Court Rules Photo of Memorial Violates Copyright 426
WhatDoIKnow sends in a story about an appeals court ruling in a singular case that might have the effect of narrowing "fair use" rights for transformative uses of artworks. "The sculptor who designed the Korean War memorial [in Washington DC] brought suit against the Postal Service after a photograph of his work was used on a postage stamp. Though first ruled protected by 'fair use,' on appeal the court ruled in favor (PDF) of the sculptor, Frank Gaylord, now 85."
I suppose (Score:5, Funny)
he's more obnoxious than a Reserved Gaylord.
A slap in the face to all American veterans. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is nothing more than a huge slap in the face to all American veterans, of any conflict.
My grandfather was in Korea, and he made what's perhaps the most ultimate sacrifice short of his life: his genitals. Thankfully, he had three kids by the time he was sent over, one of them being my mother. But it still apparently left him a very changed man, more so than most veterans.
I am glad that he is no longer around, to spare him from having to hear of this disgraceful ruling. Many of his friends' names were on that monument.
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Appeals court rulings are overturned frequently by supreme courts (google it) - if they hear the case (which the blatantly should). US postal service should be able to get there. I'm not worried but then again I'm not in the US. Why are there so many cases where there is a reversal is strange and can be infuriating.
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Appeals court rulings are overturned frequently by supreme courts (google it) - if they hear the case (which the blatantly should). US postal service should be able to get there. I'm not worried but then again I'm not in the US. Why are there so many cases where there is a reversal is strange and can be infuriating.
Especially as the decision was 2 - 1 with a strong and well agued dissent.
Re:A slap in the face to all American veterans. (Score:5, Informative)
To a great extent it's because Federal appeals court judges are political appointees, more often than not chosen because of their partisan politics rather than any sort of legal knowledge. No experience as a lower-court judge is necessary, for that matter a number of them have been appointed after spending all of their post-Bar Exam years lobbying or politicking rather than practicing law.
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And this is why I agree with Jefferson when he wrote, "To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps."
And - "This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it ha
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Which would do precisely nothing in this case. Congress has explicit Constitutional authority to create copyright law. This isn't a constitutional question, but rather a question of how Congressional laws which are known to be constitutional are interpreted.
Re:A slap in the face to all American veterans. (Score:5, Insightful)
You, sir, are a douche. Especially since he's right, there is a fair chance the SCotUS will overturn this. And not only am I a native-born US citizen, but I have been a contractor for several parts of the federal government.
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Maybe he has the same credibility that we have when we start telling the world how to live. I mean, we often judge other systems as bug-fucking-crazy, then meddle with their systems. Sometimes, if meddling doesn't satisfy us, we invade, and completely break their systems. Credibility. Yeah, we have lots of it. We turn murderers and rapists out into the streets to strike again, but a "three time loser" can pull a life sentence for possessing one to many grams of lawn mower clippings. And, retarded teen
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Even though what you say is true, I can't believe it's relevant in this case. How can the artist claim copyright over a design he donated to the government, and which the U.S. taxpayers OWN through the construction of the memorial via taxes.
In my opinion if there was ever justification for the Federal government to use eminent domain to tell the artist to "fuck off" NOW is that time. It certainly makes more sense to lay claim over this U.S. monument, than to take somebody's house to build a new mall.
Buying art? Read the contract (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, it wasn't a work for hire. The artists still owns all the rights. If the US government wanted it differently, they should have written the contract with the artist to reflect that. The US taxpayers may own the memorial, but not the rights to reproduce the image for other purposes. The government screwed up on this one, but the artist is being a douche, too.
I ran into a related problem recently. My mom just died of pancreatic cancer, and we needed some photos blown up for the memorial. The best ones we
Re:A slap in the face to all American veterans. (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed
If the sculptor wanted exclusive rights to this work in question, he should have put the thing in an art museum
To place a war memorial in a national public arena should make it public domain.
Whats next? Will he now go after and sue everyone that has snapped this thing with their point & shoot?
