NYC Gov’t Sends Legal Threat To Artist For Telling People How To Use Traffic Cams To Take Selfies

Few things seem to push government officials to become officious faster than the mild irritation of people making a slight mockery of government machinery. In the grand scheme of things, the scofflawishness is almost imperceptible. But it’s the scoffing part that bothers these officious entities the most. And that is almost always greeted with a pettiness inversely proportionate to the original acts that put these particularly irritating burrs under the government’s saddle.

And so it is here, in the case of artist Morry Kolman, which has the possibility of turning into The State vs. Morry Kolman. As Samantha Cole explains for 404 Media, Kolman took publicly available information and added even more publicly available information to turn New York City’s traffic cameras into ad hoc selfie stations.

The locations of the cameras are already known and people can access the feeds through the NYC Dept. of Transportation site. The only thing Kolman added was instructions on how to use the cameras to capture photos on demand of anyone within range of the camera.

On the page before taking a photo, there’s a list of steps: first is to get in frame by refreshing the camera, and second is “don’t get run over.” There’s also a checkbox that’s required before taking the photo that affirms users agree to abide by local traffic laws: “I agree not to use Traffic Cam Photobooth for any unlawful purpose. I will comply with all local laws while using Traffic Cam Photobooth, and I will not use Traffic Cam Photobooth in a manner that creates a foreseeable risk of harm or danger to myself or others. I have read and agree to these terms.”

This apparently bothered the NYC DOT so much it decided to send Kolman a half-assed cease-and-desist letter:

In the letter sent on November 6, NYC DOT demands Kolman “immediately remove and disable all portions of TCP’s website that relates to NYC traffic cameras and/or encourages members of the public to engage in dangerous and unauthorized behavior.” The department claims in the letter that Kolman’s project is “promoting the unauthorized use of NYC traffic cameras” and “encourages pedestrians to violate NYC traffic rules and engage in dangerous behavior.”  

The letter claims Kolman’s site violates the DOT site’s terms of use, which is odd, because Kolman’s site doesn’t actually do anything at all to the DOT site other than direct traffic to it. The DOT seems to believe this clause in its terms of service gives it permission to demand Kolman remove all links to its site from his site. That clause forbids people from accessing NYC.gov from:

“[using] NYC.gov in a way to give rise to civil liability or encourage others to engage in any conduct which would give rise to civil liability…”

But that doesn’t appear to be happening here. Visitors to Kolman’s site only receive instructions and a link to the DOT site. They’re on their own when it comes to taking selfies while standing in the middle of roads. And if something bad happens there, it’s more likely a case of criminal liability, rather than civil liability.

Kolman has responded appropriately. He acquired a 25-foot window washing pole, which he used to take a photo of the C&D letter sent by the city, as well as to hoist a mirror to camera-level to obtain a traffic cam “selfie” — both of which were featured in a recent Miami art exhibition.

The new-ish language informing users they’re responsible for their own actions is likely the result of this legal threat. But the city isn’t winning this battle. Kolman’s site still uses the DOT’s data to provide visitors with the physical locations of the city’s traffic cameras. And there are a lot of them:

But it’s no longer just a New York City problem. Kolman has provided code that enables other users to upload/link to traffic cam location data, which means this is starting to spread across the nation.

Minneapolis, Minnesota has entered the chat. So have sizable portions of the upper east coast and the state of Georgia

The NYC government is still free to criminally charge selfie-takers for, I don’t know… aggravated jaywalking? But it doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on when it comes to threatening people for providing the public with access to data the city and its DOT already have made publicly accessible. That this particular use of that data may be ill-advised doesn’t make it a violation of the DOT site’s terms of use. The only thing the city has done here is provide national advertising for a site that had flown well under the radar right up until the NYC government decided to make an issue of it.