On 9/11/06, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
And then there's the related case of photographs taken "under direction" (my camera, my idea, but you held it and pushed the button). This has a sort of "work for non-hire" feel to it, and I'm sure it's been discussed at length, too.
I don't think it has been discussed, and such images have been deleted in the past - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Minneapolis_meetup_2005.jpg
I guess such images are fair use if you never asked the person using your camera to license the image.
Hang on, hang on, wait a second. It is yours. I'm assuming you asked someone to take your picture, that person did so, and then handed the camera back to you.
With the sole copy of the "work" inside it.
Without comment.
The understanding is obvious, by common practice. The "release" is given. No? Really, are we going just a bit overboard here?
Dan
On 11/09/06, dmehkeri@swi.com dmehkeri@swi.com wrote:
Hang on, hang on, wait a second. It is yours. I'm assuming you asked someone to take your picture, that person did so, and then handed the camera back to you. With the sole copy of the "work" inside it. Without comment. The understanding is obvious, by common practice. The "release" is given. No? Really, are we going just a bit overboard here?
Yes. This is an example of wikilawyers on crack.
- d.
On 9/11/06, dmehkeri@swi.com dmehkeri@swi.com wrote:
Hang on, hang on, wait a second. It is yours. I'm assuming you asked someone to take your picture, that person did so, and then handed the camera back to you.
With the sole copy of the "work" inside it.
Without comment.
The understanding is obvious, by common practice. The "release" is given. No? Really, are we going just a bit overboard here?
Dan
probably but copyright law wasn't really desighned to handle situations like that.
geni wrote:
On 9/11/06, dmehkeri@swi.com dmehkeri@swi.com wrote:
Hang on, hang on, wait a second. It is yours. I'm assuming you asked someone to take your picture, that person did so, and then handed the camera back to you.
With the sole copy of the "work" inside it.
Without comment.
The understanding is obvious, by common practice. The "release" is given. No? Really, are we going just a bit overboard here?
probably but copyright law wasn't really desighned to handle situations like that.
I agree that copyright law wasn't designed to handle things like that, but that's probably because it was hard for them to imagine that there would ever be such an idiotic situation as an incidental tourist acquaintance claiming copyright on a picture that he neither knew nor could ever prove that he took.
When it comes to being a bit overboard we like to do it with a big splash. Serendipidously I to-day read an interesting coment in Peter Suber's introduction to "The Case of the Speluncean Explorers". [Lon Fuller's] greatnes lies in his lifelong proof that rigorous legal thought does not exclude creativity, does not require jargon, and does not make morality an independent variable or an afterthought."
Ec
On 9/11/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
geni wrote:
On 9/11/06, dmehkeri@swi.com dmehkeri@swi.com wrote:
Hang on, hang on, wait a second. It is yours. I'm assuming you asked someone to take your picture, that person did so, and then handed the camera back to you.
With the sole copy of the "work" inside it.
Without comment.
The understanding is obvious, by common practice. The "release" is given. No? Really, are we going just a bit overboard here?
probably but copyright law wasn't really desighned to handle situations like that.
I agree that copyright law wasn't designed to handle things like that, but that's probably because it was hard for them to imagine that there would ever be such an idiotic situation as an incidental tourist acquaintance claiming copyright on a picture that he neither knew nor could ever prove that he took.
When it comes to being a bit overboard we like to do it with a big splash. Serendipidously I to-day read an interesting coment in Peter Suber's introduction to "The Case of the Speluncean Explorers". [Lon Fuller's] greatnes lies in his lifelong proof that rigorous legal thought does not exclude creativity, does not require jargon, and does not make morality an independent variable or an afterthought."
Ec
Disclaimer: IANAL
Copyright in the US seems rather clear. Copyright is designed to protect ideas and to a limited extent the expression of those ideas. Follow the money. Who is the creator, who is the producer? The person owning the camera had the creative idea and the funds (by owning the camera and developing the film) to take the picture at that location. The random tourist just plays the role of the photographer, but has no claim to copyright.
