Think Mike needs a little backup about this.
Mel that is one thing I love about you, you are a lawyer to the end.
Some of us mind, some don't, most do not have any need to use the law to excuse what we are showing or how they do it. By definition the artwork itself may very well be in the public domain but the usage of the photograph of said artwork is more recent and I believe protected under current copyright laws. Now you return with fare use, etc., etc., et al and the argument never ends. This I will not argue any more.
The point is just make mention of where you get these things. We all love to have knowledgeable people on the site to lend their expertise in whatever area it may be and wherever the source may be from. Don't be a lawyer and be human being, when you post photos from someone else especially those from professional businesses who do not take them for fun but take them as a part of their livelihood and pay for that time/labor to do so and hide that photo behind a password protected portion of their company owned website which makes that photo not public domain give due credit for the fact of where you got it from because if that is the case then it has indeed been lifted. If they gave you permission prior to your posting the photo and sent or gave direct access to you then I heartily apologize for the lifted comment. Same as research. I have no problem with you using any information that you may want from me here or on your own site but once in a while it would be nice to have the person passing it along give that person the credit they deserve as they spent the time and effort to research their facts rather than make it appear as though it is yours or just magically appeared out of thin air. When you know whom the source is show them the respect for their hard work. For images many people here make posts with images from HA all the time, others with images from PM, EMP and others. More often than not they give credit to the owner of the pic or information.
As to how you got your PM images, I more than likely know how. I also more than likely know how you got the large non watermarked images from HA. The fact that you can do it does not make it right. So again stop being a lawyer and be a human being and respect peoples hard work and effort by getting their permission first or at least acknowledging the source. I feel the same about others that do the same. That is my point here and the last thing I will say about this.
Mike, many of us have tried to help him but unfortunately to no avail.
On the Clint Eastwood forum(on which I don't post anymore). Any photo taken from any source(apart from your own) must have a link to the source or if you can't post a link, acknowledgement of the source must be given.
That's the way it should be in my opinion, but you don't necessarily have to type the source etc if the image you have linked to actually links to the source's website.
What gets up a lot of people's noses is when someone simply adds the image to their own website or online image folder, making it look like their own poster or image, and not crediting the source and even photoshopping out watermarks for their own benefit.
That would be "fair use" Mike not "fare use." Not only have you misspelled it, you have no clue what it means. "Fair use" allows anyone to post an image of a copyrighted image for limited non-profit purposes. It does not apply to public domain works, which can be used by anyone for any purpose, including selling such works for profit, for example selling reprints.
Typical; Mike made a spelling mistake which he is attacked for and then told he doesn't understand the term "fair use".
I can't speak for Mike, but I am pretty sure he understands what it means.
The point Mike makes is that this guy implies the images he posts actually belong to him, when almost all of them do not.
Did he take the time to photograph all those posters? Of course not, because if he did he would understand what goes into preparing photographs for show.
Mike also states that this guy should credit the sources of his images - many of us have told him this would be of benefit, but again it unfortunately falls on deaf ears.
Aside from legalities, you're focusing on "protecting" those who deserve no protection. Think about it. The studio (the copyright owner) spends hundreds of thousands of dollars developing an advertising campaign, including movie posters. The artist and/or advertising agency spends hundreds or perhaps thousands of hours actually creating the poster. The studio appropriately deserves copyright protection for a period of time for those posters. The artists/creative agency deserve artistic credit. Nevertheless, at a certain point those artistic works appropriately fall into the public domain and can be used by anyone for any purpose.
By contrast it takes two minutes to take a picture of a movie poster and post it on the Internet. That is not "hard work" by any stretch of the imagination. Furthermore, the photographer is doing NOTHING original, creative, or noteworthy by taking a picture of SOMEONE ELSE'S CREATIVE WORK. To suggest that the photographer has any legal or protected right in such a picture is absurd. The US and UK courts have rejected such a frivolous argument. See Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., 36 F. Supp. 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999).
A few of my friends are professional photographers, so for him to say a photographer is doing nothing original, creative or noteworthy and that they deserve no protection IS absurd.
So is he trying to tell all the major auction houses and businesses that their photography is not copyrighted? Please.
What he doesn't understand is that when a photographer takes an image of a poster, piece of artwork or a sculpture etc, the actual artwork remains the copyright of its owner (the artist, designer or studio etc) whilst the image remains the copyright of the photographer unless the copyright is passed onto someone else. It's the same when a photographer snaps a model. They don't own the model, but they own the image.
Public domain work can be used by anyone for any reason. That's a given, which is why we have royalty free images and the like.
But if any work (in this case images) has been altered in anyway at all, then it constitutes creative work so whatever it is... it is copyrighted.
Anyone who knows a little about photography and copyright should know that amongst other things any photograph taken, any doodle on paper, anything created by a person (apart from an idea for instance) is immediately protected under copyright law.
This guy claims it takes two minutes to take a picture of a movie poster and post it on the internet.
OK, if you already have the poster on the wall like he does or it just happens to be lying around and you already have your camera in your hand, ready to take the photo with all the settings correct (including a camera phone), and the camera linked to the computer (or to the internet on your phone) and you do no work to the image after taking the photo and upload it direct to the website or online database as is... then possibly, yeah, it would take about 2 minutes or even less if you were quick. Heck, I could pick up my phone right now and take a picture and upload it to Facebook without doing anything to the image in less than 30 seconds.
He just doesn't understand what goes into photography at all otherwise he wouldn't have made that comment.
The link this guy provided RE the court case was a US case, not a UK case, and what he states about it is funny as he has missed out a very important part in regards to UK law (shooting himself in the foot and bearing in mind he has no experience in the copyright field whereas the person in the article does).See the below quote from the article:
The significance of the case and the doubts that it raised prompted the private Museums Copyright Group in the U.K. to commission an in-depth report on the case and to seek the opinion of Jonathan Rayner James, Q.C., a barrister who specialized in U.K. copyright law and a co-author of Copinger and Skone James on copyright.
Rayner James' opinion, as reported by the group in a press release, was:
[A]s a matter of principle, a photograph of an artistic work can qualify for copyright protection in English law, and that is irrespective of whether [...] the subject of the photographs is more obviously a three dimensional work, such as a sculpture, or is perceived as a two dimensional artistic work, such as a drawing or painting [...]
—Jonathan Rayner James, Press release by Museums Copyright Group (elisions as made by the Museums Copyright Group)
It is, similarly, arguable under U.K. law that the photography of such works, by dint of the lighting and other techniques involved in producing a photograph that renders the work to best photographic effect (possibly better than what would be visible to a person viewing the original painting on display in the relevant museum), would constitute originality, per Liddie, and not merely a "slavish copy".So there it is in black and white, or blue and white lol, from a QC with vast experience and knowledge in copyright law.
Now I must state for the record, I have not attacked anyone in this post.
I have merely answered some remarks and replied to some inaccurate comments.
