PlanetCatfish.com

Hi guys,
I photograph fish in public aquariums worldwide, and I have encountered several big and small Auchenoglanis over the past few years. All are still labelled as Auchenoglanis occidentalis, while I'm sure many are not. It would be simply fantastic if an expert in this matter could take a look at the specimens below.
Some of these look like A. wittei like Aquariumglaser suggests (https://www.aquariumglaser.de/en/fish-a ... wittei_en/)
But they (especially the third one) also look a whole lot like the Volta variation from Ghana, which should be the real A. occidentalis. I don't know where these catfish get imported from, so I have no location to work with.
I have been confused with these for years, so any help is appreciated.

I am no expert and I hope real experts will chime in. All I can offer at this point is my amateur overview:

Thank you. This picture that you used (https://youtu.be/cewdkZHqi6w?t=1496) is actually taken by me. Where did you find it?

I don't remember. Perhaps someone sent it to me and asked for an ID.

Posting nice or informative images online is essentially inviting someone to copy (steal) and use - often mis use elsewhere. It's a sad fact of life. I am an avid hobbyist fish photographer. I have terrabytes of photos spanning decades of fish keeping and collecting however I stopped posting photos online years ago. Even images I didn't mind getting shared got used in scams or misinformed ways. It's very distressing. Water marks can be removed. I hope this experience doesn't detract you from enjoying your fish photography.

Is the field of photography more susceptible to corruption than other fields of human activity?

Interesting question Viktor. I've no idea and it would be extremely difficult to determine even inaccurately but as Cory-headache claims photo ownership, I suspect it does bother him.

Having my photos taken definitely bothered me considerably but I was able to retain my interest in fish photography by not publicly posting. I visit public aquariums (like Cory-headache) and get invited to some impressive private collections around the world.

There are anti theft incentives like water marks, low resolution, login sites, image trackers etc but it's a lot of effort and some expense. Those are bad enough but having it affect the enjoyment of my hobby was the worst part. No need to go into details.

I've no objection to corruption or illegality since I'm a fish horder living in Australia. Most of my fish collection would have to be smuggled or broken bio-piracy laws or evaded tax no doubt.

Thank you for this, brutally smart, honest, and helpful, as always, Aquaholic. Grateful to have you here.

@Cory-headache - What would you like me to do if anything?
- Give your photo a credit? But then I'd have to do this for every photo, hunting down true owners, asking their permissions will take many hours, days, I'd rather delete it. I'd be bitter and dumbfounded but I will survive.
- Cut your photo out of the video?
- Remove the video altogether?

Perhaps... no... likely, I am ignorant and naive, but I never understood these worries, except maybe for professional photographers and videographers making a living and someone stealing their work to ALSO make a living or a significant income.

To me, once you put a visual out to the public, you are drawing from it interest, awareness of your work, perhaps a renown in your circles, admiration, praise, helpful suggestions, and maybe money. Allowing others to freely use your visuals for good, IMHumO, should be by default and no questions asked. If they corrupt or abuse your visuals, you can take action, if you have nothing better to do in your life, I know I don't.

People download my videos and parts of them and use them to make their videos, etc.,
- some pretend it's their video and fish,
- some translate it to their native language and may or may not pretend it's theirs,
- some are unknown beginners making nothing,
- others are huge YouTubers with millions subs making thousands of dollars off EACH such video, which include my work, blood, sweat, anguish, successes and failures, and tears in making it possible, and shooting the videos is by FAR the easiest part versus the effort of keeping and raising fish, granted I am a Neanderthal with camera and point and shoot.

And all these content producers are protected by the Common Use Law, which is fine by me. Some of them use my videos for good, others for questionable purposes / statements. I don't care. I put it out. I get recognized for my work, my accomplishments and my falls. I can't cherry pick all the benefits and complain about rotten cherries, it doesn't sit well with my conscience. But I won't waste my life analyzing what others do with my work.

To me also this is similar to physical public space. When you are out in public, you can be photographed and filmed and this may be used for shady / corrupt purposes or not. What do I care? Am I to stay home or dress up incognito when in public like a nutcase? I've better things to do and greater things to worry about. But that's ignorant me, I reckon.

I leave all the space in the world for your and anyone else's opinion to differ and to be far more important and right than mine.