"my camera, my idea, but you held it and pushed the button." Your idea, you own it.
-jtp Electrawn
Jason Potkanski wrote:
Copyright in the US seems rather clear. Copyright is designed to protect ideas and to a limited extent the expression of those ideas.
That's not correct. It protects the expression but not the ideas at all. (In some cases the idea may be protected by patents.) When the information becomes so intertwined with the expression that the two cannot be separated it can render the expression uncopyrightable. This is the merger principle. It was the basis for Lexmark's court loss to Static Control Corp., when it claimed that copying a handshake program was a copyvio.
Ec
On 9/11/06, Jason Potkanski electrawn@electrawn.com wrote:
Disclaimer: IANAL
Copyright in the US seems rather clear. Copyright is designed to protect ideas and to a limited extent the expression of those ideas. Follow the money.
As was pointed out, copyright protects creative expression, not ideas. However, I think you're on the right track here.
What is copyrightable in a photo? Assuming everything in the photo is public domain (or incidental fair use/fair dealing), what's copyrightable is the choice of a particular place, direction, zoom level, and moment in time. In more sophisticated photos (not point and shoot) there's the choice of F-stop, exposure, etc, but we'll ignore that as it doesn't really apply.
Who is the creator, who is the producer? The person owning the camera had the creative idea and the funds (by owning the camera and developing the film) to take the picture at that location. The random tourist just plays the role of the photographer, but has no claim to copyright.
In the case of a photographer who literally just presses the button, there would be almost no creative input (I suppose the exact moment in time was chosen), and therefore s/he would probably have no copyright interest. I say probably because there is of course that issue of moment in time.
More likely the photographer also chose to some extent the zoom and the framing of the photograph, so they'd probably have an argument that they have some copyright interest. But if you set the scene, posing with your friend in front of the Eiffel tower at 6 PM on a cloudy evening, then you put creative input into the photo too, and you probably have some copyright interest too.
I believe the preceding is fairly standard across different jurisdictions. The following is more likely to be US-specific.
Copyright law has rules for such situations where more than one person has put creative interest into a work. There are two possibilities - it is a work for hire or there is a joint copyright. I don't think such an unpaid scenario would qualify as a work for hire so more likely there would be a joint copyright.
What are the rules of a joint copyright situation? Any joint copyright holder can grant a non-exclusive license (such as CC-BY-SA or the GFDL) to anyone, for any reason, but the joint copyright holders must share any financial gain they derive from exclusive use of the work.
Of course, in conclusion, yes, this is sort of a long discussion in pointlessness, because the fact of the matter is that the person who pushed the button on your camera almost surely just doesn't care. But some Wikipedians like to cross their Ts and dot their Is, and they even like to force other Wikipedians to do so. So in some sense it is useful to think about this for the case of those Wikipedians, just to get them off our backs.
"my camera, my idea, but you held it and pushed the button." Your idea, you own it.
-jtp Electrawn
On 9/12/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Copyright law has rules for such situations where more than one person has put creative interest into a work. There are two possibilities - it is a work for hire or there is a joint copyright. I don't think such an unpaid scenario would qualify as a work for hire so more likely there would be a joint copyright.
Actually, there's a third possibility also - that there are two independent works, one of which is a derivative of the other, and therefore two independent copyrights. However, this scenario is clearly not an example of a work and derivative work, as the scene was not put into fixed form until the photo was snapped.
And then there's the related case of photographs taken "under direction" (my camera, my idea, but you held it and pushed the button).
I guess such images are fair use if you never asked the person using your camera to license the image.
Hang on, hang on, wait a second. It is yours. I'm assuming you asked someone to take your picture, that person did so, and then handed the camera back to you. The understanding is obvious, by common practice. The "release" is given. No? Really, are we going just a bit overboard here?
So, would something like {{GFDL-self}} be used for this, or is a new tag needed? Does Commons have any guidelines on this or is tagging images you obviously didn't take yourself {{GFDL-self}} common practice? (cc'ing commons-l)
Angela.