wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: To the Members of the WWP - action please, before it is too late
Tamas D.Varga 2008-Jun-07 12:37:00
Dear Mr. Lintermann,
I have read your message to the group with great interest, but I feel
that you do not take this matter seriously enough and try to soften
the image of the bad guy, but please take into consideration that
photographers nowadays have the smart sharpening tools and the support
to defend their copyrights.
Besides being a participant of WWP and member of various panoramic
communities/groups, also member of SAA (Stock Artists Alliance
http://www.stockartistsalliance.org ), I also run a stock photography
business in which we take all possible measures to protect the rights
/ images of our member photographers to avoid copyright infringement,
therefore I am not only irritated, but feel affected by this unlawful
act of yours.
We know that, you know that and also your legal people know that very
well that with your act you seriously violated the rights of WWP
participants and it does not matter how diplomatic and nicely
formulated messages you send to the group or to the members
individually it does not change the status of your illegal act.
The article you quote from the German law is invalid:
* because it is non-EU conform, ie. it is not valid in the light of
European copyright laws and Geneva conventions
* because it clearly states that "(3) Public stage performances and
broadcasts of a work and public presentations of cinematographic works
shall in all cases be permissible only with the consent of the
copyright owner."
* and mostly because license permission is ALWAYS governed by the laws
of the geography of the residence of the photographer not the place of
the usage. Venue for any action respecting this infringement shall be
in the respective state / city courts, and you hereby consent to the
jurisdiction of such courts.Therefore you would be requested pay all
costs and expenses incurred by Photographer and/or Photographer's
legal counsel related thereto, including, but not limited to,
reasonable legal fees, arbitration and court costs, associated
expenses, and legal interest on such award, judgment, or settlement in
case you, ZKM or Globorama is brought to justice.
Before starting to negotiate any future co-operation or joint project
with any of the WWP participants I ask you and your legal advisers to
stop stonewalling and do what you should do in order to consolidate
things without any delay and before you run out of time and news about
your illegal activity will be fed into the online and off-line news
channels and brings attention of the specialists of the intellectual
property and digital media law internationally.
1.) Instead of preparing replies ONLY to those WWP participants who
have contacted you so far please release, ie. make it public for this
Group the full list of images and names of the participants so that
everyone will know who and how many images are / were affected.
2.) Let us know how long and where have those images been displayed.
3.) Let us know the license fee for illegal usage that your
institution would pay as a compensation for the photographers.
I would appreciate if you could deliver what is requested in points 1
to 3 by 14th of June 2008.
Sincerely yours,
Tamas D.Varga
PanoGraph Ltd.
Budapest
Hungary
--
--- In #removed#, Bernd Lintermann <berndlintermann@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Members of the World Wide Panorama Project,
>
> we sincerely regret that our ?Globorama? project has led to
irritations and -in part- to very impetuous reactions within the
community. We, who were working on this project, acted on the
assumption that we were authorized to use these works based on §52 of
the German copyright law, which permits the non-commercial use of
works without the expressed prior consent of the artist.
>
> Due to the objections the ZKM has received, the use of the images
has been stopped immediately. Out of respect for you as artists we
have since then not shown and will not show any of your images without
your explicit permission.
>
> At this time, we are processing all the inquiries we have received
and we will make every effort to find a feasible solution for all
parties involved. We are currently preparing replies to all the
artists, who have contacted us so far.
>
> We are happy about the constructive suggestions of Mr. Yuval Levy to
find a sustainable solution, which hopefully serves all interests. It
also has been suggested to initiate a joint project. We are currently
investigating some ideas and will put them up for discussion in the
near future. Because of the complexity of the issue it will take some
more time. We hope that this makes the situation at this point more
transparent for you and apologize for any delays.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Bernd Lintermann
>
>
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