that one may not upload a small, low resolution line drawing of the USS Enterprise? without violating copyright?
Leaving aside the baseless allegation of trolling, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anti-Star_Trek_Cabal_logo.png is possibly going to be deleted for that reason.
Guy (JzG)
It's surprising how many things can be held under the gun of intellectual property protection.
Case in point: Captain Jean-Luc Picard(r).
On 12/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
that one may not upload a small, low resolution line drawing of the USS Enterprise? without violating copyright?
Leaving aside the baseless allegation of trolling, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anti-Star_Trek_Cabal_logo.png is possibly going to be deleted for that reason.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:54:03 -0500, "James Hare" messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
Case in point: Captain Jean-Luc Picard(r).
So a caricature of Picard would be forbidden? Really? I am honestly confused here. What about, say, a painting of an aircraft? Is that unfree by virtue of the manufacturer's rights, or the airline's logo? I have a friend who is a commercial artist, that is not an idle question.
Guy (JzG)
On 12/21/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:54:03 -0500, "James Hare" messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
Case in point: Captain Jean-Luc Picard(r).
So a caricature of Picard would be forbidden? Really?
It might count as fair use under certain conditions. A painting of Patrick Stewart would probably be a safer bet although there would be other issues with things such as in the US at least the Right of Publicity.
I am honestly confused here. What about, say, a painting of an aircraft? Is that unfree by virtue of the manufacturer's rights, or the airline's logo?
It could be under some conditions and depending on the country it is in.
I have a friend who is a commercial artist, that is not an idle question.
If they want legal advice they should talk to a lawyer.
This is insane. Noone would EVER EVER EVER consider this a copyright violation.
On 12/21/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/21/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:54:03 -0500, "James Hare" messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
Case in point: Captain Jean-Luc Picard(r).
So a caricature of Picard would be forbidden? Really?
It might count as fair use under certain conditions. A painting of Patrick Stewart would probably be a safer bet although there would be other issues with things such as in the US at least the Right of Publicity.
I am honestly confused here. What about, say, a painting of an aircraft? Is that unfree by virtue of the manufacturer's rights, or the airline's logo?
It could be under some conditions and depending on the country it is in.
I have a friend who is a commercial artist, that is not an idle question.
If they want legal advice they should talk to a lawyer.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 12/21/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
This is insane. Noone would EVER EVER EVER consider this a copyright violation.
You must be kidding. Please see: http://www.chillingeffects.org/fanfic/notice.cgi?NoticeID=7
Generally we avoid the problems of derivative illustrations because they are not encyclopedic. This doesn't mean that such issues don't exist.
On 12/21/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/21/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
This is insane. Noone would EVER EVER EVER consider this a copyright violation.
You must be kidding. Please see: http://www.chillingeffects.org/fanfic/notice.cgi?NoticeID=7
Generally we avoid the problems of derivative illustrations because they are not encyclopedic. This doesn't mean that such issues don't exist.
The link therein referred to " various photographs of STAR TREK elements".
Whole different ball of wax.
On 12/21/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
The link therein referred to " various photographs of STAR TREK elements".
Whole different ball of wax.
"These rights are protected by numerous copyrights trademarks in both the programs themselves and the characters, sets, and other elements appearing in those programs."
It is common for rights holders to go after the authors of fanfiction/fanartwork with the argument that it is a derivative work. They are successful, although sometimes the courts decide the use is fair use (esp with respect to parody). For us, because we are not engaging in parody, our claim of fair use will be stronger if we use a photograph of the actual show.
In any case, I wasn't claiming to like it or that I thought that we were in some great legal peril .. only that such complaints to happen. I went to google and typed in "fanfiction star trek infringing" and smacked I'm feeling lucky. I have no doubt that you can find no shortage of similar cases.
On 12/21/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/21/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
The link therein referred to " various photographs of STAR TREK elements".
Whole different ball of wax.
"These rights are protected by numerous copyrights trademarks in both the programs themselves and the characters, sets, and other elements appearing in those programs."
It is common for rights holders to go after the authors of fanfiction/fanartwork with the argument that it is a derivative work. They are successful, although sometimes the courts decide the use is fair use (esp with respect to parody). For us, because we are not engaging in parody, our claim of fair use will be stronger if we use a photograph of the actual show.
