A Photo History Find

The New York Times Art and Design section writes of a recent photo find, featuring the 100 year old work of Edward Steichen, famous for his early color photographs, winning an Academy Award for best documentary, and serving as Director of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art. More recently, he made news when one of his early 1900's platinum prints, "The Pond - Moonlight" broke the record for photography auction at Sotheby's with a price of $US 2.9 Million.

Record Setting Nude Photo

Artist Spencer Tunick staged a record setting group nude photo in Mexico City's Zocalo Square. 18,000 people posed for the photograph, as police and no-fly zones kept the onlookers at bay. Tunick is famous for similar shoots in Germany and Spain.

And while we're delving into NSFW territory with a little nudity, here's an interesting blog submitted to me by an artist simply titled, "Sex in Art". 18 and over only, please! The site does contain some graphic imagery, and as a precaution, I'm linking to their disclaimer page.

Copyright Tools

Copyright Navigator: A Digital Annotated Concept Map of the Fundamentals of U.S. Copyright Law by Professor Lionel S. Sobel is a pretty awesome interactive flowchart that lays out the fundamentals of copyright law, and how it pertains to things like enforcement and fair use.

Ready to register those works of art? The United States Copyright Office has the step by step instructions and required forms for copyright registration of various flavors, including visual arts, literary works, performance art etc..

Creative Commons has a new "Termination of Transfer" tool based on the US Copyright Act that assists artists in reclaiming copyrights given away long ago. 35 years, to be exact. via boingboing.

Here's an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal about some new tools that can scan the web for violation of copyright. Attributor and Copyscape are the key players right now.

UPDATES 5/2/08

Attributor just raised 12 million and has the support of Condé Nast.

Photographic Forgeries

Awesome article in Science News about detecting photographic forgeries with software and math. You may recall this past year a Reuters Photographer was given the boot for cloning some smoke in an image of the war in Lebanon.

More on the forthcoming suite of photo authentication tools from Adobe via Wired Magazine.

UPDATE: CBS News looks at The Art Of Image Altering.

Kodak Rolling out New Products

Kodak's been busy with a few new product rollouts. Shown above, is the 100 Year ink cartridge for their new line of printers.

And check out this new mini printer with a built in camera - The Zink. Is this the return of the instant Polaroid?