Legal Question

[MountainMan]

I dont' see how posting a photo and linking back to the source violates fair use though. No one is making money on it, its just referencing it. When you psot a photo to a website like RR Picture Archives, you've pretty much implied you put the photo up there for reference use.

What a mess this all is. The wild west isn't dead, its just on the internet now. so much lawlessness!

Only in the perceptions of the nay-sayers. I note how quickly one individual here accused me of doom and gloom, but this isn't my thread. I simply added the logical extension of all of the fears expressed here, without even a precipitating incident to account for it. "The guilty flee where no man persueth."

The most obvious solution, and by far the simplest, is to post a link to the image and let the reader go look for himself.

[steinjr]

The most obvious solution, and by far the simplest, is to post a link to the image and let the reader go look for himself.

Indeed. No legal hassles whatsoever. When you put stuff up on the web, you implicitly give permission for others to create a link to your web page, where they will be seeing your images in the context you wanted them seen.

Smile,
Stein

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I dont' see how posting a photo and linking back to the source violates fair use though. No one is making money on it, its just referencing it. When you psot a photo to a website like RR Picture Archives, you've pretty much implied you put the photo up there for reference use.

What a mess this all is. The wild west isn't dead, its just on the internet now. so much lawlessness!

Only in the perceptions of the nay-sayers. I note how quickly one individual here accused me of doom and gloom, but this isn't my thread. I simply added the logical extension of all of the fears expressed here, without even a precipitating incident to account for it. "The guilty flee where no man persueth."

The most obvious solution, and by far the simplest, is to post a link to the image and let the reader go look for himself.

You are of course totally correct.

However, I still think its kind of silly that this is even a problem if we are just referencing something.

I think its interesting that people claim "Oh, you have to ask permission because the owner should control how it is distributed!"

So, essentially, the only difference between uploading or [img] tagging the picture, is that the person who is seeing the picture is now seeing it somewhere else away from the content they were reading, instead of right there where it would make sense. You still linked to the photo, and the link and its contents are still associated with whatever it is you posted.

What is the difference then? The only difference is that providing JUST a link can be tedious and inefficient. In the end, the photographer's content is still associated with whatever it is you were discussing. Providing the photo with the link is just the best way to do it.

Again, I agree with you, given the current "ideal" for photo referencing on these boards, a direct link seems to be the safest option, but its just absolutely silly that this should even be a problem.

It shouldn't matter how you post it on the forums, as long as a person can find there way back to the original.

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Indeed. No legal hassles whatsoever. When you put stuff up on the web, you implicitly give permission for others to create a link to your web page, where they will be seeing your images in the context you wanted them seen.

Smile,
Stein

Is that really the case though? What other context is there? If I provide a link to the source, and you don't like my "context", what difference does it make? Everyone who was reading my context is still seeing your image with my context, whether or not I post the photo direct (with a link to the original), or simply a link to the original without the photo. If they click the link, they see your photo, and its going to be within my context. The only difference is that its somewhere you put it.

I fail to see how this posting photo in this manner is problematic.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://s543.photobucket.com/albums/gg445/CAB_IV/Model%20Trains%202012/?action=view&current=P1091586.jpg">http://s543.photobucket.com/albums/gg44 ... 091586.jpg</a><!-- m -->

[steinjr]

Indeed. No legal hassles whatsoever. When you put stuff up on the web, you implicitly give permission for others to create a link to your web page, where they will be seeing your images in the context you wanted them seen.

Is that really the case though?

Yes. In principle, a web page (not a picture, a web page) is a presentation unit. If you provide a link to a web page, you are seeing images and text in the context the creator of the page intended to publish it in. Providing a link to a web page is like providing a cite for a book chapter - giving the author, book name and page number. You are not displaying someone else's picture inside your own web page/post. Totally unproblematic in a copyright context.

In practice, a little common sense and common courtesy goes a long way. If you post a IMG tag showing a picture off another page, and also post a URL to the page where you found it, in a non-commercial context, you are extremely unlikely to be keelhauled or sued. There is also a little wiggle room in the fair use doctrine.

This really is not very hard, unless one wants to take things to the extremes. If you are uncertain about copyright, just post a link to the web page where you found whatever.

Smile,
Stein

[ezdays]

Only in the perceptions of the nay-sayers. I note how quickly one individual here accused me of doom and gloom, but this isn't my thread. I simply added the logical extension of all of the fears expressed here, without even a precipitating incident to account for it. "The guilty flee where no man persueth."

The most obvious solution, and by far the simplest, is to post a link to the image and let the reader go look for himself.