I have a friend that is so disgusted with our government that he now votes against every incumbent that comes up for reelection
Perhaps if we all took to this strategery, we could eventually rid ourselves of this scum that has fubar'd the country
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Re:A slap in the face to all American veterans. (Score:5, Insightful)
My grandfather was in Korea, and he made what's perhaps the most ultimate sacrifice short of his life: his genitals.
Um... OK, I give up. How?
A Korean whore kicked his grandfather in the nuts because he wasn't a big tipper... Honestly, who the fuck really cares exactly how or even if it and your post are nothing more than trolls (Which is my guess). The fact remains that people come back from war missing body parts all the time. Maybe it was a shell that went off, a landmine or some how a bullet. Perhaps a spider or snake bite or even some horrible VD. All of these things could happen and I'm sure most have happened. I don't think most men are going on Larry King to talk about it so even if it was just a troll message it totally failed because some place there is a grunt missing his pair because he severed his country just like I'm sure their are women now who served that are missing a breast.
War tears up both a persons flesh and their minds. It fucking sucks...
Re:A slap in the face to all American veterans. (Score:5, Funny)
Your Q reminds me of an old joke
Army guy got his nuts shot off on the battle field
The doctor attending him jokes lightly "Looks like they got your ammunition"
The soldier replies "They would have also gotten my gun if I hadn't been thinking of my wife's sister"
Does that answer your question or do we need to draw you a picture?
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Bouncing Betty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounding_mine [wikipedia.org]
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if the us government decided they wanted a monument to the Korean War made, commissioned the artist to make the work and paid the artist upon the completion of the work, shouldn't the US government have the right to utilize the work anyway they deem fit? Could the US government dismantle and even destroy the work? Could they pay another artist to augment or modify it in some way?
Re:A slap in the face to all American veterans. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nevermind the soldiers, what about the coats, helmets, guns, boots, etc. Someone designed all those things, which he so blithely copied without bothering to properly recognize artistic authorship.
isn't the memorial already in the public domain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Silly me... I thought the point of a memorial was for it to be placed in the trust of (or outright given to) the public... That being the case, how does this decision affect other images of public art?
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Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:5, Informative)
from TFA:
"she went over all of the available documents and found that they expressly kept those [IP] rights with Gaylord"
So no the idiots at the Army Corps of Engineers who signed the contract for this didn't in fact get ownership of anything other than the physical sculpture.
Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:4, Insightful)
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No, it becomes a derivative work.
You can't take a photo of a photo to get around the photographer's copyright, for example.
There are exceptions to this, but sculpture isn't one.
Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't make a copy in the same medium (photo of photo), but to say that a photo of a statue is a violation of copyright is plain stupid.
Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hardly the first time copyright law has been called stupid.
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If I recall correctly, this has been applied to other things, and the decisions have gone both ways.
Not to drag a cars into this, but... :) If I recall correctly, the "Black Mustang Club" (BMC) wanted to publish a calendar of their members vehicles. Ford objected, and stopped the printings, through legal muscle. It made the press, and Ford softened their stance to be "You can't use the Ford logo".
If there's a buck to be made, someone will try to make it.
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I think it's more about whether you're making profit from the picture, and what about the image - precisely - you are monetizing.
If you sold your photo to a magazine for an iPhone-related article, you're in the clear because you are illustrating an existing product, and the value of the image lies in the skilful portrayal of the object in question.
If you sold the photo to Chinese bootleg manufacturers so they can replicate the UI, or started making money off your revolutionary new idea, which you call the "
Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:5, Funny)
This is the US Post Office we're talking about here, so we don't have to worry about any profits being made...
Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:5, Informative)
USPS WAS operating in the green actually for most of the decade, up til 2007 when the increased gas prices really started to impact the bottom line. When you operate the largest vehicle fleet in the world, even a penny increase is going to be massively damaging..
http://www.usps.com/history/anrpt07/summary.htm [usps.com]
So yeah, it's fun to mock USPS, but it's not often warranted.
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It wasn't the U.S. federal government who paid the start-up expenses for the USPS in this case.... it was the British government instead, when Benjamin Franklin became the first American postmaster-general in North America.
