Important: This article contains opinions and information about copyright law. Keep in mind that I am not a lawyer and have not been a lawyer in any past life that I am aware of. If you have specific questions about copyright law you should contact the appropriate legal resources.
Today I received an interesting message in by inbox from my wife. She is a member of several email groups who send hundreds of messages to each other all day long. She forwarded me a message which ranted about copyright, and she wanted to get my opinion. She thought it was interesting.
She was correct, the message was very interesting. It is about copyright, and the author has some choice misunderstandings about how copyright is enforced on the internet. If you follow this person's advice, you might very well find your site shut down or your ISP connection terminated.
Now, before I go any further, I must state that I don't really see much harm in someone taking a graphic, regardless of copyright, and making something from that graphic. People make friendship quilt pieces and things like this all of the time. I liken it to what I used to do as a kid: when I was five I got into my parents magazines (home and garden type stuff), cut them all up and created a massive scrap book (when my parents found out I didn't sit down for a week ... they liked those magazines).
I also don't see the harm in some teenager scanning pictures of Britney Spears from some magazine and posting them on his web site. Yes, these acts do technically violate the copyright laws, but it's about as significant as throwing your used chewing gum on the street instead of the trash can. Who really cares?
Here is the message, and below each paragraph are my own comments.
Okay, I think this is going to stir the whole Copyright thing up again, but I want you all to be aware of something.... "http://artistrightscoalition.com/" Read this site (the copyright one) very carefully- (which happens to be off line just now... Hmmm....) it all looks like an artists coalition doesn't it - looks like they are all banding together to stop tagging and tuts and everything else... But you aren't READING it closely enough....
Do you see anyone supporting this? There is a page for it - but do you see anyone there? New site? Don't you think if this was something HUGE there would be some BIG NAMES on board all ready? The webpage states that artists and software companies have been notified - I don't see them rushing to join this page... They claim banners on artists pages, see any on the artist pages YOU use? I haven't seen one yet....
The site is still off line as I write this. Apparently there is a website which claims to be putting together a coalition to do something about art which is used by people on the internet in violation of copyright.
Now let me give you some facts....
Before you started tagging and tubing - did you know who Rion Vernon was? Know his images? LIKE his work? Do you think he would be so well known if it wasn't for the online community? I don't think so... Let's just have a little scenario... Suppose Mr. Big's wife likes to tag - she LOVES Rion's work and one day over strawberries and waffles Mr. Big mentions a new ad campaign that his company is involved it. Several names come up and low and behold - a familiar one rings in Mrs. Big's ears... What do you think she's going to say? OH I LOVE HIS WORK!!!!! Everyone knows the way to get 'known' is by getting people to know who you are - I would say there are a whole SLEW of people out there who know the names of artists that without the Internet these people might NEVER have known. I somehow don't think that there are going to be many artists who are going to actively pursue sites or people unless there is money making schemes involved.
This person needs to grab a dictionary and look at the definition of the word "facts". The statements in the paragraph above are "opinions", not facts. I've heard this argument quite often lately in regards to online music and videos. I understand the point, but disagree. The point is really: "did the artist give permission to do this?" not "by doing this act I am making the artist more famous". My opinion is, if you are going to swipe something, then just take it and don't bore me with all of these silly justifications.
Two - without infringement of copyright - _I_ can offer any demo program in the WORLD for download on my site. I can write a tutorial for any program I choose - and guess what.... The companies who own these products LOVE IT!!!! We've all seen Jasc actually point you TOWARDS these kinds of things! It promotes their products and as long as you aren't offering the full version of these products FREE to download, and it's totally acceptable for ANYONE to offer presets for these products for FREE DOWNLOAD!
Yeah, you can indeed offer demonstration copies of some programs, because they are designed that way. However, post a copy of, say, Microsoft Office fully licensed, and see how fast you do get an injunction from Microsoft. It's one thing for a company to post something called shareware up all over the web (this is done with their permission), it's quite another to illegally post licensed software.
I was contacted last night by a member who was being harassed by a tuber... Let me clarify this for everyone here and now - I have legal council and I KNOW what I am talking about. NO ONE - Not the tagger, not the tuber, not ANYONE can claim copyright on any image that they themselves did not CREATE! What does this mean exactly - because I think a lot of people mistakenly think that they hold all rights to things they have no right to... IF (and only if) you have created the graphic you use for your tube or tag and have duly paid copyright fees to copyright YOUR WORK - you CAN claim copyright on an image. So, you scan a 20 year old Hallmark card into your PSP and tube it - no you do not own the graphic and cannot claim copyright on it. You choose a graphic from wherever and tube it - no you cannot claim copyright. You use your Wacom tablet, draw the image, colorize it and add texture to it in Photoshop you fill in the forms, send off the required fee and register your copyright with the Library of Congress Copyright Office - YES YOU HOLD COPYRIGHT! HOWEVER - if it comes to light that the work you have copyrighted is not your own you've got a whole new slew of problems - the government doesn't take kindly to being duped.