@Jools - does my video and post affect PCF in an undesirable way? A lot of photos in my gcat review video are from the PCF. What would you like me to do? We always enjoyed a straightforward and friendly relationship with you, Jools, so don't feel like you need to dance around the subject.

Hello Viktor, no criticism at all towards you is intended otherwise I would have contacted you privately.

My post was more of a supportive comment for Cory-headache.

Viktor Jarikov wrote: ↑20 Oct 2023, 18:24 @Jools - does my video and post affect PCF in an undesirable way? A lot of photos in my gcat review video are from the PCF. What would you like me to do? We always enjoyed a straightforward and friendly relationship with you, Jools, so don't feel like you need to dance around the subject.

Hi Viktor,

It is good of you to ask and open discussion.

The nuts-and-bolts of it is that you have not uploaded the video here, so it's a YouTube thing. I don't think any images of mine are involved? I don't think anyone has asked me to do anything beyond you asking me to comment on this. It's really up to you. I kind of need to write this out long hand as it's a complex thing.

Like you say, without dancing around, my understanding is what you've done is stolen people's work and without asking put it into globally available content that could make you money. Stolen is an emotive term, think "use without attribution, permission and in violation of international copyright law".

The "everyone else was looting" argument might not hold up in some folks eyes. If someone thinks being like other people who don't do the right thing is a mitigation then that's up to them, but it does not change the rules.

I know many folks do this without asking from time to time at least on a small scale like you. As you say many, many people consider that perfectly OK and make money from it. Some folks like their content being used and are happy when they stumble across same. If I make and post a video as I stand in front of a work of art, and talk about that work of art, am I breaking the rules? No. However, in the same situation, if you read a few chapters from a book, then, yes, rules are broken. What if you read from that book in another language? There are a zillion examples like this that are all one side of a line or another but often very grey.

Here's YouTube's view: https://www.youtube.com/howyoutubeworks ... copyright/. Have you have crossed that line? The line for me is personal, local use versus otherwise. Recognising that everyone is entitled to their own opinions on this, but the rules are facts not opinions. If it were me, I'd chalk it up to experience and at least credit other people's work next time or perhaps you can edit the video to at least credit the people who created the parts of it that you didn't create. I don't think PlanetCatfish needs a mention, but it would be courteous.

We host images, with appropriate copyright information but, largely, we can't police that except where wholesale theft of IP from the site has happened.

I remember walking into a local fish store with Johnny Jensen who was visiting from Denmark and seeing lots of his images printed out and used to sell fish. It was a small, privately owned store. Beyond talking to the store owner (a friend of mine) to say he really should have asked, not much else happened. When a well-known large group of stores started doing this, we went legal and JJ was paid for use of the images. All ended well. I know of a book published in Taiwan with 100% images from the site, but it was too hard to go after it and didn't have an ISBN so gave up. There are lots of sites with text copied from the site, we've got several closed down over the years where it was wholesale piracy. Many, many great sites use or information and reference us. We have AI set-up to monitor this ongoing.

Again, just my hopefully reasonable views.

Jools

PS What is "Common Use Law" in the context you use it?

Thank you much, as always, Jools. Yes, reasonable, courteous, thoughtful from my mole hill. Just some answers and comments.

If any of the Auchenoglanis images in the Cat-eLog are yours personally, then more than likely I use them in the video (and without your permission, I apologize, if you object), because most people's questions and confusions conveyed to me had stemmed from looking at and being confused by the Cat-eLog datasheet images.

Per attached screenshot of my video analytics, I've made $10.52 from that video with 2,269 views in the 2 years and 3 weeks it has been up. I will turn off monetization on the video, so I don't make a cent more. Any commercials you will see - that will be YouTube making money on my video, not me. Obviously, I am not losing anything.

So this has not been about money, and now will never be. I apologize for turning the monetization on on this video. I won't lie, I hoped to make a nice nest egg off it by now.

This issue is indeed often grey, agreed, and too complex for me to attempt to understand, digest, and use. I don't have any desire to wade through this boring and mind-numbing legal, paralegal, pseudo-legal, or legalistic swamp. It suffices for me that in my heart I believe I've done a good service to many peers by helping them analyze the intricacies of Auchenoglanis species ID, as I see it, full of my errors or not.

