Jimmy Changa — Fri, 25 Apr 2003 14:37:23 +0000

To return the "favor" you might try bugging them about giving you written permission to use that blurred poster picture.

pmj7 — Thu, 24 Apr 2003 21:44:42 +0000

I just replied to their email, stating that I had blurred the poster in the image to a featureless blob. Got a 'Thanks' and I guess that's the end of it.

Peter

justjeni — Thu, 24 Apr 2003 21:38:29 +0000

Whatever their reasons, I think it's best to just cooperate, even if it doesn't make any sense to you. You'll look like the better person in the end if you just apologize, politely state why you didn't feel you infringed on any copyrights and that you'll remove the "offensive" part of the picture. Then what can they gripe about!?!

pmj7 — Sun, 13 Apr 2003 20:40:57 +0000

Protection of copyrighted work is a good thing.

I guess it just bothered me that someone had a problem with a photo of an Ad! I can't see a representative from GM tapping me on the shoulder saying "Hey, you can't take a picture of this billboard showing our latest truck! People might hear about it! They might want to buy it! We might make money! What kinda sicko are you, a Capitalist or something?"

In any case, I need no more information or convincing. I have fuzzed out the poster to a featureless blob. I will probably rework the photo or take another, as at present Katherine appears to be holding up a plastic bag of cool-aid!

I appreciate everyone's feedback.

Peter

Suzanne — Sun, 13 Apr 2003 19:25:27 +0000

I think you'll find that "portion" means the lesser portion, not the larger portion. The amount that is obscured and the relative amounts of the photo taken by the copyrighted work v. the original work would be the issue to be decided.

As you read through the links, pay special attention to lawsuits that involve posters -- those have historically resulted in anything more than 50% of the photo being of the copyright work being decided against the person taking the photo that included the copyrighted work. Sometimes less.

It's not up to anyone but the copyright holder to determine whether the modifications are acceptable, though.

pmj7 — Sun, 13 Apr 2003 16:22:25 +0000

Interesting links, I checked out http://www.whatiscopyright.org/ because it looked briefer!

"Fair use or fair practice is utilization of a portion of a copyrighted work "as is" for purposes of parody, news reporting, research and education about such copyrighted work without the permission of the author."

While the text on the page may be in the form of a poem, it could be considered a 'news report' describing what could be seen at the 2003 Wellness Show. The company name and link is provided in the text. Since I didn't take that picture and wasn't present at the event, I think I did pretty much all that could be expected. Some may feel differently!

"Fair use or fair practice is utilization of a portion (Katherine stands in front of the poster, obscuring some of it, so it is only a portion - and come on, it's only 200 pixels wide!) of a copyrighted work "as is" for purposes of parody, news reporting (yep), research and education about such copyrighted work without the permission of the author."

FYI: In our case, I found out that the poster owner is a different distributor than the one we are now associated with.

Peter

Coog03 — Sun, 13 Apr 2003 14:54:17 +0000

another useful link for all online copyright, privacy policies and the such is http://www.ivanhoffman.com/internet.html.

He is an attorney who has done a lot of research and written about alot of internet rights issues, copyright freedoms included.

andy206uk — Sat, 12 Apr 2003 09:45:26 +0000

You might also wanna checkout http://www.whatiscopyright.org/

Suzanne — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 18:03:07 +0000

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/

pmj7 — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 18:00:45 +0000

Well, I'm sure you both are correct. It does seem a dubious start to a business relationship though. We contacted them about selling their product, and they agreed. The next email was about the photo.

Peter