More copyright issues

[P3D Tom Martin <tlmartin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Since there has been some question on copyright in the posts lately, I
thought it might be a good time to clarify a few points.

First, there are many laws and agreements concerning copyrights, so this
is only intended to give you some basis precepts concerning issues that
have been recently discussed. The big emphasis is on the word _copy_!
Any time you copy something, you need to find out if you have the right
to do it.

These tips are in no particular order.

The right to copy any publishable work is called copyright. If a work is
copyrighted, it means that someone holds the rights to copy and
distribute that work. The work can contain text, photos graphics, music,
programming code, etc.

Email is a published work, and ownership of the work remains with its
creator. Meaning: if Dr. T wants to compile a "Dr. T's Greatest Photo3D
Comments and Quotes" to sell to his fans, that's O.K. If I want to do
the same, I would need his permission. Otherwise, I would be infringing
on his copyrights.

Copying posts from Photo3D on to a floppy disk to share with a friend
who does not have Internet access, is infringement. You would need
permission from everyone who posted to the List to be legal.

Works made prior to 1 April, 1989 must have a copyright notice on them
to be officially copyrighted. It is optional (but recommended) for works
published after that time (in other words, all works are now copyrighted
automatically). Some camera instruction manuals and catalogs written
before 1 April, 1989 are not copyrighted and can be freely copied. Some
of us have scanned graphics from old copyrighted advertising literature,
instruction manuals, etc. on our sites. Many of these are not legal.

Most Fair-use rules apply to schools and educational entities. The one
that the rest of us most commonly encounter, is copying portions of a
work so that we can critique it. This is most often seen when someone
uses the reply symbols in their email postings. It is O.K. to quote
someone, and then make comments on it. It is not O.K. to take someone's
post from another List and post it on Photo3D just because it was
interesting, without first getting the author's permission.

Works more than 75 years old are probably in the public domain.

It is O.K. to take a photo of a patented or trademarked item (like
cameras, viewer, projectors, etc.) and then use or sell that photo. You
are now the copyright holder of that particular picture. Anyone else who
would want to use your picture would need your permission.

Facts can not copyrighted. Lists of facts can be copyrighted. The author
chooses which items to include, and how to arrange them (numerical,
alphabetical, size, categories, ...etc.). For example, telephone books,
which are just a list of facts, are copyrighted (just try to copy and
post one on the Web and see what happens!).

Of course all of this is arbitrary if you also recognize that most
people will not prosecute infringement on their copyrights if no money
is involved. I have had a couple of people blatantly infringe on my
works, but it just is not worth my time and expense to file charges
against them. Just as our own Dr. does not bother with model releases,
most people are not going to run into any problems with minor
infringements as long as they are not making any money on it.

However, we should all put ourselves into the position of the person
whose works we might be infringing on. How would you feel if you saw a
photo that you took in a magazine ad for a product or service that you
don't use and you werent paid for it, or if you saw an article that you
wrote posted on a Web site with someone else's name on it? The purpose
of copyright is to give the creator some control over their works. Just
treat other people's works as you would want them to treat yours makes
the best sense.

As was mentioned, there are some very good resources on the Web
concerning copyright. If anyone is interested in finding out more,
please contact me off List.

Thanks, Tom Martin
mailto:tlmartin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Copyright 1997, Tom Martin
All rights reserved
:)


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