The MPAA studios hate us. [...] They see us as stupid eyeballs with wallets, and they are entitled to a constant stream of our money. They despise us, and they certainly don’t respect us.
Yet when we watch their movies, we support them. [...] They use our support to buy these laws.
The next SOPA by Marco Arment. A fine read, with major points everyone should ponder—myself included.
Fellow photographers, Shawn Nee (Discarted) and Thomas Hawk will be on the radio at Digital Village (KPFK 90.7 FM) today (Saturday, March 7, 2009) at 10:00am.
Peter Bibring of the ACLU will also be there.
If you can’t listen to the show live, wait for it in their archives.
***
Shawn helped organize the photowalk/rally near the US Bank Tower in Downtown Los Angeles in late January. As for Thomas, he just takes so many photos that it’s inevitable for him to get harassed. (Someone tells me that I might be the next Thomas Hawk regarding photographer harassment. Oh noes.)
I know this is late, but if you have any points you’d like to bring up, you should post them in this Flickr discussion group thread.
While sailing around the Los Angeles Harbor in San Pedro, we got pulled over the the Los Angeles Port Police.
Thanks to Hal Bergman, there’s video of the encounter with the security team at the US Bank Tower. Shawn (Discarted) edited the video and just blogged about it this morning. Consider it part two, which include the put downs, plus an attempt to teach one of the security guards by Angelo [of Hollywood].
via Discarted
*****
See also:
Update 1/21/2009 3:35pm — Thanks to Thomas Hawk for blogging about this!
Update 1/21/2009 3:50pm — Thanks to blogdowntown for blogging about this, too. See “Photographers’ Rights Protest Makes For Good Theatre.”
Update 1/23/2009 2:55pm — Thanks for LAist and Jeremy Brooks for picking this up (and also putting it on Digg).
After getting harassed at the US Bank Tower last Thursday, Shawn helped organize an impromptu protest for Sunday.
From Pershing Square, we walked up 5th Street toward the US Bank Tower. At this point, I was with Shawn Nee, David Sommars and Angelo Pacella.
Our first confrontation was almost immediate, occurring in front of the Gas Company Tower (Google Maps). The first SG was a older man with a New York accent. What follows is my transcription of the confrontation, along with an audio recording (download here).
Following up my getting harassed at the US Bank building in Downtown Los Angeles, Discarted sent an email to several other photographers and posted on Flickr that we would protest.
This Sunday (1/18/2009) at 2pm, we’re going to meet at Pershing Square and walk to the US Bank building to protest, take photos and educate people. Of course, there are many buildings around the area that we’ll photograph and most likely get harassed.
In addition to your camera, bring video cameras or audio recorders (if you have any) to document any confrontation(s).
Mentally prepare yourself. Understand and stand up for your rights. Photography is not a crime.
Update 1/21/2009 4:15pm: I shouldn’t have worded my post this way. I’d like to clarify that our primary goal was to take photos. If we got harassed, then we’d have the necessary tools needed to document the incident.
January 15th, 2009 at 5:27pm, we were harassed by the security of the US Bank building for about five minutes.
I haven’t been harassed about taking photos in awhile, but when Alex Orsburn wanted to go photowalking in the area around Civic Center and Pershing Square, I knew it’d happen.
For the record, the building(s) are incredibly visible in Google Maps using Street View.
A minute after Alex was up the stairs, as predicted, a security guard (Robert) came outside to confront us. The usual spiel spewed forth.
