Justifying copyright infringement

[edwest2]

Attempts are being made on the internet to justify taking and using copyright words and images without permission. I’m seeing too many attempts to steal being justified on the internet by those claiming they are “promoting” something. If you want to promote something, would it hurt to get permission first?

And it should be obvious that those who refuse to give permission are within their right to do so. It is their property. It represents an investment in time, labor and money. Also, the company’s image is very important. That is why professional PR agencies are hired to promote a company. That way, the company can be sure that what is created will reflect the quality of the work the company does and that it fits the company’s public image.

Yet, I still see anger directed at companies that are only defending their copyright work not only against theft, but against improper and shoddy representation of their work. The public has no legal right to just take what copyright work they want and use it however they want in a public showcase on the internet. It amounts to publication.

I appeal to my fellow Catholics and non-Catholics to take this into consideration.

God bless,
Ed

 

[JimG]

Yes, and I have even seen arguments posted to the effect that copyright and intellectual property law should be changed as being obsolete. The idea seems to be that everything should be “open source:” Use whatever you want, modify it, improve it, change it, with never an attribution (or payment.) Of course, I don’t agree, but there has been this sort of idea floating around.

 

[Joe_5859]

The internet can often seem to bring us whatever we want whenever we want it. So, of course we feel entitled to get whatever we want at no cost or obligation. The whole world is but a google away!

 

[JimG]

The internet can often seem to bring us whatever we want whenever we want it. So, of course we feel entitled to get whatever we want at no cost or obligation. The whole world is but a google away!

Yes, I publish a newsletter for a Catholic organization. Sometimes I’m looking for a generic photo or graphic to illustrate an article. If there’s a copyright I won’t use it even though it’s for a limited and non-commercial purpose. But it’s not always clear what’s copyrighted and what’s not.

 

[Joe_5859]

Yes, I publish a newsletter for a Catholic organization. Sometimes I’m looking for a generic photo or graphic to illustrate an article. If there’s a copyright I won’t use it even though it’s for a limited and non-commercial purpose. But it’s not always clear what’s copyrighted and what’s not.

Yes, it’s a lot more confusing now that it used to be. Considering you can do a search online and find a picture of just about anything you want, and it can be difficult to figure out which ones are copyrighted and which ones are not. Copyright laws seemed so much more clear-cut before the internet.

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

Yes, I publish a newsletter for a Catholic organization. Sometimes I’m looking for a generic photo or graphic to illustrate an article. If there’s a copyright I won’t use it even though it’s for a limited and non-commercial purpose. But it’s not always clear what’s copyrighted and what’s not.

That’s easy. Everything is copyrighted.

If you take a picture and put it up on a web site then you own the copyright to that picture. You may not be looking to make money from it, but it’s yours. If I use that picture on my own web site or publication, I am violating your copyright.

If you give permission to use the picture then it’s OK to use. That may be specific permission because someone asks or it may be generic permission that you’re putting the picture into the public domain. Or there may be qualifications such as “you can use this picture as long as you include a link to my site.”

In short, unless you created the item, it belongs to someone else. And unless you have permission to use it, you shouldn’t.

This page has a nice summary.

 

[JimG]

That’s easy. Everything is copyrighted.

That’s pretty much what I suspected. But it does seem to turn the image search function of the various search engines into engines of copyright infringement.

I came across a blog, originated in Malaysia, as I recall, on which were posted some good photos of the Holy Father. The photos carried no attribution.

Someone had written to the blogster asking about using the photos, and his response was something to the effect that, ‘well, I suppose the Holy Father owns the copyright to his photos; I don’t care if you use them as long as it’s for non-profit.’

Now it seemed apparent to me that

1. He didn’t take the pictures and didn’t know who did.
2. He didn’t know much about copyright law.
3. He apparently didn’t own the copyright.
4. It would apparently be impossible to contact the person who owned the photos. Yet the blogster had given permission to another person to use them.

A pretty muddled situation. But if nothing on the internet is usable, I’ll just quit looking.

 

[Joe_5859]

That’s pretty much what I suspected. But it does seem to turn the image search function of the various search engines into engines of copyright infringement.