No, it took quite a bit before I came to the conclusion that you were bent on talking doom and gloom when there was no need to. The last example was:

...It's obvious from the anxious tone of this discussion that we will no longer be seeing many - if any - "public images" without a major change in policy...

It seems to me that you had come to the conclusion that we were being hamstrung at being able to post pictures anymore, I did not come to the same conclusion. That's what I got from your post and several posts before that. No, it's not your thread, but you have the right to participate and post your opinions, just like everyone else. My opinion is that you've been taking the side of things coming to a halt since by definition, too many people are wrong and shouldn't be posting what they do. To me that's gloom and doom, or "the sky is falling" syndrome. Your "obvious" solution is OK, but it may not be necessary in most cases. Things have been fine here for over three years and so we're not going to be doing anything different. If we get raided by the secret police, the FBI or the CIA, like they have with some of those large file-sharing sites, we'll let them tell us what we're doing wrong when they do and we'll change accordingly. Since we are not making a profit like those sites are by hosting file-sharing, I really doubt that it will happen. For now, we follow the rule, "thou shall not steal", if anyone thinks they're in the wrong by posting something here or anywhere else, they should take the route that eases their conscious. Post a link if that's the right thing to do, but we're not going to police every photo here to be sure, and I don't think anyone expects us to.

If anyone thinks I'm picking on them for their opinions or statements, I'm not. I am just trying to say that if we aren't upset, no one else should be either. Just remember, Mikey and I make the rules and policy here, and for now, as I said before, nothing changes....

[ngauger]

I think its interesting that people claim "Oh, you have to ask permission because the owner should control how it is distributed!"

So, essentially, the only difference between uploading or [img] tagging the picture, is that the person who is seeing the picture is now seeing it somewhere else away from the content they were reading, instead of right there where it would make sense. You still linked to the photo, and the link and its contents are still associated with whatever it is you posted.

What is the difference then? The only difference is that providing JUST a link can be tedious and inefficient. In the end, the photographer's content is still associated with whatever it is you were discussing. Providing the photo with the link is just the best way to do it.

Again, I agree with you, given the current "ideal" for photo referencing on these boards, a direct link seems to be the safest option, but its just absolutely silly that this should even be a problem.

It shouldn't matter how you post it on the forums, as long as a person can find there way back to the original.

Time to give my 2 cents

I hardly ever post about all my other interests but when I think it's necessary to speak my peace, I will

I'm an amateur photographer, classic auto nut, Geocacher and part owner of Big Blue

As a Geocacher, I run the geocaching website for the Delaware Geocachers. Therefore I have way, way too many opportunities to take pictures. Just to support my point, I will mention here that I'm now on my 6th digital camera, I traded up since my first and now own a very nice 14mp Canon. As far as being a classic car nut, I take pics of cars at shows. Note: I then own the picture of the car I take, but not the car itself

I have 2 hard drives and an external drive with complete copies of all my pics since i began taking digi-pics. The external hard drive holds the master copy of all the pictures, so that all 3 drives would have to fail at the same time for me to lose even one picture. Reason??? They are mostly family and pictures that can never be replaced.. all 20,000 of them... Yes 20,000...... Ok - 19,678 as of this minute

So..... About this copyright stuff... There are a few different levels to the argument that confuses the issue.

There is the amateur -- that takes pics of his or her family, hobbies, friend's cars, and "the general public's" items. Our members mostly fit in here. (as do I)

There is the professional -- who gets paid for every single picture they take.

The web designer -- who works to create a website that shows their wares - Most personal sites fall in this category as do the many file sharing sites -- Photobucket for example.

Then the "paid sites"... most any site that has ads is here.,... and the movie pirate sites are here as is the "professional paid sites" any magazine (MRR, Kalmbach) - any site that Demands you pay by credit card to even "enter the site". FYI - Big Blue "should" be here - but since we accept member's donations, we are still "Privately owned" and fit in, above

You see the various gray areas here?????

A picture of a steam engine is owned and copyrighted by the photographer, the second the shutter closes in the camera. If I post such a picture on one of my sites, then it would be nice if someone linked to the pic and brought others into the site to see the picture as I intended it to be presented not just abusing the pic by "tagging" it and changing the original intent of the information around the picture... Do I care? Somewhat, but I don't get upset - I actually haven't come across any of the 300 - 400 pics I have posted here and other places online anywhere except where I originally posted them.

But...... If the site (MRR & Others) thrives on visitors and "Click through" ads.... they would be VERY upset with someone just "linking" to a pic and not generating them any "page view" traffic.. Zealot and Crowdgather come to mind ....

