Colin Kaepernick's skin appears darkened in Republican campaign fundraiser ad

[cow451]

Indeed.

Yet, NBC gets a pass. Not sure about you, personally. Perhaps you also spoke out when NBC did it. Did you give them a pass, or did you speak out against what they did, or did you remain silent?

Frankly I don’t recall. I was never focused on his ethnicity since he was just a hot head with a gun looking to be a big man.

 

[Belk]

Even if you ignore any racialized aspects of this photo editing, the message in the ad did portray Kap as evil. It described him as "anti-American flag" to an audience who would interpret that as traitorous.



I already posted a plausible non-racialized justification for this edit - by desaturating the Kap photo, they cause him to sort of fade into the background and be less significant. When contrasted against the Trump photo that was along side it, the vibrancy of the Trump photo appears to make Trump pop out from the screen and look more exciting. Desaturating a background photo is also pretty common when overlaying text, as was done here.

That doesn't disprove any racialized intent, nor are they mutually exclusive. But it's not as if race is the only possible motivation here.

That seems a plausible explanation. I would be interested to hear the opinion of an expert on the subject.

 

[FenderTL5]

Yes, the photo on the left is the original. It was taken by a staff photographer at the Miami Herald and is available for license from Getty Images:

San Francisco 49ers outside linebacker Eli Harold and quarterback... News Photo - Getty Images

I agree that it looks like it was scanned, but I don't know why anybody would scan a hardcopy of anything for an email ad. And they just happened to have a hardcopy of a photo of a photo of Kap that was taken 2.5 years ago? That strikes me as rather implausible.

Either way, Miami Herald says that they didn't give permission for the photo to be modified; NRCC says that they got the image from a graphic design firm:

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article232550702.html

Note that this image is not "royalty free", but rather is "rights-managed". It's also "not released", which means that Kap hasn't granted permission for his image to be used. Since this is clearly a commercial usage, it would require both a custom pricing quote from Getty and a release from Kap (or the NFL or whomever manages that sort of thing on his end).

What is a Release? | Getty Images Canada
Getty Images

This is what I thought back at Post 25

What do you want to bet that somebody didn't jump through all the appropriate hoops?

That would be the reason it was scanned, scanning would remove the metadata in the digital photo.
If this is indeed the case then they are thieves.

 

[Radagast]

That would be the reason it was scanned, scanning would remove the metadata in the digital photo.
If this is indeed the case then they are thieves.

They would no doubt argue "fair use." I'm not sure if that would fly.

 

[FenderTL5]

They would no doubt argue "fair use." I'm not sure if that would fly.

If it were fair-use, there would be no need to strip the logos nor scan/alter the image.

 

[Radagast]

If it were fair-use, there would be no need to strip the logos nor scan/alter the image.

Well, stripping the logos definitely avoids legal action by the logo owners, which is independent of the photograph copyright issue.

And degrading the image by making it desaturated and lower resolution could strengthen a "fair use case." So would the precedent of multiple online news sites already using the image with a "fair use" disclaimer.

It would be for a court to decide whether "fair use" applies, but of course any legal action against the ad would just be more free publicity for it.

 

[iluvatar5150]

And degrading the image by making it desaturated and lower resolution could strengthen a "fair use case." So would the precedent of multiple online news sites already the image with a "fair use" disclaimer.

It would be for a court to decide whether "fair use" applies, but of course any legal action against the ad would just be more free publicity for it.

Your understanding of fair use is pretty wrong. Affecting a fair use claim, the NRCC didn't just use a small excerpt of the original image - they used a substantial portion of it, and arguably the most important part. Their use of it was in no way "transformative" - they modified the colors a bit. And their use of it was not educational, but commercial in nature.

Additionally, I already linked to the Getty release page. Fund raising and promoting of a good is clearly listed under the categories of usage that would require a release from the subject in the photo.

 

[FenderTL5]

...degrading the image by making it desaturated and lower resolution could strengthen a "fair use case."...

If they were going for fair-use, then comically altering the image to the point of exaggeration would have served their purpose better. Going full-on racist and turning that image into a black-face cartoon would be closer to fair-use than what was actually done.
At this point I'm convinced that the image was scanned to remove the metadata (linking it to Getty) and the NFL logos removed, both in an effort to shirk following legal protocol.
iow, they decided to steal the image instead paying the license(s).

 

[Radagast]

Your understanding of fair use is pretty wrong.

I was quite careful in my wording. I didn't say that I thought they would win a fair-use case.

Their use of it was in no way "transformative" - they modified the colors a bit.

And splashed political logos over it.

For anyone interested in previous cases of debatable fair use in political ads (there are many), see here.

 

[Aldebaran]

Around post 106, where someone brought up the color of various people in police mug shots. Really weird a post would make the jump from a discussion about a political ad to pictures of criminals - not sure what the common element the post is trying to assert between a doctored picture of a black professional athlete and pictures of criminals.

Yeah, I was answering someone who seemed to think that judgements were made based on looks rather than actions. Seems that the criminals really are predominantly black, unless you believe the majority of those mugshots were darkened to make them "look more sinister".

 

[Veritas]

This is really silly! It's not like they changed his race or anything. There are clearly other explanations and ultimately it doesn't matter. Trump is enjoying increasing support among Hispanics and Black Americans. There is no gain for the GOP to intentionally darken his skin color for political purposes. Once again, the left is making something out of nothing.

 

[Aldebaran]

This is really silly! It's not like they changed his race or anything. There are clearly other explanations and ultimately it doesn't matter. Trump is enjoying increasing support among Hispanics and Black Americans. There is no gain for the GOP to intentionally darken his skin color for political purposes. Once again, the left is making something out of nothing.

Nothing is all they have to work with at this point. That is, nothing but finding things to have hurt feelings about.

 

[KCfromNC]

Yeah, I was answering someone who seemed to think that judgements were made based on looks rather than actions. Seems that the criminals really are predominantly black, unless you believe the majority of those mugshots were darkened to make them "look more sinister".

Please, do continue explaining.

 

[Aldebaran]

Please, do continue explaining.

I would if any further explanation was needed.