In my humble and selfish view, when "the attribution, permission and adherence to international copyright law" is that nuisance-and-hassle task holding you back from doing something good and useful, for example, helping your peer decide whether to buy a living breathing giraffe catfish or not, it is still better to do something good and useful, than not do anything at all.

I don't see my argument as "everyone else was looting". I see it humbly and perhaps erroneously, but I do, that once you made your work public, you gifted or sold it to the public and it belongs to the public, barring obvious (by Common Law) causes of Harm, Injury, or Loss (like the case with JJ vs LFS chain), which are decided by the Trial by Jury. It's not unlike, in my eyes, presenting a ring to your fiancé and then claiming rights to that present, which speaks unfavorably of the gifter. But maybe I am quite wrong here too.

YT speaks about the Fair Use Law, which in most countries cites "review" as one legal exception to the copyright law not requiring obtaining legal permission for reuse of the work of others being reviewed.

Anyhow, on YT, when you file a copyright claim and the other party cites Common (or Fair) Use Law exception, then the next step for the accuser is hiring and paying a lawyer and beginning legal proceedings, or YT reinstates the video that had had a copyright complaint filed against it. That's all I know.

In conclusion, personal relationships are more important to me than my amateur work. If I offended anyone by using their photos in my overview without their permission, state so - I'll be glad to remove the video to gain back their friendship and benevolence. Consider pros and cons too, please.

ignorantia juris non excusat - just ask Robin Hood

Viktor Jarikov wrote: ↑23 Oct 2023, 17:38 YT speaks about the Fair Use Law, which in most countries cites "review" as one legal exception to the copyright law not requiring obtaining legal permission for reuse of the work of others being reviewed.

Ah, OK, yes Fair Use as part of international Copyright Law (not common use, Common Law is another thing again - oft misunderstood as you'll see in the "non-lawyer" bit in the link and creeping in a bit here too).

Amongst other rules, my understanding of what Fair Use means effectively is that (a) it doesn't apply if you have, are or will make any money from the use and (b) it's about what % of the work you take. If you are taking, for example, one page from a book with 100s of pages then that's fair use. If you take an image someone made, that's 100% of an image and so can't be considered fair use. It's why we have individual copyright information for the 20,000-plus images on this site. That's not to say we don't use Fair Use when in some circumstances but it's the distinct minority.

Anyway, just laying out my understanding. And noting the "OP" hasn't actually come back and said this is a problem for them.

Cheers,

Jools

Posting a comment for all readers, not just previous parties:

Another significant consideration to this is the actual fine print in the TERMS which users agree to on whichever platform an image is publicly posted.

Facebook for example can (and will if needed) claim complete IP ownership of posted images when I read through their terms - admittedly this was many years ago and I consequently closed my account. Possibly to avoid them getting sued for similar situations like this.

I have not looked at Youtube terms. I don't use video.

Secondary and perhaps of lesser importance is the damages - punitive, reputational, financial etc potential.

Perhaps the safest method for everyone is to only use images - video footage which you have taken yourself. The law only affects the law abiding (as usual).

Thank you Jools and Aquaholic. I am thoroughly grateful for your explanations of the subject matter and I think I understand it a tiny bit better now, plus obviously your experience with copyright is formidable vs my near-zero experience. I've a tremendous respect for both of you.

All in all, however, I must confess that, opinion-wise, I remain on the opposite pole from yours.
- I can't justify withholding good, useful, and free info from peers, based on potential for corruption; I think when one is given knowledge, with it they are given responsibility to share it for the benefit of others;
- nor can I support the artificially constructed and glorified copyright barriers to good, useful, and free information flow in our field (keeping in mind the caveats of abuse or making a living discussed above);
- nor do I understand the obsessive possessiveness of one's amateur visuals. Taken to a logical pinnacle, nothing belongs to one person, because it's either a product of collective work by humankind or a God's creation or both. Again, profession seems a different matter.

That was about opinions. Now action-wise:
- I guess I will leave this overview published on YT until someone, whose image I used, asks me to remove it, or get permissions for the ~130 images that are not mine out of 156, or something else similar.
- I ask your forgiveness again if you object to my using your image and ask you to express your thoughts and desires on what I should do.
- I will plan to not do anything again like this Auchenoglanis overview, and if I do plan to reuse someone else's work, I will plan to ask for permission.