Further... If the law passes, those "pirate video" sites will suffer. Why?.. They are a gray area in that they draw traffic to their ad-laden sites by posting pirated pics and videos, for all to download and the site makes money on ads and click-throughs... buy using Other People's material. Example: Newly released movies and CD's. If you're an artist and you make your living in music and instead of selling 10,000 CD's - 10,000 people download it for free... It'll cut a bit into your profit.

So, the answer seems to be... If it's business as usual here.. Yes, "img" link and post the link to the picture, at least make the effort to let people have a chance to visit the original site, but no - it's not the politically correct thing to do. Linking to the picture is better. No they won't come after us at first, but they still may. If we find that the act is written that anyone here (especially Don & I as owners) are responsible for materials against the act as written, we will have to go into every forum and change all the "off-site tagged" pictures to links only.

But really, everything online is owned by someone. Either the site owner and/or the original creator of the work. If it's not "your work" then consider the person that does own it. Consider that they posted it there, to be seen as they posted it, in it's original context, not to be "moved by img tags" to another site, to enhance the information on that site, for someone else's "free use"...

Sorry for being so long winded But I'm learning from Don

[Svein]

Indeed. No legal hassles whatsoever. When you put stuff up on the web, you implicitly give permission for others to create a link to your web page, where they will be seeing your images in the context you wanted them seen.

Smile,
Stein

Is that really the case though? What other context is there? If I provide a link to the source, and you don't like my "context", what difference does it make? Everyone who was reading my context is still seeing your image with my context, whether or not I post the photo direct (with a link to the original), or simply a link to the original without the photo. If they click the link, they see your photo, and its going to be within my context. The only difference is that its somewhere you put it.

I fail to see how this posting photo in this manner is problematic.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://s543.photobucket.com/albums/gg445/CAB_IV/Model%20Trains%202012/?action=view&current=P1091586.jpg">http://s543.photobucket.com/albums/gg44 ... 091586.jpg</a><!-- m -->

There is a clear difference between posting a link to somewhere else and using IMG tags to show the pic directly, at least technically. I don't remember if this has been mentioned earlier in this thread, but when you use the IMG tag to show a pic on "your" webpage, you are effectively stealing bandwidth from the other site every time someone loads your page. That's not very nice, is it? This is called "hotlinking", and is concidered bad form on the net.

I have never used any of the online pic hosting sites. I have my own domain, and store all my image files there. Big Blue is one of a very few sites that I allow hotlinking from my domain, any other site that tries to hotlink to any of my pics will just get a nice red stop sign:



Svein

[MountainMan]

If anyone thinks I'm picking on them for their opinions or statements, I'm not.

Of course you are, when you single me out by name.

You're the ones worrying about it, not me, so decide something, post your new rule or your intent to continue to do it the old way, and get on with it. Meanwhile, you're on the third page of something that "no one is worried about."

[steinjr]

Of course you are, when you single me out by name.

Smile,
Stein

[ezdays]

If anyone thinks I'm picking on them for their opinions or statements, I'm not.

Of course you are, when you single me out by name.

I did? Gee, I looked and looked and I could only find where I quoted you, but never singled you out by name. What I said was, "You know, we can talk doom and gloom,", note the term "we", not "you"... I quoted you just as a reference so again I say, don't think you're being picked on. We are trying to maintain an open discussion here and I wanted to tell everyone that nothing is going to change right now.

You're the ones worrying about it, not me, so decide something, post your new rule or your intent to continue to do it the old way, and get on with it. Meanwhile, you're on the third page of something that "no one is worried about."

It seems as if some of these three pages are taken up with your posts as well. That's not a problem, others wish to discuss this issue and it's important enough that we do. You must as well, otherwise I don't think you would be participating in this discussion. I think that both Mikey and I stated our positions on this, but since it's our bandwidth, we don't at all mind further discussions if anyone wants to continue talking about it.

[railohio]

Linking to anything on the Internet is fair game. Embedding it in your own page or hosting it on your own server is theft. "Fair use" is something twisted by freeloaders to get something for nothing. If you're writing about my photography then you can probably get away with fair use. You are, after all, discussing the photograph(s) in question. If you're writing about CSX locomotives and you use one of my photographs to illustrate that's theft.

If you're using my photograph for a purely non-commercial purpose I'll likely grant free use if you ask first. If you don't ask first then there will be hell to pay. A photograph is somebody's work product. Weather or not that person derives his or her entire income from photography is irrelevant. It takes a full time pro the same amount of time to do the work as a part-time photographer. You wouldn't (reasonably) expect a plumber to fix a toilet for free so why would you expect something from nothing from a photographer?