used a claim of DCMA against our Fair Use of the Hello! cover photo to force our webhosting company to take down the photo "or else".

Read all about how TimeWarnerAOL can get away legally with this kind of harrassment here.

A little levity for the end of the day; since babies past, present and future are everywhere.

Lawyers can be the scourge of democracy these days. You'd think the automatrons at People Magazine would have thought about all the digital details involving the publishing online of Brangelina's baby photo. No they obviously did not think of the little detail of time zones when paying for an "exclusive".

The photo has been disseminated all over the internet but thanks to Perez Hilton's growing notoriety, he's been slapped with a cease and desist; which he is obviously relishing at Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blog from Perez Hilton.