George Herbert wrote:
On 1/25/07, Stan Shebs <stanshebs(a)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