Otherwise, it has been a make a little lose a little proposition for the past nearly 300 years, and one of the early forms of revenue for the American Republic after the revolution of the 18th Century.
I'd say that those start-up costs have been amortized quite some time ago. How many 18t
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I think you're confusing product placement with copyright and approved uses.
You see very obvious brand names in movies and TV because they are sponsoring the movie. It's advantageous for them to have their products shown.
Don't think every couch, lamp, and article of clothing had a royalty paid for it's use. You could extend that idea to "character A walks through a door. He hangs his jacket on a hook." Consider every element in that shot. The clothes, the doo
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The issue at hand is the use of the specific picture in a postage stamp. The postal service could have gotten around this issue by taking another picture at a similar/same angle using their own cameras in the snow. However, they did not seek proper usage for the underlying image on which the stamps are based.
Not all stuff done by the government is in the public domain - such as work by contractors, and other works where the government pays for services. In those cases, you have to especially careful to look
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Depends on the contract. Look at wedding photographers - often if not they retain the copyrights.
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Hardly the same thing, is it? They are retaining rights to the photos, surely.
Unless you mean photos of the cake?
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I don't get it. A post is marked "Interesting" for asking a question that is already covered IN DETAIL in TFA!
The artist won a competition to design the memorial. At no stage was he paid, or contracts entered into...
Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't get it. A post is marked "Interesting" for asking a question that is already covered IN DETAIL in TFA!
You must be new here.
Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:4, Insightful)
That would only be a point if he actually protested people simply photographing the memorial. This is about the creation of derivative works for commercial purposes.
What you're saying is that if a rock band does a free concert in a public park, they have given away the rights to their work. That's Slashbot thinking: the philosophy of consumers who never produce anything worth more than a +5, "interesting".
Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, unlike your rock concert which is covered by copyright, this is a very gray legal area.
Aside from work for hire issues as to whether he has the right to the copyright or not(which the judge seems to have argued he does). Public landmarks are more than a little bit fuzzy when it comes to copyright. How much of the value of the memorial is in the sculpture itself and how much of it is in what it represents to people. How much of the stamp is about the actual sculpture and how much of it is about what the sculpture represents.
I would argue that that sculpture represents the lives of thousands of American soldiers in Korea and perhaps more broadly the millions of soldiers who have fought died on all sides in conflicts throughout history. It is important and famous not because of what this guy did with a chisel, but because of what a lot of men and women did either because of what they believed in, or because they had no choice.
That postage stamp, like the memorial, is to commemorate those people, and Mr Gaylord, no matter how great an artist he may or may not be, owns nothing of that.
Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:4, Insightful)
They own the piece of art. They don't own the work. For example, if you buy one of two hundred prints of an artist's latest painting, you just own a print, but the artist retains ownership of the IP (the painting) and all copies (the print). You wouldn't be able to just photocopy (or, according to this court ruling, photograph) and distribute the copies freely. One of the best -- and most annoying -- examples is wedding photos, which the photographer usually retains rights to, even if he sells you prints.
The same is true even if you're sold original works, not copies (such as books, replica painting) or even a singular work (the only existing sculpture, like in this case). This is why copyrights are supposed to expire: eventually, all art should belong to mankind as a whole as part of our common culture. The founding fathers never intended for anyone to be able sit on his laurels and live off a single work for his entire life, much less for three generations of his estate to benefit after his death.
As has already been noted, the interpretation of a picture of a monument as a derivative work subject to protection under copy right is harsh narrowing of fair use rights. While non-profit "reproductions" (say, vacation photos in front of the memorial) would probably still be considered fair use, it gives IP owners with a litigious mindset a very big stick.
Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:5, Insightful)
"One of the best -- and most annoying -- examples is wedding photos, which the photographer usually retains rights to, even if he sells you prints."
As long as you surrender your rights as a consumer it's no wonder others will abuse of that.
I married two years ago and I made damn clear I was contracting a service and that all byproducts and associated rights from that service were my own. There were two phographers that didn't see it that way... well, they didn't get neither the copyright nor the money for the service.
