Scarves H-Photo Gate

[Darma]

OMG, I just read pages back about the photo-gate. What a bummer! Hopefully, @Vlad will get some clarification on what exactly H legal was concerning about and what can be posted after their public release.

Having said that, someone from H corporate needs to come here to understand how those pictures and intel posted and shared by this community members has fueled the scarf sales all these years. It does not make any business sense for any company to offend their fan base. If H corporate does not understand that, it's clear to me that they are being too arrogant! They will realize sooner or later that they are shooting their foot.

As a 20-year H scarf collector, I have spent tens of thousands my hard earned $ on their silks and cashmeres. Lately, I have been complaining about lack of originality in terms of color schemes they forked out in the past few seasons. This photo-gate is adding oil to the fire. I can save my money and use somewhere else. H Corporate, are you happy now?

 

[CrackBerryCream]

Which thread/post are you referring to?

 

[acrowcounted]

Which thread/post are you referring to?

https://forum.purseblog.com/threads/hermes-spring-summer-19-scarves.995472/page-162#post-32875998

 

[Sofia Mena]

@CrackBerryCream to piggyback on what @acrowcounted posted, the mods asked members to take any further discussion out of the thread, since the seasonal scarf threads are part of the reference library.

 

[QuelleFromage]

Usually DMCA takedowns are spurred by an automated search. I highly doubt any real thinking was done by Hermès here (clearly!).

 

[chicinthecity777]

Well... I'm pretty sure H could make a claim that their copyrighted material is being used for profit. WE use them for educating ourselves, but these pages have ads on them, and page hits generated by people clicking to see the scarf photos = revenue for the owners of this site. That sounds like profit to me.

This hits the nail in the head!
Just because photos posted on H.com in public, it doesn't mean it can be reused unauthorised for a commercial purpose. As much as we would like to refer TPF as a community, it is a profitable business after all. Therefore it is bond by copy right laws etc.
I can see this is also a protective measure for H.com as I am sure they want people to visit their own website more.
Whether this action makes any business sense or not it's for H corporate to decide as it's very difficult to measure how much revenue will be lost due to lack of Hermes copyrighted stock photos of H scarf on TPF.

 

[chicinthecity777]

Although members here should be freely to share their own photos of the scarves.

 

[PJW5813]

This hits the nail in the head!
Just because photos posted on H.com in public, it doesn't mean it can be reused unauthorised for a commercial purpose. As much as we would like to refer TPF as a community, it is a profitable business after all. Therefore it is bond by copy right laws etc.
I can see this is also a protective measure for H.com as I am sure they want people to visit their own website more.
Whether this action makes any business sense or not it's for H corporate to decide as it's very difficult to measure how much revenue will be lost due to lack of Hermes copyrighted stock photos of H scarf on TPF.

This could have wider implications across all threads for when any page from the Hermes website is screensaved and posted; it could possibly cover photos shown in threads like Socialites and their Hermes as well, that contain shots from other agencies.

 

[chicinthecity777]

This could have wider implications across all threads for when any page from the Hermes website is screensaved and posted; it could possibly cover photos shown in threads like Socialites and their Hermes as well, that contain shots from other agencies.

Someone said screen grabs were ok. Who knows. Photos of celebs or belonging to other agencies are up to their owners to "police". Most celebs won't care as they want publicity. But yes agree there could be a wider implications etc.

 

[papertiger]

This hits the nail in the head!
Just because photos posted on H.com in public, it doesn't mean it can be reused unauthorised for a commercial purpose. As much as we would like to refer TPF as a community, it is a profitable business after all. Therefore it is bond by copy right laws etc.
I can see this is also a protective measure for H.com as I am sure they want people to visit their own website more.
Whether this action makes any business sense or not it's for H corporate to decide as it's very difficult to measure how much revenue will be lost due to lack of Hermes copyrighted stock photos of H scarf on TPF.

Although that is the letter of the law, but you'd also think in 2019, when H pays PR agencies a considerable fortune to spread new (even pre-launched) products specifically through social media, H would find it counterproductive to take away what is clearly one their best (unpaid for) promotional services. I find it both hypocritical of H and a waste of revenue that their marketing dept. and their legal dept are working against each other.

The reason we can post our scarves is obviously because we own that scarf and the picture, only the original design is copyrighted.

 

[chicinthecity777]

Although that is the letter of the law, but you'd also think in 2019, when H pays PR agencies a considerable fortune to spread new (even pre-launched products) specifically through social media, H would find it counterproductive to take away what is clearly one their best (unpaid for) promotional services. I find it both hypocritical of H and a waste of revenue that their marketing dept. and their legal dept are working against each other.

The reason we can post our scarves is obviously because we own that scarf and the picture, only the original design is copyrighted.

Don't disagree with you at all! But we know H works in its own mysterious ways.

 

[QuelleFromage]

Although that is the letter of the law, but you'd also think in 2019, when H pays PR agencies a considerable fortune to spread new (even pre-launched products) specifically through social media, H would find it counterproductive to take away what is clearly one their best (unpaid for) promotional services. I find it both hypocritical of H and a waste of revenue that their marketing dept. and their legal dept are working against each other.

The reason we can post our scarves is obviously because we own that scarf and the picture, only the original design is copyrighted.

Agree, not smart practice.
It was at least 15 years ago that brands began to use, not police, community sites and fan pages online and in social media. Normal practice at any large brand would be to work with tPF, or, in H's case, to "invisibly" enable it.

Someone said in the scarf thread that most of us won't understand running a billion -dollar business; I heartily disagree with that. Plenty of us understand both the business objectives and the implications.

 

[speedyqueen]

I used to be a member in another (European) forum for a while whose rules said we had to quote the copyright source whenever we posted a photo to which we did no own the rights. Maybe this could help when photos from hermes.com are shown here for reference? Provided they had already been published there, of course, which probably means we won't get the thrill of a first glimpse of a new season any more.

 

[papertiger]

I used to be a member in another (European) forum for a while whose rules said we had to quote the copyright source whenever we posted a photo to which we did no own the rights. Maybe this could help when photos from hermes.com are shown here for reference? Provided they had already been published there, of course, which probably means we won't get the thrill of a first glimpse of a new season any more.

That's actually the rule here too.

It was clearly stated that pics were from h.com.

At the time of asking for the removal of those pictures those scarves/cws were current and available through stores and online globally

 

[Aelfaerie]

I just wanted to chime in that as TPB is a US-based company, I am using the US copyright laws as my guidelines.

So Section 107 of the US Copyright Act outlines "fair use" and instances where we can use images without express permission of the original owner (link here if anyone's interested https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107), provided certain criteria are met. Basically, if we're using H's pictures for “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, [it's] is not an infringement of copyright”. In fact, a classic example of legally permissible fair use of other images would be product reviews, like using manufacturer pictures in online blog reviews or something.

Here on the TPF, we were using publicly available images for new reporting purposes and educating forum members, and possibly increasing the potential market for the items in the removed images. I am very disappointed many posts were deleted, and I hope they can be eventually re-posted without legal concerns.