On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 03:30:24PM +1100, Stephen Bain wrote:
So which of these two things that you've said are
correct, because
they seem completely incompatible to me:
On 1/24/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra(a)baylink.com> wrote:
If I create a screenshot of a browser page on my
computer displaying
wikipedia, there is *one* copyright involved: *mine*.
On 1/24/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra(a)baylink.com> wrote:
> And as an end-user, you can do with any of those things anything you
> want to, as long as you don't try to distribute them, make money off
> them, or explicitly claim them as your own.
Well, Stephen, I don't know, because you've clipped too much of your
second quote, and it's not clear to me which "any of these things" I
meant.
Wait one.
I was specifically talking about textures the end-user in question
wanted to lift off of WoW. I don't see that that conflicts in any way
with my first assertion, nor do I think it's internally inconsistent.
If there's only one copyright in a screenshot, as
you assert, then how
do all of those restrictions come into play? Or are you saying that
whoever created the software/etc only has copyright until I take a
picture of their work?
I don't believe I said any of those things.
If I draw a picture of something, and you come along
and take a
photograph of it, then by your reasoning you would own the copyright
in it. What happened to my copyright? Did it magically disappear when
you took the picture?
Nope. Your hand-drawn picture is a piece of creative work in which you
own copyright. Referring to Bridgeman, which *does* apply to this
circumstance, though I'm still not convinced it's generally applicable
because I haven't read the case -- the summary suggests it doesn't
cover enough to apply generally to the issue on point -- if I made a
photograph of your drawing which was purposefully a clean reproduction
with no artistic modification, then any copyright that would inhere in
my photograph would be yours.
If, however, I took a picture of you standing next to your framed
drawing hanging on your wall, there would most certainly be
copyrightable expression in my photograph that was not solely
derivative of your copyright in your work.
In reality, I still have my copyright in the picture,
and your
photograph is a derivative work, which in the absence of a licence for
you to create derivative works, I also own the copyright to.
*To the extent that there's no creative input of mine in my
photograph*.
It's widely accepted that screenshots of
software/etc is exactly the
same as this.
Shepardize?
If A owns the copyright in
software/etc, and B takes a
picture of it, then in the absence of a licence permitting B to use
the software/etc to create derivative works, A owns the copyright in
the picture. What your rights are when you take a picture is
determined by what licence you had to use the original thingy you took
a picture of.
I assert that a copyright in the *program code* to Microsoft Word does
*not* constitute a copyright in *the millions of different possible
visual displays that program could produce* -- especially when you
consider that those displays can differ markedly based on the choices
of system fonts and color themes chosen by the computer's operator.
You got any cases that suggest that interpretation is incorrect?
Statutes, even?
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra(a)baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA
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