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"What about the rights of the person who created the ART of your event?"
They were properly covered by the money I got him in exchange for his services.
"They're also going to have a piss-poor eye, and will likely be late and unprofessional when it comes to delivering the images."
You are using the future tense. I remember you this was two years ago, the one I contracted had a good eye, was professional and came in time. I of course took my references.
"If you treat an artist like they're a tradesman, perhaps
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If you treat an artist like they're a tradesman,perhaps you don't really understand the scope of the service
You're right, we're treating them entirely too well. They do about a tenth the actual work of a tradesman, they should also be making about a tenth the actual pay.
Seriously though, your attitude is precisely the attitude that has made IP as fucked up as it is today. The wedding photographer, if he does good work, will make damn good money photographing the wedding. Everything they do is a la carte. Want another photo touched up? That's another hundred bucks. Why the FUCK do they deserve to have a "right" th
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Clearly you have *no* idea what is involved being a photographer of an event (wedding or not).
I don't even remotely understand your complaint.
The original poster found a photographer who was willing to perform the service being requested in exchange for the amount of money being offered. Nobody's work was stolen. Nobody's copyright was violated. Nobody was forced to work against his or her will. The poster didn't ask the photographer to perform 9 days of work in exchange for 2 days of pay, as you seem to imply. There was nothing illegal about the transaction. A basic requirement of a free market s
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"Of course you don't have the rights to copy her work. Otherwise you could go into business competing against her"
Of course we all know how bad competition is... those bastard capitalists!
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"Even so, it's insane."
What it is insane is people *allowing* for that.
"One of the worst is the photographer who did my sister's wedding in 1999, where she and her fiance signed a photographer on who not only expressly stated the above (quite normal)"
That's the problem. The proper answer is laugh at his face, go out the door and find another photographer.
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Unfortunately, it depends on the contract between the artist and the commissioner. It is becoming more and more common for the artist to retain the copyright. When an artist paints a picture and sells it, they often now explicitly put in the bill of sale that the copyright is not transferred, allowing them to sell prints of the painting even after they have sold the painting.
In another discussion group, we were discussing the incidents surrounding the Mackie dance sculptures on Broadway St. in Seattle. Th
Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:4, Insightful)
Scary, or perhaps stupid, or even ridiculous. This was commissioned by Congress and occupies space in a public park. It belongs to the United States, so we should be able to use images of it just as we do with the other public buildings and monuments we own. It is a beautiful monument to those who risked and gave their lives for us. If some blowhard "artist" wants to retain all image rights to his work, then he should keep a piece for himself, not expect us to build a setting for it and maintain it. Plenty of artists could have created something as significant without being assholes about it.
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The people who approved this contract ought to be drawn and quartered. Not only did the guy get paid royally for his work, he gets to keep the IP without actually contributing anything to its maintenance. I couldn't find anything about how much the upkeep is, but it seems to me that if the guy wants to keep control over his work, he ought to maintain it himself, along with the park in which it stands. If he doesn't want to do that, he clearly is not interested in keeping control of it.
Re:isn't the memorial already in the public domain (Score:5, Insightful)
Scary, or perhaps stupid, or even ridiculous. This was commissioned by Congress and occupies space in a public park. It belongs to the United States, so we should be able to use images of it just as we do with the other public buildings and monuments we own.
And the Corps of Engineers should be able to take the damn thing to a safe place and blow it up. I'd rather see it destroyed than stand in mockery of the men it commemorates.
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Well, I'm never going to DC to see it, and since taking photos of it is a violation of his copyright I suppose I'll never see it. Gaylord (what an unfortunate name, BTW) is an idiot. Now, instead of millions seeing his creation only the handful of people who actually venture to DC then venture to the area where it is will get to see and enjoy it.
