Removal of Photo Credit Qualifies As DMCA Violation 71
mattgoldey writes with this excerpt: "A federal appeals court in Philadelphia has reinstated a photographer's copyright lawsuit against a New Jersey radio station owner, after finding that a lower court came to the wrong decision on every issue in the case. Most significantly, the appeals court said that a photo credit printed in the gutter of a magazine qualifies as copyright management information (CMI) under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA prohibits the unauthorized removal of encryption technology or copyright management information from copyrighted works."
Karma's a bitch (Score:5, Insightful)
We can all argue about what fair use of copyrighted materials should be, but I think we can also more-or-less agree that deliberately stripping off a creator's name is uncool. Of course, the conduct of the defendants in question (RTFA, they were shock-jock DJs who responded to the photographer's cease-and-desist with a smear campaign chock full o' slander and libel and just-plain-lies) probably made it a lot easier for the judge to apply the bitch-slap to 'em. They deserved it.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Copyright notice != CMI (Score:4, Insightful)
If you use it for your own personal use (say as a background image on your computer screen), no. Though, few people are that anal to go to such lengths for such a minor thing. If you use it in any commercial way or in any manner that is shown to the public, yes. This is basic copyright 101, folks. You can't show it or make money off of it, directly or indirectly, unless you pay royalties.
This is exactly like removing the signature from a painting and passing it off as your own work. Of course they got reamed in court over it.
Lazy employee costs company millions in legal fees. News at 10...