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Message # 26883.1.1

Subject: Re: Copyright issue

Date: Tue 16/01/07 13:13:13 GMT

Name: Telcontar

Email: mrnemesis@ntlworld.com

Website:

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Um, you don't understand copyright law, do you?

There is no international law which dictates copyright restrictions; this is some peculiar yet common misconception. Copyright law gives the creator of a piece of work the right to determine what restrictions if any are to be placed on that work. (Strictly speaking, copyright must be applied for, but generally this practice is not considered necessary.)

For example, consider the Free, Open Source software world. You are allowed to download and share, modify and recompile a program like Firefox or gaim, but the program is still copyright material and you are bound by a license the same as commercial work. It just happens that the license was created to allow people to share, with some restrictions.

Most Wetlook producers *intend* for you to save their work to your hard drive, and thus doing so is not illegal, because the copyright owners have not prohibited you from doing so.

What is legal and what is illegal is entirely at the discretion of the copyright owner. This is why commercial products like books, video cassettes, DVDs and CDs and computer programs state clearly the terms of copyright. They could equally tell you "go share this with all your friends". This is what "freeware" computer software is: the copyrighted work of a programmer who terms DO specifically permit copying and sharing, but generally he or she will still demand that you not reverse engineer the product and/or create derivative works from it.

There is no way that anyone can state what actions are legal and illegal with respect to ANY copyrighted material unless the terms are made clear, since they are not jurisdicted. You need to ask the copyright holder what his or her terms are.

I am curious though: can you prosecute a person for copyright violation if the terms of copyright were not stated at the point that the alleged violation took place? I presume so? I'd have to research into it some more.

In reply to Message (26883.1)

Re: Copyright issue

By Anonymous - Tue 16/01/07 12:43:27 GMT

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In reply to Message (26883)

By MaK - Tue 16/01/07 06:58:28 GMT

Website:

The copyright problem has always been a very delicate issue. From a strictly legal point of view there is no doubt that e.g. post #26881 is illegal although there is no international Internet law. However, in my wildest imagination I cannot think of anyone who can be so naive as to think that if a picture has been published in a public area of the Internet (no license or subscription required) it will not be copied. In fact, you are not even allowed to save a picture on your hard disk without permission (a license or a subscription usually gives you that right), so we are all lawbreakers, and what good is a law, which everybody breaks and is impossible to enforce in any court of law? At least one wetlook producer even publish video clips from TV stations etc., to which a license may be required, and at the same time try to enforce copyright for this (stolen) material.

In the lack of any international Internet law, I think that it is time to find a reasonable compromise for the whole wetlook community - including the producers! My personal suggestion is:

All material, to which a license or subscription is required (wetlook producers, TV-stations etc.), must only be copied according to the rules of the license or subscription. All other material must be copied provided that it is not in any way image processed (cropped, water mark removal etc.).

With such an agreement it will be possible to make wetlook albums and videos like the one in post #26881 to the benefit of us all.

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