Same with You Tube!

I came across a blog, originated in Malaysia, as I recall, on which were posted some good photos of the Holy Father. The photos carried no attribution.

That calls to mind another issue: what about other countries? If an image was created by a non-US citizen and posted on their website, is it protected by U.S. copyright law? Or if an image is from an American, can someone from another country use the image without legal consequence?

I have no idea what the answers are to these questions. Am I trying to make something more complicated than it needs to be?

 

[JimG]

Same with You Tube!

That calls to mind another issue: what about other countries? If an image was created by a non-US citizen and posted on their website, is it protected by U.S. copyright law? Or if an image is from an American, can someone from another country use the image without legal consequence?

I have no idea what the answers are to these questions. Am I trying to make something more complicated than it needs to be?

I have no idea, but I’ve been increasingly reluctant to use unattributed images or graphics in my little newsletter for fear that somebody is going to sue me for infringement. Better safe than sorry. Sometimes I find images that are clearly marked as stock photos for sale or subscription from an agency, and of course I don’t use those. It’s the ones that individuals post that always leave me in doubt.

 

[Joe_5859]

I have no idea, but I’ve been increasingly reluctant to use unattributed images or graphics in my little newsletter for fear that somebody is going to sue me for infringement. Better safe than sorry. Sometimes I find images that are clearly marked as stock photos for sale or subscription from an agency, and of course I don’t use those. It’s the ones that individuals post that always leave me in doubt.

It is definitely better to err on the side of caution. You can be as careful as you want to be not to break copyright laws, but if the site you go to for pictures is not as careful, then you could be in trouble!

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

The odds are that you won’t have a legal problem. (Though I’m not a lawyer so don’t call me if the copyright police show up. ) It’s more of an ethical and moral issue.

In general, I think that if you want to use a picture or sound clip or whatever, you’re probably best off by asking the site owner. If you are running a commercial site you can avoid a potential lawsuit. If you’re running a personal page or small non-profit site, then it’s a good idea just to be on the right side of things.

The other thing is that you can Google “free clip art” for example and get thousands and thousands of images that are available for your use.

 

[Starwynd]

Well, for one thing, it’s the way that the companies are going about it that I highly disagree with. They use strong arm tactics, for one thing and another even though they say they are doing it for the artists, very little of that money actually goes to the artists who produce the material. Other tactics include putting programs on their CDs that would install a program which would give them full and complete access to your computer or to shut down your computer or damage it in other ways and not even the police have that kind of power to violate your property. People do have a right to protect their work. I don’t begrudge that, it’s just the way they do it that I am totally against.

 

[thistle]

That’s easy. Everything is copyrighted.

If you take a picture and put it up on a web site then you own the copyright to that picture. You may not be looking to make money from it, but it’s yours. If I use that picture on my own web site or publication, I am violating your copyright.

If you give permission to use the picture then it’s OK to use. That may be specific permission because someone asks or it may be generic permission that you’re putting the picture into the public domain. Or there may be qualifications such as “you can use this picture as long as you include a link to my site.”

In short, unless you created the item, it belongs to someone else. And unless you have permission to use it, you shouldn’t.

This page has a nice summary.

In Canada and Holland it is LEGAL to download music, videos without paying. Whether the copyright holder has given permission I don’t know but users in these countries should be able to download without thinking its a sin as the law in these countries states it is allowed.

 

[josea]

I think the word „steal“ has been mainly used by discographic and movies companies. But it does not have moral consequences, only economical ones.
Was it a sin when in the 70’s and 80’s, when internet was not around, we copied music tapes?
If there was not a sin then, why should it be now?
The answer is that in the 70’s and 80’s the amount of copies was way below that the amount we are able to get now with P2P programs. But the moral act was exactly the same in the 70’s than today, copying a tape or a MP3 file, and I never ever heard about copying a tape to be a sin.

 

[JimG]

Was it a sin when in the 70’s and 80’s, when internet was not around, we copied music tapes?

