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Last week, federal district judge Jeremy Fogel issued a technical but important
To photographer
Last Friday, political commenter and blogger Patrick Frey of
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Like many former newspaper employees, I hate the 24-hour "news" networks. Be it Fox News, MSNBC, or CNN, I think they're just across-the-board awful. The only time I'll pay any attention to them is in the midst of some event that demands real-time attention, say a presidential election or a terrorist attack (and even then, I may just switch to BBC coverage instead). Other than in those situations, the news channels are just echo chambers for the dreck spewed by your Becks, O'Rei
It's tough being a publisher these days. Of course, no one is having much fun in the current economic downturn, but publishers were up against it even before the slowdown. Circulations have been down across the board for years now, which in turn has slashed the advertising revenues that print publications have always relied upon to survive. It's just a bad time to be publishing newspapers and magazines, at least while using the classical publishing business model.

Digital technologies have allowed people to share music in unprecedented ways, and earlier this week
Last Friday, the Associated Press briefly became the 
Description:
Ted Szukalski, an Australian photographer, sent blogger Patrick Frey of Patterico's Pontifications what purported to be a DMCA takedown notice on January 9, 2010. The takedown notice complained about Frey's blog post that reproduced and commented on a photoshopped image showing President Obama shining Sarah Palin's shoes.
The image in question is a photshopped version of Szukalski's photograph of a homeless man shining the shoes of a seated woman (see the non-modified version titled Shoeshine - homeless and a woman client MG_6348-27). The modified version does away with Szukalski's copyright notice and replaces the heads of the shoe shiner and woman with those of President Obama and Sarah Palin, respectively.
The photoshopped image caused a small stir in early January 2010 when a Colorado Department of Transportation worker faced discipline for forwarding the image. Frey's post took issue with another blogger's description of the incident as an "ugly little upwelling of racism from the right wing base," pointing out that the woman who forwarded the email was a registered Democrat.
Frey responded in an email refusing to take down the image and asserting that his use of the photograph for political commentary was a classic example of fair use. As of the date of this writing, Szukalski had taken no further action.