The FBI Sucks at Photoshop | Hacker News Reader

The FBI Sucks at Photoshop

mashable.com

61 pointsjohns14 comments

Sometimes a hack is just a hack. There is a reason that the term has negative connotations for many. This was not clever or efficient, the FBI is cutting corners in situations where people could be seriously harmed by their laziness, not to mention they outright lied about the source of the photo.

I find it hilarious that they just committed copyright infringement. By default in the US this photograph should be the property of the photographer/photographed, in no way should the FBI have been using a photograph taken from the internet, they're the ones threatening the entire world with 1/2 million dollar fines for copyright infringement on every dvd released out of the US.

The US government is allowed to exempt itself from intellectual property restrictions, especially in the interests of "national security".

I'm well aware of that, but I believe "national security" still doesn't cover sheer unadulterated laziness and incompetence . . . yet.

They are not allowed to exempt themself. What they are allowed to do is force a license.

Meaning they will pay for the usage, at "reasonable and customary" rates, and you can't say no.

I believe this applies mainly to patents. I have not heard of it being applied to copyright, but it's certainly possible.

I don't understand all the commotion surrounding this story. I think this falls under fair use for one and secondly I don't see why everyone is making such a big deal about this. the only part of the picture that is the same is the guys hair other than that the two look completely different.

Fair use? I didn't know the FBI was a news agency/student to which fair-use under the law is aimed. This was someones political photograph, that was used in a man's campaign to get into government, and now a very poorly modified photograph of him is on America's Most Wanted list.

The issue here is that they used an upstanding citizen under the law to base this photograph off. They didn't bother to put in the effort, or even use another terrorist where a mistake would still have a somewhat positive effect. However, now this man's going to be tackled going through airport security because customs officials look at facial features all of which they stole from this poor fucking guy.

  all of which they stole from this poor fucking guy

It's the same hair, and sort of the forehead, and that's about it. Complexion, nose, mouth, eyes, ears, and facial hair color are all different.

It still looks more like Llamazares than like Bin Laden.

Agreed. I honestly see very little resemblance of the 'shop to Llamazares. I can't believe anybody even recognized his as one of the sourced pictures.

sorry, your right, fair use is the wrong word for it, it's a derivative work, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work and since it is substantially different then the original also not copy right infringement.

"the artist found the photo on the web and didn’t know it was of a Spanish politician"

so. if it wasn't a politician, everything would be fine. Because screwing normal people is ok. But certainly not politicians.

It could also have just been badly worded though, but it felt wrong enough for me to take issue and post here.

Also, I'd like to state that most pictures of people "on the web" are pictures of innocent people who probably would not like being harassed at US airports :-)

"The forensic artist was not aware of the identity of the individual depicted in the photograph"

So... It could be anyone. I bet this is not the first instance a forensic artist uses some picture of someone he knows nothing about and puts it into a wanted people list.

Just imagine how hilarious would it be to be confused with a wanted terrorist (or paedophile, drug-trafficker, bank-robber, whatever) and be detained when arriving (or passing through the US), shipped somewhere to be interrogated, only to discover that was all because someone didn't find a picture in their reference picture files and pulled one from your facebook page...

I would be funny, if nobody could get hurt (or killed) for it.

A couple decades ago, a friend of mine was detained at a US airport because he had the same name a wanted Colombian drug overlord had. It took him six hours to have the Brazilian embassy confirm his identity so he could be released.

I wonder how many wanted criminals travel under their real names...

Maybe they need some lessons from Donnie Hoyle...(fictitious teacher of Photoshop and guy with personal problems)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_X5uR7VC4M

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