Busy — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 21:21:55 +0000

Your scenario has two topics, copyright and fraud, one does not cancel out the other.
If the sites terms and conditions stated the webmaster is a peeping tom and may save captured web cam images that may be displayed on the site or at the companies Xmas party ... and the person signing up agreed to that then they have signed away their rights (but can still be protested against in court), BUT if the webmaster used the footage or parts of it in advertising or in a negative way then it would be a good court battle but in favor of the victim.
Now the fraud, if the person signed up as Jane Doe then she has less rights to do the above as she would have to prove she is who she is, and the website may take her to court on fraud charges (depends what the site is about and whats in the TOS).

Copyright laws can be very complex but at the end of the day the copyright belongs to the person who took it, wrote it, or created it.

jayman369 — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 15:07:47 +0000

GREAT information guys. The idea of starting such as website has already gone out the window, but this is still an interesting topic. How about this scenario:

A person in a chat room turns on his/her cam and goes nude. Another person in that chat room captures and saves the image and decides to put it on his website.

The webmaster is not charging for his website, so he's not making any money directly from showing those pictures. The person with the cam in the chat room is using false information when he/she signed up for the chat room. From my understanding, by providing false information during signing up the chat room or site, he/she is giving up all copyright protection.

With those points in mind, is the webmaster showing those pictures in deep Kim-Chi?

Greg K — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 14:49:37 +0000

There again is a grey area...

Are you linking to the images, or actually have your own copy? Google (and other search engines) techinically do this when you click on a search result for an image (example) They seem to get away with having a notice that says "Image may be scaled down and subject to copyright" (however, they link directly to the image (though their own program) rather than store a local copy.

If you have your own copy saved on your server, I say (and I am by no way a legal expert so take it for what it is worth) that then by posting a note that it is copyrighted, you are flat out admitting to the violation, since by just saying the image is Copyright 2003 Somebody, doesn't give you the right to still copy it.

And then you have the issue of on your web page, you are just displaying the image by directly linking it to someone elses server. Well there you open up a whole an of worms on web ethics. NEVER DO THIS WITHOUT PERMISSION ALSO. I don't do it anymore, but when I used to host a friend art site, and people did that (using up the resources I PAY FOR), well I would go rename the file on the server so her page would still show it, and replace the image with images that would cause the people to get them off of their site as soon as possible. (sometimes pictures, sometimes I'd make an image of text with some nasty wording). (anymore I put a nice pro-Jesus image up

Linking directly to content on another page is just giving them the ability to modify your site. Watch Out!

-Greg

jayman369 — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 14:05:41 +0000

Interesting. How about if the Webmaster is not charging any money for the website, and put a disclaimer that the pictures all belong to the original owners and he's simply displaying what's already on the web, possibly from another forum?

colonialAngel — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 21:23:39 +0000

i think there maybe some copyright issues for that like what they said (above)

Busy — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 20:57:32 +0000

It's like shop owners selling smokes to underage, you can ask for ID but most of the time it's common sense, although these days it is getting really hard to tell as they are delevloping younger and younger.

Also, when it comes to people pictures you really need a model release form signed, as well as permission from the person talking the picture. The picture will always remain the property of the person who created it unless they've sold or signed away the rights to the person in the image. Say it was a young aspiring model and one day while trying to make it big came across your web site ... next thing you'd have two court cases on your hand.
Copyright is an automatic 50 years for anything written, drawn, photograthed ...

jayman369 — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 14:48:21 +0000

I figured even if the webmaster got permission to use the image, there'll still be the "age" issue if they're of certain nature. Can't really tell age when you're collecting all these pictures online.

Busy — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 11:19:34 +0000

The best and safest way is to ask for permisson to use the images, 90% of the time the owner will say yes without a fee (if you aren't planning to make money off it), but be upfront if you are to make money as they are legally entitled to it.

Greg has said just about everything but think of it this way, say the webcam image is the Windows logo (Bill Gates Windows) and you want to stick it on a site about linux and charge people to see 'stuff', you think Bill Gates would mind?

jayman369 — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 04:04:12 +0000

VERY interesting stuff. =)

demonhale — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 03:44:48 +0000

Well have a members area, have them apply, make it a community sort of site, make webcam mode available, or just let them upload their own webcam pics whilst they are members, before they can upload put a legal binding text like "Uploading your webcam pic means this site can use it without legal liabilities ensuing us to be able to post those pics on our frontpage as a result of top poster or member blah blah blah..." then put an "I Agree" button below... Then it takes them to the upload area... See where im getting into?