On 5/21/06, Arwel Parry <arwel(a)cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Agreed, which is why we ought to have a licensing
option which states
something like "Technically copyrighted, but copyright holder not
reasonably traceable or is indeterminable", and make it clear that this
is intended only to be used in the case of private images which have not
been published (in an effort to prevent it becoming a sinkhole for all
the copyrighted photos everyone wants to crib from elsewhere).
I think that's a bad idea. People will start labeling everything that
they can't find the author on as "technically copyrighted".
When a user labels something as their own creation and that they have
licensed it under X-and-Y license, and we have no real reason to
really suspect otherwise (and no, I don't think "but they didn't
necessarily take the picture of themself" is enough to really suspect
otherwise), then I think the risk is legally theirs. I'm also
reasonably sure it falls under the safe-harbor provisions of the DMCA,
as I understand them.
FF