{{citation needed}}. Most fanfiction/fanartwork is parody, but that doesn't mean that parody makes for a stronger claim of fair use.
In fact, if anything, I'd think that a work which infringes on a much smaller portion of the work (such as a caricature) would have a stronger claim of fair use than a work which infringes on a much larger portion of the work (a photograph of the actual show).
In any case, I wasn't claiming to like it or that I thought that we were in some great legal peril .. only that such complaints to happen. I went to google and typed in "fanfiction star trek infringing" and smacked I'm feeling lucky. I have no doubt that you can find no shortage of similar cases.
Have any of them actually been litigated? The whole point of "chilling effects" is that these are examples of threats of litigation which anyone with a real knowledge of the law knows would never hold up in court.
Anthony
Heh, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were new to WP. Don't you know "insane" is par for the course for some of our contributors?
The Cunctator wrote:
This is insane. Noone would EVER EVER EVER consider this a copyright violation.
On 12/21/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/21/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:54:03 -0500, "James Hare" messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
Case in point: Captain Jean-Luc Picard(r).
So a caricature of Picard would be forbidden? Really?
It might count as fair use under certain conditions. A painting of Patrick Stewart would probably be a safer bet although there would be other issues with things such as in the US at least the Right of Publicity.
I am honestly confused here. What about, say, a painting of an aircraft? Is that unfree by virtue of the manufacturer's rights, or the airline's logo?
It could be under some conditions and depending on the country it is in.
I have a friend who is a commercial artist, that is not an idle question.
If they want legal advice they should talk to a lawyer.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On 12/21/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
This is insane. Noone would EVER EVER EVER consider this a copyright violation.
What world are you living in? In my experience, an IP holder generally considers any use of something even remotely resembling their IP to be a copyright infringement unless they're getting paid.
geni wrote:
On 12/21/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
"James Hare" wrote:
Case in point: Captain Jean-Luc Picard(r).
So a caricature of Picard would be forbidden? Really?
It might count as fair use under certain conditions. A painting of Patrick Stewart would probably be a safer bet although there would be other issues with things such as in the US at least the Right of Publicity.
I believe Major League Baseball already lost that case to the rotisserie leagues.
Ec
On 12/21/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:54:03 -0500, "James Hare" messedrocker@gmail.com wrote:
Case in point: Captain Jean-Luc Picard(r).
So a caricature of Picard would be forbidden? Really?
A caricature of Picard would likely be a derivative work, since Picard is a copyrighted character. Of course, it would also likely fall under fair use, as it would likely be a highly adaptive derivative work with little potential impact on the original.
I am honestly confused here. What about, say, a painting of an aircraft? Is that unfree by virtue of the manufacturer's rights, or the airline's logo?
A painting which incorporated a copyrighted logo would be copyrighted as a derivative work. If the use was so insignificant as to be fair use/fair dealing in just about any jurisdiction, I'd still call it free though.
I have a friend who is a commercial artist, that is not an idle question.
Commercial artists rarely care about what is free/unfree, focussing instead on what is legal/illegal.
Anthony
Anthony wrote:
On 12/21/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I am honestly confused here. What about, say, a painting of an aircraft? Is that unfree by virtue of the manufacturer's rights, or the airline's logo?
A painting which incorporated a copyrighted logo would be copyrighted as a derivative work. If the use was so insignificant as to be fair use/fair dealing in just about any jurisdiction, I'd still call it free though.
I think this is the core of the issue, and a matter that also in general ought to be further clarified.
Wikipedia, as a whole, is distributed under the GFDL. It is a matter of some debate exactly _who_ should be considered the actual distributor, but that is at most only tangentially relevant to the matter at hand.
In any case, this implies that there are only three cases where content, whether text or images, may be legally incorporated into Wikipedia: either a) the content must fall outside the scope of copyright entirely, b) the copyright owner must have released it under a license permitting at least redistribution under the terms of the GFDL, c) or its inclusion in Wikipedia must legally qualify as fair use.[1]
The first two types of content we may designate as free, and the last as unfree. Wikipedia has different policies for the two: free content may be used in any manner as long as the license requirements are satisfied, whereas unfree content must pass a set of fair use guidelines based on, but going far beyond, those in U.S. law. In particular, the inclusion of unfree non-textual content is only permitted in the encyclopedia proper (and implicitly on image pages), even if broader usage might be permitted by law, and they are entirely excluded from Commons.
