[PRCo] Re: Philadelphia You-Tube Video

[Schneider Fred]

Since the 1970s, copyrights last for the life of the photographer or  
creator of the document plus a finite number of years after his  
death.   But to firmly protect one's rights, you still must fill in  
the form, and send the copies of the object with the form and the  
cash filing fee to the Library of Congress.   Prior to the 1970s  
revision, copyrights had to be renewed every 14 years and most never  
were.   Therefore, many magazines simply went into the public domain.

I once wanted to sell microfiche copies of the Official Guide.    
National Railroad Publications Co. said they would go after me if I  
tried.   The point was that they had trademarked the name and they  
told me they felt if there was any money to be made, they would make  
it themselves.   Reality is, only the cover and pages containing the  
words Official Guide to the Railways were trademarked.   The contents  
were information and information cannot be copyrighted or  
trademarked.   So you could sell the contents.   But how could you  
advertise it without putting their name on it?   You couldn't.   When  
I came up against that wall, George Drury told me he was going to do  
it anyway to replace the bound books in the Kalmbach Publishing  
Company library.  Now that was an acceptable way to do it because you  
can make single copies for yourself  (and you still can of a book you  
own).

The Electric Railroaders Association always said that Headlights  
magazine was copyrighted.   In reality, no one ever sent copies to  
Washington.   The filing was never done.

On the other hand, my two PCC books were copyrighted.   But in order  
to protect contents, I can sue and have Joe Blow stop infringement.    
But can I collect damages.   Only if there are damages.   They books  
have not been in print for over 25 years.   Therefore there are no  
monetary damages, so I can't collect anything.   Same applies to  
someone whose video tape is on the internet.   He may be able to stop  
the infringement but if there are no tapes or DVDs left to sell,  
there is no monetary loss and no damages to collect.   All you end up  
doing is spending thousand of dollars in court and attorney fees to  
teach an a-hole a lesson.

On Dec 27, 2008, at 9:58 AM, Bill Robb wrote:

> Does copyright still have to be renewed?
> Broadcast rights vary in tv, some are one time only, some are one  
> time and specified number of repeats and at the other extreme some  
> are unlimited.  Most video producers are not the original  
> photographer and depending on the terms they acquired access to the  
> footage they may not be the only source.
>
>
>
> Bob Dietrich wrote:
>
> It's me again trying to stir up a little controversy.  If this has  
> been
> discussed lately then just ignore me.
>
>   This video on U-tube looked familiar to me but I don't remember from
> where, it seems I saw it from a tape.  Than at the end credits went  
> to Rob
> Moorse (or some such name).  So how do we know a retired truck  
> driver from
> Belgium (Daddycool9) has permission to let the world view it for  
> free?  I
> was never aware of, or concerned with, copyrighting until I got on  
> this
> list.  You all seem very protective of photographs being reproduced  
> without
> permission, isn't this the same thing?
>
> Are we promoting unauthorized u-tube videos here?
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of
> Schneider Fred
> Sent: Friday, December 26, 2008 8:30 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Philadelphia You-Tube Video
>
>
> Many of you probably have seen this before.   If not enjoy. All the
> scenes were taken in West Philadelphia in 1951.
>
> The city had 55% more people living within its borders than there are
> there today and a lot more justification for rail transit as a
> result.  (The inverse number?   A loss of 35%.)   A few years after
> these films were taken, a massive conversion program brought 1,000
> new buses to the city.   What the railfans neglect to tell you was
> that in the process, over 600 transit vehicles simply disappeared
> from the streets of Philadelphia within three years because were no
> loner needed ... people moved to the suburbs; those who remained
> preferred to use automobiles instead of trolleys.   Yes guys, at the
> end of the conversion 1000 buses had replaced 1600 buses and
> streetcars because of declining demand.
>
> We can argue that rail will sustain higher patronage levels but we
> can't argue that rail today would be valid on all the routes that PTC
> had in 1950 because the people just don't live there anymore and the
> jobs are not there either.
>
> But you'll find these interesting.  All were taken within roughly one
> mile of Pennsylvania Railroad's 30th Street Station.   The pictures
> of the street cars and Market Street subway-elevated trains running
> side-by-side are at the 24th and Market Streets portal of the
> subway.   Both came to surface there and crossed the Schuylkill River
> on a bridge.   The film ends with the trolleys coming inbound out
> from under the elevated in front of 30th Street Station and heading
> toward the portal.  In between there are a lot of surface streetcar
> scenes, mostly in the area around the University of Pennsylvania.
> Those lines are, for the most part, buried in the subway extension
> that occurred in the fall of 1955.  (The Market Street subway-
> elevated was extended from 24th to 46th St.), the trolley subway was
> extended over to branches to 36th St.)
>
> Do you not find amazing how fast PTC motormen ran their charges?
> Those were 25 mph cars riding on maximum traction (maximum
> derailment) trucks and they were running them for the most part, flat
> out.    I thought the films might have been speeded up from 16 to 24
> frames per second but the pedestrians look to moving at comfortable
> paces.
>
> Enjoy
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06jIGTbrIUk&feature=related
>
>
>
>
>