George Herbert wrote:
On 1/25/07, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
Some people are definitely descending into copyright paranoia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Abramoff_scotland_small.jpg
What, having your copyrighted work introduced into a trial means your lose all your rights to it? If so, that would be useful, since Disney has been in court a few times. Maybe Mickey Mouse has been PD all this time and we didn't even know it! And haven't there been a bunch of movies involved in court cases too? Free movie uploads tonight!
:-)
It's been established in the US that you lose trade secret status with stuff in open court filings (hence a lot of sealed filings in civil cases), and that copyrighted stuff doesn't lose copyright but enters the "suitable for fair use in coverage in the media and legal commentary and the like" realm.
Which is fine, we have a whole set of rules for all that. The original claim was that the picture was a production of the US government, for which the main evidence seemed to be that it was introduced at a federal trial. We still don't know whether the picture was taken by a random person in the group or by a professional, and if the latter, who the professional was working for. Copyright paranoia? Well, I would be pretty angry if someone copied all of my photos, removed my name, and declared them "PD-USGov" on some flimsy pretext.
Stan