Actually, this person should fire their legal counsel, because this paragraph does not contain much truth. loosely defined, copyright is a right that the creator (or the employer of that creator in some instances) of a work (artistic, written, spoken, or whatever) has from the moment the object is created. There is no requirement (or even need) to register anything. Copyright CAN be transferred to another party (Michael Jackson, for example, bought the copyright to many of the Beatles songs), and that party can indeed being you to court.
They are correct in stating that if you make a copy of something (say by scanning it) you DO NOT own the copyright. In fact, you've violated copyright by doing so.
Now - once again I'm going to bring up something about artists and copyrighted work... In all cases to this date, no artist has pursued legal action against a tagger or tuber. NOW - let me clarify this for you all... The artist CAN write you a letter and say, "Hey, I saw my work on your webpage and I know that you probably don't know this but it's copyrighted by me (and they must have the registration numbers and dates and BE the copyright holder) and I really don't want the image on the net, could you please remove it." THEY ALONE have that right - and you should remove the work if you are provided the information (copyright information supplied FROM THAT ARTIST or the artists legal representative.) There are no lawsuits in courts against people who have complied with the artists request for removal - you can look, there ARE NONE! (And let me just sneak this in here for a minute... Do you HONESTLY think Disney doesn't know that Pooh and the like are being used for tags? Have YOU made a Little Mermaid tag? Has Disney phoned you up to say HEY CUT THAT OUT! Have they???? Do you think it's because they don't KNOW it's going on or because they really don't have time for stupid crap like this?)
Look, if you want to make a stationary from some graphic, then just do it and, again, don't make up all of these "validations" for why it's okay. Of course Disney is probably not going to do anything about you creating a Mickey Mouse stationary ... that would be as silly as trying to stop a university student from making photocopies of an article. Technically, both acts might violate the copyright law ... but do they violate the spirit of the law? I think that's for each of us to decide.
In closing - I want you to be aware of one thing... If you own a website and are contacted and harassed by anyone other then the artist themselves - you CANNOT be brought into court, you cannot be sued, you cannot be shut down! To shut you down these people HAVE to own the copyright AND they have to LEGALLY order your site closed down ONLY AFTER THEY HAVE GIVEN YOU LEGAL NOTICE! They MUST serve you certified papers which state their case before anything can be done! IF these people (the Artists Right Coalition) harass you - YOU have EVERY RIGHT to go after them LEGALLY for harassment! In fact, if they take your IP address, contact you, contact your ISP and keep harassing you - you can actually pursue legal action against THEM on two charges, harassment AND stalking! If your web host shuts you down on these idiots word alone - you can drag THEM into it TOO! Be aware that if you are offering pirated software these fools can't do anything, but you are creating legal matters for yourself.
Um, I hate to tell you this, but the paragraph above was written by someone without a clue as to how the internet works. The internet is NOT owned or run by the government. It is, instead, a network operated by volunteers, companies, governments and even individuals. If you find copyrighted work on a site (say some Disney images that have been posted) you can write an email to the web hosting company, and there is a fair (better than 50/50) chance they will shut the site down. No trial, no lawyer, no nothing. In fact, you may not even know why your site was shut down ... you may not even be given the chance to defend yourself.
The terms and conditions that you agreed to when you signed up for the web site give the site owners the option to shut you down without notice, without explanation and even without reason. That's true in virtually every instance. They DO NOT need to bring you to court to shut down your site (and delete your work). They do not need to talk to a lawyer. They do not need to even notify you, give you notice or even tell you what happened. Don't believe me? Go check out the terms and conditions of whoever is hosting your site and find out for yourself.
Let's say you have a web site on one of the free hosting companies (such as GeoCities, Fortunecity or MSN) and you've posted some signatures made from Looney Tunes characters. Someone takes exception and sends off an email to that same hosting company. They ignore the message (usually the first one or two are ignored), but after, say, the third message about the matter they simply decide to shut the site down (they might just delete it, which means you'd better have a backup of your pages). After all, they are not making any money at all from you, so why take the chance of annoying a big corporation with lots of money for lawyers...
Just something to think about... Now can we get back to having fun? I'm pretty sure Joy's website is going to be around for a while, as long as she doesn't get scared because all these people (the artists coalition) are just blowing hot air out their butts.
As I stated at the beginning of this article (which has turned out to be longer than I thought it would be when I started), I don't really think anyone cares about that quilt piece you made from a picture of Winnie the Pooh, or that stationary you made which used a graphic from a Boris Vallejo graphic. I personally would not even say these two things are ethically wrong ...
One method that I use to determine if something is right or wrong is to determine how much time I spend defending my actions. If I have to defend what I've done, make up justifications and come up with reasons why it's okay, then it's probably not the right thing to do. Personally, if I had to write a long email explaining why it was a fine and dandy thing that I did, then perhaps I would and see if my actions really were acceptable. So far, that has worked well for me ... I don't spend a single minute defending my actions as I am totally comfortable with what I've done. And that's how I judge my own ethics.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.