Hi all,
First of all, I'm not a lawyer, but I have the Dutch law
book standing in reach and I know that the USA has since
1998 the same copyright law.
For details see the links on my site:
http://www.chipdir.org/about/ - legal stuff
My comments:
At 2002-08-30 22:55 -0700, Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:
"Yes, they're in the public domain because
I've put them there now. I created them from works that were not under copyright, most
of which (the paintings and such) were created 100s of years ago,
Copyrights will run until 70 years after the death of
the author or 70 years after making the work of art when
it was a collaborative work. Until recently this was
50 years, but the American movie-lobby wanted this
extended, because the earliest resellable movies
(from say 1940) were starting to loose their
protection.
Anyway, 100 years should normally be enough because
an individual artist is generally say 30 when he
makes something and doesn't get much older than 60.
Julie can put her version of the works in the public
domain as she says.
and my work in creating and manipulating the digital
images makes them my own work-product, just as a photographer owns the rights to the
pictures he takes but not whatever he takes the picture of."
That is correct.
Montrealis then asked about the use of videotape
covers, etc, and this was the response:
"They fall under the "fair use" doctrine for documenting sources in
scholarly works
I agree. When you say something sensible about a
work you should be allowed to show it's cover.
That is indeed 'fair use'. You can even quote a
small part of the work itself.
but, even if they didn't, the remedy for
infringement is disgorgement of the profits, and there are none here.
I think she is (again) very correct here.
What she is saying: Even if there were rightful owners
and they should complain, they can only claim losses
and since we didn't make money on it, they (probably)
can't claim anything.
And how big do you think the market of product covers is?
Would be nice if they could just sell the covers instead
of the products. ;-)
(The covers are like your face: When you're in
public, anyone who wants to can take a picture of you, but if they try to use it to make
money, you can either stop them from using it or make them pay you what they got from
using it.) But the question is academic, because as a practical matter it's free
publicity to entities that live on publicity.
She is correct again. And to expand the issue:
You can't claim 'privacy' as a reason not to
use 'fair use' of your face, because by becoming
a famous citizen you gave up the right to keep
your appearance private.
And if you've ever tried to report bootleg tapes
to the companies that own the rights, you know that they don't care." isis
This may be correct but doesn't prove much.
Copyright law is not a law between civilians
but of state versus crook, so you shouldn't
report these crimes to the copyright holder
but to the state.
(I'm not 100% sure if this is correct in the
Netherlands let lone in the USA, with it's
different federal and 52 (?) state laws.)
The thing is, this just sounds wrong to me, based on
personal experience. When I wrote my dissertation, University Microfilms was very clear
on using images from other sources. I couldn't. Not even my own re-workings from
reproductions of old maps.
Whatever any private party (often with a vested
interest) says is not relevant. It's what the law
says, that counts.
Isis may be a lawyer and correct about all of
this, but it just sounds iffy to me, especially in light of the second answer, which
sounds like "it could be, but they won't prosecute".
Well, the second issue is what actually matters.
And regard it another way: Suppose the 'video-industry
of America' or the 'death painters society' would sue
Wikipedia and it would be mentioned for free in all
media? That should be worth a couple of $10,000 and
they wouldn't have a case, because we didn't make money.
Julie would probably handle the case for free (in
exchange for the opportunity to win a case of
world-fame).
Does anyone have a definite answer?
Not definite, but close to it.
In the Netherlands we have the saying:
'Nooit geschoten is altijd mis'.
(If you don't shoot you'll always miss.)
Also consider that in the first phase of
a court case the parties will try to settle
the matter amongst themselves and then the
judge will try to make them settle it
amongst themselves.
And once Wikipedia is so big that it's sueable,
it will also have resources to survive it.
Greetings,
Jaap
PS. Legal disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, so all the
information above is nonsense and by closing the
window with this message or shutting down your
computer you acknowledge that and you promise to
forget everything that you read and you admit
that you're a sucker that doesn't deserve to live.
PS2. ;-)