If this tool wants to restrict the viewing of his creation then so be it. It's his loss that so many people will miss out on it. Artists just don't seem to have the
They should have tried different legal strategies (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAL, but I can see where fair use would be an appealing technique here, but the public trust might actually be the right way to argue this one. The argument to make would be that whoever signed the contract, and perhaps even the Congress, does not have the power to grant the artist a copyright good against the public in a case where, as in a monument, the work is commissioned for display at the seat of the federal government and for the public good. The monument is something created for and held in the public trust and as such, control over its use cannot be restricted to a single individual or corporation.
The idea of the public trust overriding corporate ownership came up about a hundred years ago when a Railroad Company was arguing an older (1869, IIRC) act of the (corrupt) Illinois legislature had successfully given the railroad company title to a square mile of the lakebed of Lake Michigan. The court held that if the title had been valid, it certainly didn't survive a repeal of the original act, and in any event the State couldn't really give up control of its harbor to a private entity because that would violate the public trust.
The environmental law folks pulled the public trust doctrine out of a drawer about 40 years ago, now, and it might have been useful here.
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Even worse a photo of a sculpture does not replicate the sculpture. That is the overwhelming fact when the photo is a reduced drawing on a stamp. Then the next issue is that the selling of an object should convey absolute rights to the new owner and disolve all rights of the seller. The moral and ethical issues of copyright are so twisted that copyright needs to be eliminated.
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The government is not suing itself a private individual is suing the government for "stealing" his work (in the language the government likes to use for IP infringement).
Guess it was never ours (Score:5, Insightful)
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Does this post violate copyright law? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://cloudking.com/artists/heather-stanfield/works/korean-war-memorial_large.jpg [cloudking.com]
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Only if I pay you for it. That's a really nice picture btw.
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Depends on whether he assigned ownership. I'd answer your question better, but that would involve reading TFA and that's not what /. is about. If I wanted to have informed opinions, I'd get back to work:P
Is this one of those... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is this one of those... (Score:4, Funny)
TFA says that the government could petition the U.S. Supreme Court for review, so I take it that matters aren't yet... set in stone.
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It's called a "stamp" not a "photo"... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's okay to take a photo of a sculpture but it's not okay to use that photo to market your service, such as the way the USPS was trying to do with this stamp. This is part of the reason they make sure people are dead for a good long time before they honor them with a postage stamp.
Re:It's called a "stamp" not a "photo"... (Score:4, Interesting)
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It's okay to take a photo of a sculpture but it's not okay to use that photo to market your service, such as the way the USPS was trying to do with this stamp. This is part of the reason they make sure people are dead for a good long time before they honor them with a postage stamp.
That doesn't make any sense. If you take a picture of me, it's not as if I retain any authorship rights to my own face. The "living persons" rule does apply to images of people on U.S. stamps, but not to images of sculptures AFAIK.
Now this is a quote from the findings in the ruling:
Analysis of the purpose and character of the use also includes whether the “use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.” 17 U.S.C. 107. The Postal Service acknowledged receiving $17 million from the sale of nearly 48 million 37-cent stamps. An estimated $5.4 million in stamps were sold to collectors in 2003. The stamp clearly has a commercial purpose. The Court of Federal Claims did not address how the commercial purpose of the stamp affected this factor of the fair use analysis.
This gets down to the question of what a stamp is for. Is the $5.4 million figure even relevant? All those stamp collectors can still mail letters with those stamps.
Stupid bureaucrats (Score:2, Interesting)
FTA - noone actually ever paid the artist for the work, and I assume it wasn't stipulated in the rules of the competition (that the artist won) that the work, and any IP related to the work, would become public domain if he won.
Looks like a stupid oversight on behalf of the original organisers and the Postal Service for not enquiring about ownership.
Due diligence on the part of the Postal Service wouldn't have gone astray either.
I'm not sure where the outrage is coming from...
Re:Stupid bureaucrats (Score:5, Informative)
From the court decision, Mr. Gaylord was paid $775k by the United States for his part of the work, and the primary contractor (who hired Mr. Gaylord directly) was paid over $5M (p. 5 of dissent).
