[Elecraft] Copyright images used on YouTube "The Elecraft Band" without permission

[David Woolley (E.L)]

Charles Harpole wrote:
> The status of copyright on open sites on the Web are a good question.
> The old (prior to Internet) rule was easy.... any work given away to
> the public lost its copyright protection. Example: a poet hands out

I don't believe this has been true since the USA signed the Berne 
Convention, and used to be a US specific problem.  Incidentally, for 
uniform international protection, one must publish - what used to make a 
difference is whether or not there was a copyright notice - nowadays, 
material is copyright by default, although the protection for 
unpublished work may be limited.

(In some countries, not distributing, or giving very limited 
distribution may leave you with no copyright protection.  I have a 
feeling the USA may be one where protection on unpublished works is very 
limited.)

> copies of his poetry to public on a street corner. He loses his
> copyright then and there. I think the same applies to open sites
> where all the material is offered "free" to the public... that is, no

The same is true of the internet.  Putting on the internet is 
publication.  It is copyright by default until 70 years after the death 
of author, and many countries will not allow that copyright to be abandoned.

The main problem area on the web is deep linking, particularly of 
images.  The original web concept only really works with deep linking, 
and didn't see web documents as compound objects with links to images 
that were rendered in the page, but text documents, on the web can 
identify their author and benefit that author, even when deep linked 
from elsewhere.  Most commercial site operators would object to deep 
linking images, and many object to deep linking text, but I don't know 
if they have any legal rights to stop this.

Premature publication can prevent your getting a patent, but that is a 
rather different sort of intellectual property.

> payment back to the originator. The attachment of the C in a circle
> and the correct words of Copyright, name, and date, may provide some

A requirement obsoleted by the Berne convention.

> protection, but even then the excerpt taken must be substantial and
> not trivial (usually determined by shortness or length of excerpt).
> Citation of the original in short bits of the original likely also
> cover the possibly offending user. Basically, anything on the Web in

Fair use rules vary from country to country, but usually give less 
rights that most people assume.  Generally, fair usage applies where 
there is a public benefit (reporting news, criticism, etc.), not as a 
general licence to reproduce small amounts.  Quantity limits are there 
to prevent abusive use of fair usage rights.

> open public sites can be used with very small danger of legal action
> against the copier-person. Further, the original owner must often
> prove MEASURABLE damages from the copying.... not easy in many cases.

I believe any US hosted web site must take down infringing material at 
the request of the copyright owner.  I have heard that taking copyright 
to court in the USA may need you to register the copyright, and getting 
damages would require demonstration of a real cost to you, but I'm 
fairly sure that you can get an injunction even when there is no cost to 
you and that the DMCA take down procedure just requires that you own the 
copyright and that fair usage exemptions don't apply.

The YouTube DMCA takedown procedure is documented at 
<http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=58127&topic=10553&hl=en_US>.

> Consult your lawyer. 73 Charles Harpole k4vud at hotmail.com Charles
> Harpolek4vud at hotmail.com > Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 18:05:44 -0400>
> From: faunt at panix.com> To: elecraft at astromag.co.uk> Subject: Re:

With all the newlines before the >s missing, this is very difficult to read.

In this case, I would suggest that the person whose copyright has been 
infringed, either volunteer an explicit licence, or request the offender 
to cease and desist.  If that fails, they should invoke YouTube's 
copyright violation procedure.  Failing to challenge is probably the 
worst thing to do.

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't really see any costs in doing this.  If 
the YouTube refuse to remove the material, you would then need to 
consult a lawyer.  The only issue that a lawyer might need to decide 
before that is whether fair usage exemptions apply.

> [Elecraft] Copyright images used on YouTube "The Elecraft Band"
> without permission> CC: elecraft at mailman.qth.net> > Shame!> > And he

-- 
David Woolley
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