A point to be noted here is that a work released under a free license may contain portions that are unfree; Wikipedia itself is an example of such a work. Such a work -- and any derivative work thereof -- will remain free and legal to copy and redistribute only as long as it is not transformed in such a manner as to render the claim to fair use invalid. For example, if one were to extract an album cover from Wikipedia, or the content of a billboard from a free photo of a city street, and use the resulting image prominently in a commercial context, the use would almost certainly no longer be legal even if one complied with all the license terms of the work from which the image was extracted.
The question then becomes: should such free images containing fairly used unfree elements be treated as free or unfree for the purposes of Wikipedia (and Commons) policy?
Generally, the traditional answer seems to have been to treat an image as free if it would be legal to freely distribute as a stand-alone work outside the context of Wikipedia. I personally find this a reasonable standard, though it does produce some apparent paradoxes, such as the fact that removing parts of a free image can make it unfree, or that the legally fair inclusion of an unfree element in certain parts of the project may be against policy _unless_ it is (fairly) included as part of a free stand-alone "wrapper" work.
That is not to says that the issue hasn't been subject to numerous debates, both generic and specific. A particular dispute I recall involved a picture of a drive-in fast food restaurant that included a prominent sign bearing the restaurant's logo. A related source of disputes have been images containing parts, such as official documents or simply identifiable people, whose use in some context may be restricted by laws other than copyright.
In this particular case, the image of the Starship Enterprise, as seen in the Star Trek films, TV series and related works, is almost certainly protected by both copyright and trademark law. On the other hand, it is also almost certain that the hand-drawn rendition in [[Image:Anti-Star Trek Cabal logo.png]] counts as fair use; the amount used is so low that one might almost claim the copied elements to be below the threshold of originality, there is no attempt to replace the original and certainly no effect on its market value, and in any case the use counts as parody and critical commentary on the original.
Of course, Wikipedia, unlike Uncyclopedia, is not itself a parody site, nor would our strict fair use policy allow us to use that defense even if it was legally available to us. Nor will our policy permit us to use an unfree image on a user page, even if the use was legally fair. So the question remains, is it enough that the likeness of the Enterprise is fairly used in a freely licensed image? Or do we demand that every unfree part and aspect of an image on its own meet our fair use policy? Either choice seems to lead to paradoxes somewhere. Perhaps there is a middle road; but if so, it has yet to be defined.
On 12/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
that one may not upload a small, low resolution line drawing of the USS Enterprise? without violating copyright?
Leaving aside the baseless allegation of trolling, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anti-Star_Trek_Cabal_logo.png is possibly going to be deleted for that reason.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
It's quite possible. That could easily be considered a derivative work.
On 12/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
that one may not upload a small, low resolution line drawing of the USS Enterprise? without violating copyright?
No, it isn't. Fair use is not a violation of copyright...
Leaving aside the baseless allegation of trolling, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anti-Star_Trek_Cabal_logo.png is possibly going to be deleted for that reason.
Is fair use still banned in the user namespace? If so, that would explain it...
Anthony
On 12/21/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 12/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
that one may not upload a small, low resolution line drawing of the USS Enterprise? without violating copyright?
No, it isn't. Fair use is not a violation of copyright...
According to what I understand, fair use is a defence for copyright violation -- thus it assumes that copyright violation has already occurred.
On 12/21/06, theProject wp.theproject@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/21/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 12/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
that one may not upload a small, low resolution line drawing of the USS Enterprise? without violating copyright?
No, it isn't. Fair use is not a violation of copyright...
According to what I understand, fair use is a defence for copyright violation -- thus it assumes that copyright violation has already occurred.
You're half right. Fair use is a defense for copyright violation. But if you successfully defend against a charge of copyright violation, it means the copyright violation hasn't occurred. Copying may have occurred, but not a copyright violation.
For an analogy, insanity is a defense for murder. And if the accused successfully defends against a charge of murder using the insanity defense, it means a murder hasn't occurred. Killing might have occurred, but not murder.
But don't take my word for it. Just look at Title 17, section 107, which encodes fair use into law: "the fair use of a copyrighted work[...] is not an infringement of copyright". Doesn't get any more clear than that.
Anthony
On 12/21/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 12/21/06, theProject wp.theproject@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/21/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 12/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
that one may not upload a small, low resolution line drawing of the USS Enterprise? without violating copyright?