Personally, I'm rather confused as to how this case turned out this way. The dissent offers a very strong argument for why the government already has a license to use the artwork however it sees fit, and it also notes a federal law which should disqualify a claim against the government in this case. The US should at least try to get the CAFC to hear this case en banc, because it seems that the majority in this case overlooked some important details.
Fair Use (Score:5, Insightful)
Fair use of a copyrighted work “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.
17 U.S.C. 107
This is the law. This is not how the Postal Service used his copyrighted work. As an aside, this is also not what Tenenbaum et al. did when they downloaded music.
We shouldn't complain when judges use restraint and don't bastardize statutes.
Re:Fair Use (Score:4, Interesting)
Notice in my original post, I never lambasted the judge... just the idea that a war memorial, in a public place, commissioned by the public (er... gov't in this case, but isn't that supposed to be the same here?)
Given those circumstances... shouldn't it be a reasonable assumption that the rights for the memorial also be placed in the public trust?
I agree... Bad contract from the start that let this slip through.
Re:Fair Use (Score:4, Funny)
Judicial activism is when a judge does something I don't like.
Re:Fair Use (Score:4, Informative)
Fair use is determined by the four factor test and that list is not exhaustive, for example "timeshifting" which was vital to the Betamax case is not listed nor covered by any of the others. So the only one bastardizing the statutes here is you, by asserting that it can't be fair use since it's not on the list.
Re:Fair Use (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think you understand copyright law. A finding of fair use requires that the derivative work survive the "four factor test". Mere inclusion in the category of "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research" is neither neccessary nor sufficient for a finding of "fair use".
The task is not to be simplified with bright line rules, for the statute, like the doctrine it recognizes, calls for case by case analysis. Harper & Row, 471 U. S., at 560; Sony, 464 U. S., at 448, and n. 31; House Report, pp. 65-66; Senate Report, p. 62. The text employs the terms "including" and "such as" in the preamble paragraph to indicate the "illustrative and not limitative" function of the examples given, 101; see Harper & Row, supra, at 561, which thus provide only general guidance about the sorts of copying that courts and Congress most commonly had found to be fair uses. Nor may the four statutory factors be treated in isolation, one from another. All are to be explored, and the results weighed together, in light of the purposes of copyright. See Leval 1110-1111; Patry & Perlmutter, Fair Use Misconstrued: Profit, Presumptions, and Parody, 11 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L. J. 667, 685-687 (1993) (hereinafter Patry & Perlmutter).
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (92-1292), 510 U.S. 569 (1994). [cornell.edu]
This will get appealed again. (Score:5, Informative)
The underlying problem is that copyrights were improperly assigned to Gaylord in the first place. Being under contract to the govt, those copyrights should have been assigned to the govt. In fact the contracting officer has been and still is demanding that those improperly assigned copyrights be turned over. The court wasn't allowed to challenge the validity of those copyrights and had to take them at face value.
Re:This will get appealed again. (Score:5, Insightful)
The underlying problem is that copyrights were improperly assigned to Gaylord in the first place.
I think the word you are actually looking for is something like "erroneously" or "stupidly". It seems like the copyrights were properly assigned.
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The underlying problem is that copyrights were improperly assigned to Gaylord in the first place.
I think the word you are actually looking for is something like "erroneously" or "stupidly". It seems like the copyrights were properly assigned.
The govt in its arguments used the word "improperly assigned" so I stuck with that. Erroneously implies by mistake to me. Gaylord wasn't the sole holder so it was improper to have assigned him a copyright saying so. A bit ironic as it was a govt office that screwed that up.
Wasn't sculpture made from the famous photo? (Score:3, Interesting)
Call me crazy, but wasn't the sculpture created from a photo? Hmmmm...
Statutory Damages... (Score:5, Insightful)
17 million sales of $.37 stamps = 46 million or so stamps actually produced.
Statutory damages can run from $750-$30,000 per copy, assuming that it wasn't a willful infringement.
That's a minimum award of $34,500,000,000 (34.5 billion) and a maximum award of 1,380,000,000,000 (1.4 trillion). Plus attorney's fees, of course. Roughly last year's federal deficit not counting off-budget spending bills.
