Saturday, February 14, 2009
Can You Re-Copyright Photos In The Public Domain?
Techdirt: "Davis Freeberg wrote in to tell us about how a small publishing company, Summertown Sun, had issued takedown notices for public domain photographs that were put on Flickr. What appears to have happened is that a user, by the name of 'Dazzlecat,' posted some photos to Flickr that she believed were public domain photographs (vintage photographs from over a century ago). However, Summertown Sun sent a takedown claiming copyright ownership of those photos. That seems odd, since public domain is... public domain. Either way, Yahoo/Flickr obeyed the takedown notice and then also took down a followup altered image and blog post that trashed Summertown for the takedown, saying that it violated Flickr's terms of service. Yahoo is, of course, free to do what it wants -- and has the right to takedown whatever it feels violates its terms of service, but what's more interesting is the question of whether or not the images are in the public domain, and whether or not Summertown's takedown was actually legal."
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5 comments:
In thursday's Theatre Management class, we had a entertainment lawyer talking to us about copyrights, trademarks etc. After the class, i have come to understand that works published before 1927 are now in the public domain. Victorian photos are certainly before that. Also, as the article states, even if they altered the photos enough to obtain a NEW copyright status, the original proofs would still be public. If they wanted absolute security, couldn't they have trade-marked the image (registered trademark is renewable)
Pre 1920s copyrights are posible when you consider works published overseas or not published at all. Standard unpublished is life of author +70 or 120 years where the author in unknown.
it seems to me that people are getting far too picky when it comes to issues of copyright and basic control...it just seems that it all comes from the issue of making money and not even artistic merit which is why i get so sick of these major corporations forcing people to take down videos and pictures that they have copyright on, art is made for the people - let the people enjoy it.
I think that copyright is completely ridiculous and overused unless it is in a case where there is direct profit from the use of someone else's work. Just displaying someone else's work, in my mind just compliments the person who created it and unless the person is trying to benefit from saying it is their original piece I do not see a problem with it.
I agree with sarah, people are becoming way too picky when it comes to copyright laws. Just the other day I was hearing about how its illegal to read a book aloud. It seems a little bit of overkill to me.
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