No, it isn't. Fair use is not a violation of copyright...
According to what I understand, fair use is a defence for copyright violation -- thus it assumes that copyright violation has already occurred.
You're half right. Fair use is a defense for copyright violation. But if you successfully defend against a charge of copyright violation, it means the copyright violation hasn't occurred. Copying may have occurred, but not a copyright violation.
To change the topic slightly, I was quite pleased to see that the Wikipedia article on [[Fair Use]] dispels the myth that fair use is a defense and not a right (a myth that seems to be spread by many Wikipedians). From the article:
--- The frequent argument over whether fair use is a "right" or a "defense" [2] is generated by confusion over the use of the term "affirmative defense." An affirmative defense is simply a term of art from litigation reflecting the timing in which the defense is raised. It does not distinguish between "rights" and "defenses", and so it does not characterize the substance of the defendant's actions as "not a right but a defense." The First Amendment, for instance, is generally raised as an affirmative defense in litigation, but is clearly a "right." Similarly, while fair use is characterized as a defense in terms of the litigation posture, Section 107 defines fair use as a "limitation" on copyright law and states clearly that "the fair use of a copyrighted work ... is not an infringement of copyright." ---
Fair use is a defense (*). It's also a right (*). And fair use is not an infringement of copyright (*).
Anthony
(*) in the US
On 12/22/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
You're half right. Fair use is a defense for copyright violation. But if you successfully defend against a charge of copyright violation, it means the copyright violation hasn't occurred. Copying may have occurred, but not a copyright violation.
For an analogy, insanity is a defense for murder. And if the accused successfully defends against a charge of murder using the insanity defense, it means a murder hasn't occurred. Killing might have occurred, but not murder.
A fitting analogy. It evokes particularly well the "shoot first and hope for the best" attitude of many users around here to copyright law :)
Just for those who were interested in this thread, a related topic on MfD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Wik...
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
that one may not upload a small, low resolution line drawing of the USS Enterprise? without violating copyright?
Leaving aside the baseless allegation of trolling, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anti-Star_Trek_Cabal_logo.png is possibly going to be deleted for that reason.
To quote http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Derivative_works
And no, it doesn't matter whether Mickey Mouse is printed on a T-shirt, which you bought with your own money and which is worn by yourself while you're walking in a public place, loudly reciting the GFDL. That doesn't at all give you the right to take a picture of the T-shirt, cut out Mickey Mouse and upload it as "free" material. Nothing you'll ever do, whether you draw Pikachu with your own crayons or sculpt a giant Sailor Moon figurine, will ever lead to the point where you magically turn copyrighted material into "free" material.
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
that one may not upload a small, low resolution line drawing of the USS Enterprise? without violating copyright?
Leaving aside the baseless allegation of trolling, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anti-Star_Trek_Cabal_logo.png is possibly going to be deleted for that reason.
To quote http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Derivative_works
And no, it doesn't matter whether Mickey Mouse is printed on a T-shirt, which you bought with your own money and which is worn by yourself while you're walking in a public place, loudly reciting the GFDL. That doesn't at all give you the right to take a picture of the T-shirt, cut out Mickey Mouse and upload it as "free" material. Nothing you'll ever do, whether you draw Pikachu with your own crayons or sculpt a giant Sailor Moon figurine, will ever lead to the point where you magically turn copyrighted material into "free" material.
Yet, if you take a photo of your friend in Disneyland, you can upload it as a free picture even if some kid in the background happens to be wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt.
Probably even if it's you friend who's wearing the T-shirt, as long as the main subject of the image is your friend and not the shirt.
Anyway, I just posted a much longer message on this subject, so I'll keep this one short.
On 12/22/06, Ilmari Karonen nospam@vyznev.net wrote:
Yet, if you take a photo of your friend in Disneyland, you can upload it as a free picture even if some kid in the background happens to be wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt.
Probably even if it's you friend who's wearing the T-shirt, as long as the main subject of the image is your friend and not the shirt.
As long as the whole photo is used probably yes
Anyway, I just posted a much longer message on this subject, so I'll keep this one short.
[[Wikipedia talk:Fair use]] is currently 512 kilobytes long
On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 02:59:26 +0000, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
[[Wikipedia talk:Fair use]] is currently 512 kilobytes long
Most of it people trying to argue it away :-)
Guy (JzG)