Would anyone here care to argue that statutory damages in the U.S. are not way out of proportion to the scope of the infringement?
Re:Sorry. Typo. (Score:2)
That should have started, "With $17 million in sales..."
Re:Statutory Damages... (Score:4, Informative)
That's a minimum award of $34,500,000,000 (34.5 billion) and a maximum award of 1,380,000,000,000 (1.4 trillion).
No, it's a minimum award of $750 and a maximum of $30,000, assuming no willful infringement.
Statutory damages are per work, not per copy.
Would anyone here care to argue that statutory damages in the U.S. are not way out of proportion to the scope of the infringement?
Complete non-sequitur. Is a $30,000 penalty for a corporation misusing someone else's property too high? Of course not. Is the same penalty too high for a kid who is pirating music for his iPod? Almost certainly.
Re: (Score:2)
The damages depend on how much of the value of the stamp is derived from the picture on it. Most of the value of the stamp is tied up in what it can do for you (convince the USPS to deliver your letter/package), not the picture on front.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
17 million sales of $.37 stamps = 46 million or so stamps actually produced.
Statutory damages can run from $750-$30,000 per copy, assuming that it wasn't a willful infringement.
That's a minimum award of $34,500,000,000 (34.5 billion) and a maximum award of 1,380,000,000,000 (1.4 trillion). Plus attorney's fees, of course. Roughly last year's federal deficit not counting off-budget spending bills.
Would anyone here care to argue that statutory damages in the U.S. are not way out of proportion to the scope of the infringement?
I would care to argue that... Mainly because you're misquoting the statute. 17 USC 504(c)(1) says: "... the copyright owner may elect... an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $ 750 or more than $ 30,000 as the court considers just."
It's $750-$30k per work, not per copy. This was specificall
What a jackass (Score:2)
The government should give the memorial back to him and tell him to get bent.
Did MY Tax Dollars Pay for This? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Business Opportunities (Score:3, Interesting)
The postal service should just use the photo (Score:2, Insightful)
The monument itself is based on a famous photo. The postal service should have bypassed the monument new artwork for the stamp based on the photo.
Did the sculpter pay royalties to Joe Rosenthal [wikipedia.org] the photographer? Or to the AP, which employed him? If not, this is the height of hypocracy.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Something from Nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I see no "narrowing". (Score:4, Insightful)
I read the decision as a straightforward and reasonable interpretation of fair use. It may clarify some points, but I don't see that it narrows fair use.
Bullshit (Score:2, Interesting)
This is just wrong.
It was commissioned by Congress. "Management of the memorial was turned over to the National Park Service, under its National Mall and Memorial Parks group. As with all National Park Service historic areas, the memorial was administratively listed on the National Register of Historic Places on the day of its dedication." (wikipedia)
I think, as the piece being commissioned by congress and the managing body by the US Park Service, the artist can go fuck himself. As an artist my self, Im pos
Vets sue Gaylord (Score:5, Insightful)
How about all of the Korean vets sue Frank Gaylord for intruding on their IP. After all, they FOUGHT the war.
Solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Not elected (Score:5, Informative)
Judge Thomas C Wheeler was nominated in June 05 and confirmed in October 05 for a 15 year term. His prior experience was 10 years as a lawyer for corporate law firm DLA Piper.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps he should be judging horses along with the other blatant political appointee that was way out of his depth.
The last few years should be a lesson to the USA that heading down the road towards absolute monarchy was a pretty stupid step backwards.
Re:Baffled (Score:4, Insightful)
The torrent-sucking copyright-is-evil gallery ought to try to make a living from IP once or twice before going off sounding like pitchfork-waving mindless rabble.
No, you've got it backwards. The self-righteous elitist "artists" ought to try to make a living from honest work once or twice before going off sounding like pompous assholes wanting a continuous revenue stream for a pittance of "work". There's already too many lazy assholes trying to make a quick buck for doing practically nothing, in the name of "IP". In the real world, if your work don't cut it, neither does your paycheck.