Is there a complaint that Lena's image is banned? Playboy is not like poetry

Yesterday, April 1, 2024, an email from Terry Benzel, IEEE's vice chair for technology and conference activities, sparked a heated debate in the academic community, that is, "IEEE no longer accepts papers containing Lena images". Anyone who works with images or has been interested in this aspect will know the image of the "goddess" Lena.

The picture comes from the Internet

I won't say much about how the Lena image became the standard image in image processing, and many articles tell the ins and outs. Since the 90s of the last century, if you do image processing, or research on computer vision, you are a little embarrassed not to use Lena images. Reviewers will also mutter: why not use the Lena image?

Lena images are used a lot, is it a violation of portrait rights, and has been complained about? In fact, it is not. This image comes from Playboy magazine (everyone knows), the magazine did have the idea of defending rights at first, but in the end it had to give up, and even encouraged and supported everyone to use this image. Lena herself has no objection to the use of this image, and has even been invited to attend related events twice.

But the widespread use of this image has always been criticized. And why? It's because this image is from Playboy. Moreover, the image is not complete, the full picture is full-body. For reasons that everyone can understand, I can't show or describe it here.

Because people are particularly sensitive to changes in the face, there is a real need for a standard face image that everyone recognizes in image processing. But now that Lena is disabled, whose face image should I use? That's a real problem, and a big one. This does involve the issue of image rights. Not only in papers and textbooks, but even on public platforms, if you use other people's photos, it is estimated that it will attract complaints.

Recently, several public accounts with "ulterior motives" in the poetry world have been banned, just because they have been complained of infringing on portrait rights. Now that I think about it, it seems like a bit of a "fishing" meaning. made a screenshot with an avatar to make everyone hotly discussed, and then as soon as they complained, they were all banned, which can be described as a net.

But Playboy didn't do that, and neither did Lena, who has always been welcoming and accommodating. Now, IEEE has decided not to accept papers containing this image because of other considerations. Of course, the timing of this email is more special, April 1, is the "April Fool's Day" in the West, could this be an April Fool's Day joke? Maybe yes.

From this comparison, I have the impression that our poetry scene is not as tolerant as "Playboy", and our poets are not as generous as the model Lena. The poetry world and poets wield the big stick of "complaining" at every turn. This is actually not a strong performance, but a manifestation of impatience and corruption, giving people the feeling of being a child.

Lena image

After talking for a long time, I guess some people still don't know, what does Lena look like? Have you ever seen this picture? Isn't it familiar? Yes, the goddess Lena is like that. I've seen the full-body picture, but I can't tell you. Posting this picture here should not attract complaints.

"Playboy" is even cleaner than our poetry circle? Or is our poetry world not as good as "Playboy"? Our poetry scene, at least in some ways, is more "playboy" than "Playboy". And the face of our poet is more precious than the face of a model.