wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: copyright violation
G. Donald Bain 2004-Jul-31 17:40:00
Bond,
This gets into a very complicated area.
For one thing, each country has its own laws, and we are in a very
global business. This was a classic example -- Russian language site,
about Canada, ownership in Israel, hosting in the U.S.
U.S. copyright law is pretty clear -- if you took the picture, you own
all rights, unless you specifically sign them away. A notification of
copyright on each image is useful, but not required. Registration with
the copyright office may also be useful, but is not required.
In this case, the presence of my copyright notation on the images was
the proof the ISP needed. If it went to litigation, being able to prove
registration with the copyright office in Washington DC would have been
a clincher.
It is possible to register batches of graphic images and multimedia,
which saves a lot of time and money. If I was actually making a living
from VR photography, or if there was a serious problem of infringement,
I would probably be registering all my work, in batches, a couple of
times a year. But it is quite a ways down my list of things to do.
There is a lot more that could be said about copyright, but I'm not the
person to do it. There have been some very informative postings to the
VR lists in the past. It's the sort of thing we should gather up and
put on the iqtvra site (or similar).
Don
On Jul 30, 2004, at 7:11 PM, E. Bond Francisco wrote:
> Don,
>
> thanks for pointing that out. It raises a question for me? How do you
> go about copyrighting your materials? Is the presence of the
> c-in-a-circle sufficient? Do you need to register them somehow?
>
> Just curious.
>
> Thanks (this time meant for the list! |:<>} )
>
> Bond
> -=-=-
> On Jul 30, 2004, at 4:49 PM, G. Donald Bain wrote:
>
>> For those of you not on the #removed#, I will give
>> a
>> brief summary of some interesting developments earlier today.
>>
>> Alex Makienko tipped me that a site was using over 200 of my
>> panoramas.
>> Sure enough, there they were:
>> ????? http://www.aboutcanada.info/Panoramas/
>>
>> Of course I had never given permission, or received any payment. The
>> site owners are in Israel, but the hosting company is in the U.S.
>> Alex
>> contacted the owners (in Russian!), I contacted the ISP.
>>
>> The ISP at first tried to stonewall me and told me to come back with
>> a
>> cease and desist order from a judge. But then they did a quick about
>> face and the CEO personally assured me that they do not allow
>> copyright
>> violations.
>>
>> The site is now gone (but I am going to check again tomorrow).
>> Probably
>> taken down by its owners (thanks to Alex), but if it comes back with
>> illegal material we expect the ISP to shut it down.
>>
>> Protecting your copyright on the web is not easy, but we must keep
>> trying. Most violators are small timers, and many do it out of
>> ignorance. We have some major allies -- two of the leaders in this
>> field are the Vatican (their library and art collections) and Playboy
>> magazine. What a team.
>>
>> If you see panoramas from the WWP events on any site other than
>> GeoImages, FullScreenQTVR, or WHTour, let me know. If it goes beyond
>> "fair use" news and review we will certainly do something about it.
>>
>> Don
>>
>>
>>
>> ------
>> The World-Wide Panorama
>>
>> For more information:
>> -Visit the web site at http://GeoImages.Berkeley.edu/wwp.html
>>
>>
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>
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>
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