So apparently the White House has gone and released a photo of Our Glorious President, Barack Hussein Obama, allegedly shooting some skeet; no mention was made of whether or not he actually managed to hit them. Whatever. Given Obama’s long and sordid history of being anti-firearms, this is rather like a racist individual claiming to have black friends, and in that vein, I never would have even bothered to comment on this…
… If it were not for this disclaimer to go along with the picture:
This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.
I would like to take a moment to introduce the White House to 17 United States Code § 107 (a document that residence probably owns countless copies of… all with perfect spines), specifically:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.
(Emphasis added.)
And given that this is an “official White House” photograph, I would like to introduce the White House to the copyright terms said photograph is published under:
A United States government work is prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person’s official duties.
It is not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no copyright restrictions on reproduction, derivative works, distribution, performance, or display of the work. Anyone may, without restriction under U.S. copyright laws:
- reproduce the work in print or digital form;
- create derivative works;
- perform the work publicly;
- display the work;
- distribute copies or digitally transfer the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.
For clarification, Pete Souza, the man behind the lens for the skeet photograph, is the current “Chief Official White House photographer” and the “Director of the White House Photography Office”, and, as such, an “employee of the United States government” taking pictures of the President “as part of that person’s official duties”. In other words, this picture was taken by a public servant, of a public servant, using taxpayers’ money. I dare say we can do with it as we please.
With all that in mind, I am sure the warped 4chan minds (link defintionally NSFW) behind these derivative works were merely criticizing or commenting on the quality of the photograph or the subject contained therein:
Like I said, I created none of those, and I lack the imagination or motivation at the moment to try my hand at it myself, but I do believe in preserving them for the time being.
Given that idiotic disclaimer, though, I would imagine this is only the tip of the iceberg.
(On a note unrelated to the White House being staffed by imbeciles, however, I have only been shooting clay pigeons once, and my shotgun was never pointed that low… but I do no know if I was shooting skeet, trap, or whatever. According to what I am reading, though, the target point skeet are launched at is an altitude of about 15 feet about 27 yards 0in front of the shooter. I think.)
(And on a second unrelated note, it is worth observing that the firearm Our Glorious President was discharging is significantly more powerful than an AR-15, and will either leave a single massively larger hole in the target, or 8 to ~300 holes of varying size. This just goes to show how idiotic the notion of “assault weapons” really is.)