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@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@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 apicture 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