Yes many people in those days did copy records to tape. Morally, it was considered ok if it was for the personal use of the person who bought the record. But if you were making multiple copies and distributing them to friends, that was morally problematic. Of course, copying was a more time consuming exercise then.

 

[Joe_5859]

Yes many people in those days did copy records to tape. Morally, it was considered ok if it was for the personal use of the person who bought the record. But if you were making multiple copies and distributing them to friends, that was morally problematic. Of course, copying was a more time consuming exercise then.

Not to mention the fact that the quality went way down when you made a copy (not to mention the poor quality if you had a “copy of a copy”!) Not too many people were dissuaded from buying the original because they owned a poor copy of their friend’s original. This is probably why no one made a big deal of it back then.

Nowadays, though, you can download a copy that is exactly the same quality as the original. And the quality doesn’t deteriorate no matter how many generations away from the original it is. You can even find websites (like allcdcovers.com) where you can print off copies of the front and back covers and the art on the disc itself. This enables you to make a copy that is quite comparable to the original. This simply was not possible before.

 

[edwest2]

I think the average person knows, now and in the past, when they made a copy for themselves or when they made them to sell. People can record songs off the radio for their own use. DVD copying becomes problematic when warnings state that copying is not permitted even for non-commercial, non-monetary use. Your intent is at the heart of the matter. If a TV program states that any copying is strictly prohibited then don’t copy. It’s as simple as that.

Respect for other people’s property and work is what’s at issue here. Not "How do I get around this so I can get something for almost or totally free? Or sell it for the cost of a DVD or download it on a Peer to Peer File Sharing site, which, in many cases, is stealing.

God bless,
Ed

 

[josea]

Well… I do not agree that the quality of a MP3 file is the same as the original. Neither a copy of a DVD film. I asume is just for personal use not for making money out of this.

 

[puzzleannie]

I think consequences, only economical ones.
Was it a sin when in the 70’s and 80’s, when internet was not around, we copied music tapes?n.

yes, it was

it was a sin when we photocopied pages from textbooks and other published material to circulate in a college class, and also illegal, there were lawsuits about both these practices.

 

[Melissa]

That’s pretty much what I suspected. But it does seem to turn the image search function of the various search engines into engines of copyright infringement.

I came across a blog, originated in Malaysia, as I recall, on which were posted some good photos of the Holy Father. The photos carried no attribution.

Someone had written to the blogster asking about using the photos, and his response was something to the effect that, ‘well, I suppose the Holy Father owns the copyright to his photos; I don’t care if you use them as long as it’s for non-profit.’

Now it seemed apparent to me that

1. He didn’t take the pictures and didn’t know who did.
2. He didn’t know much about copyright law.
3. He apparently didn’t own the copyright.
4. It would apparently be impossible to contact the person who owned the photos. Yet the blogster had given permission to another person to use them.

A pretty muddled situation. But if nothing on the internet is usable, I’ll just quit looking.

Things on the internet can be usable, but it does require some leg-work (or, lots of finger-work).

I’m president of an NPO running a play-by-post website. We’re working on cleaning our house w/ respect to the art that we have for character avatars. We ‘inherited’ when we took over from the original programmer a gallery of artwork in which there had been user up-loads and artwork without any attribution.

I’ve stood firm against re-opening user submissions precisely because I have found that there is little to no respect for the artists’ rights to their work. Legally, we could ‘slide by’ with “I don’t know whose art it is” and wait for a copyright holder to see it on our site and complain, and then remove it. I’m not comfortable with that.

So, we’re asking users ‘name an artist whose work you would like included in the galleries’. Then from one of our official email addresses, these artists are contacted for permission to use their art. We are appending what I call ‘the credit box’ as an integral part of our new images–it gives the artist’s name, a website if they have one, and the entire image links to the artist’s site (or page on a gallery site like deviantart or epilogue, etc.). Yes, we’ve been turned down many times. We’ve also been given permission by a fair number of artists. More than once, we’ve been told the artist appreciates our ethics, and even seem surprised by them. (I think it’s sad that they find these ethics unusual, but then I think that’s also why many of those who said ‘No’ did refuse permission–they’re so used to being infringed upon that they disallow any use.)