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<b>THANKS VERY MUCH, BOB. THIS IS ONE TO FILE.</b><b></b>
<p><b>FRED.</b>
<p>brathke@juno.com wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>I have received an opinion from my attorney friend,
who specializes in
<br>intellectual property and Internet law, and her comments are reprinted
<br>below.
<p>Bob 7/4
<p>-----------------------------------------------------------
<p>Online copyright infringement is the source of lots of new law.
I'll try
<br>to address your questions one at a time:
<p>1. If you took a photograph, you obviously
have all the rights of the
<br>copyright owner--to reproduce, sell, publish, etc. If you "bought
the
<br>rights to it," what you are allowed to do with it will depend on which
<br>rights are spelled out in the agreement under which you bought it.
If
<br>it's not specified in the agreement how the photo is to be used, it
is
<br>not generally safe to assume that you can do everything you want with
it.
<br> The best course of action is to discuss it with the copyright
owner, or
<br>better yet, have it spelled out in the agreement. Having purchased
the
<br>rights to a photo does NOT give you the right to give permission to
<br>someone else to use it, on the web or otherwise. It is the copyright
<br>owner's exclusive right to give permission to use the copyrighted photo.
<p>You are right that a photo should not go on the web without the
<br>photographer's permission. If there is no photographer's name
on the
<br>photo and it is very old (50+ years), it MAY be in the public domain
and
<br>probably would be okay to use with a credit to the person from whose
<br>collection it came. If the photo is not that old but has no
<br>photographer's name on it, a similar attempt at credit is a good thing
to
<br>do.
<p>2. The person "publishing" the photo--i.e.,
the website owner--has the
<br>responsibility to assure that whatever he publishes is not violating
any
<br>other's rights under copyright law.
<p>3. If a photographer sees his photo in
an unauthorized use on a website
<br>and he has registered the photo for copyright with the U.S. Copyright
<br>Office, he typically would send a letter asking the website to cease
and
<br>desist from using the photo. If the request to remove isn't successful,
<br>he can sue in a federal court for up to $10,000 per infringing use
(or
<br>the profit gained from the unauthorized use, whichever is greater),
plus
<br>costs and attorney's fees to file suit, plus enjoin any further use
and
<br>request a court order for the destruction/termination of any infringing
<br>uses. If he didn't register the photo with the Copyright Office
but just
<br>put the (c) symbol or notice on the photo, he can still enjoin further
<br>use and request a court order for the destruction/termination of any
<br>infringing uses, but can't get any money damages.
<p>4. Placing the copyright symbol on a photo
DOES give the photo some legal
<br>protection. It puts the world on notice that the photographer
owns the
<br>rights in that photo, and that if they use it without authorization,
he
<br>has the rights of a copyright owner. This is true for websites,
too.
<br>The law does not require that you actually register with the Copyright
<br>Office to claim exclusive rights to a copyrighted work--and gives you
the
<br>right to stop infringing uses. Registration lets you claim those
rights
<br>AND sue in federal court AND get money damages and attorney's fees.
This
<br>is as true for websites as it is for any other copyright-able work,
such
<br>as a photo, book, painting, sculpture, etc.
<p>5. After the photo is scanned and uploaded,
the photo with the copyright
<br>line no longer at hand, you really should make SURE that the information
<br>on that copyright line somehow follows the picture attached as a caption.
<br> If the copyright owner can show that it's his photo that was
used
<br>without permission, and that copyright line (called "Copyright Management
<br>Information") is not included, the infringing use could fall under
the
<br>new No Electronic Theft Act, which provides additional money damages
and
<br>criminal prison terms(1-6 years) for online copyright infringement.
<p>Hope this answers more questions than it raises, Bob. If you do
have any
<br>other questions, please feel free to e-mail me. And if there's
anything
<br>else I can do for you, please let me know.
<p>-------------------------------------------------------------
<p>On Wed, 28 Jun 2000, Dietrich, Robert J. wrote:
<p>Dave has already given me permission to use anything on his site but
I
<br>realize he
<br>doesn't always obtain proper permission. So what should I do?
<p>-------
<br>There's a difference between what may be the "legal thing" (as contrary
<br>to
<br>threats which have been made by company lawyers when they didn't
<br>like the way something had been linked to, there's no case law on this
<br>yet
<br>that I can find or that's been cited) and what may be the "right thing",
<br>which
<br>you'll have to decide. Intellectual property battles can get nasty
so I
<br>try to stay away from the whole deal altogether, generally making
<br>available stuff which is directly mine, but also now old documents
from
<br>expired companies. I suppose it's possible someone owns rights to
<br>PRCo and PRR documents, but I'm not going to worry about it for now.
<br> ------------
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