Ethics and legality of posting images
Quote: EvenBobWhat time is it again?
This site gets a fair amount of traffic, so what I find puzzling is why the Wiz allows links to images on other sites. I'd think he'd be getting a nastygram from other site admins about bandwidth theft left and right.
The other boards I frequent all have very clear policies about linking to images on other sites, and it's clearly verboten.
So, what time is it? Time to get a photobucket account and stop stealing bandwidth.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyThis site gets a fair amount of traffic, so what I find puzzling is why the Wiz allows links to images on other sites. I'd think he'd be getting a nastygram from other site admins about bandwidth theft left and right.
The other boards I frequent all have very clear policies about linking to images on other sites, and it's clearly verboten.
So, what time is it? Time to get a photobucket account and stop stealing bandwidth.
Uh...are you kidding me? If anything they should give the Wiz a % of every product they sell from the link!
Quote: paisielloUh...are you kidding me? If anything they should give the Wiz a % of every product they sell from the link!
That is perhaps true, but I've interned at enough companies to have posted as I did. Many do not take kindly to deep linking for what ever reasons.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyThis site gets a fair amount of traffic, so what I find puzzling is why the Wiz allows links to images on other sites. I'd think he'd be getting a nastygram from other site admins about bandwidth theft left and right.
The other boards I frequent all have very clear policies about linking to images on other sites, and it's clearly verboten.
So, what time is it? Time to get a photobucket account and stop stealing bandwidth.
I once attempted to post a page/image from Wiz's odd's site to this forum and instead of the image I wanted it gave me a picture of - I cant remember, i think it was Borris Yeltsin. Apparently the Wiz didnt want others using his photos- but didnt let his own websites use them either- I dont know if this has since been corrected- but there is a way to find out.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeySo, what time is it? Time to get a photobucket account and stop stealing bandwidth.
Copying other sites' photos into a photobucket account or the like and distributing them on this board could be considered copyright infringement. Deep linking in some cases may be copyright infringement but in many cases it is not-- it is on much safer ground.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyThis site gets a fair amount of traffic, so what I find puzzling is why the Wiz allows links to images on other sites.
You make a fair point. I have always wrestled with the legality and ethics of this. One thing that keeps me allowing it is images.google.com does it too. For example, put in a search for my name and you'll get lots of pictures of me lifted from my site. Is there some ethical or legal difference between how Google and I do it?
Quote: WizardYou make a fair point. I have always wrestled with the legality and ethics of this. One thing that keeps me allowing it is images.google.com does it too. For example, put in a search for my name and you'll get lots of pictures of me lifted from my site. Is there some ethical or legal difference between how Google and I do it?
I'm by no means an expert in this area...far from it. But if Google, and it's many lawyers, allow sharing of images...don't see how the Wiz could possibly be in hot water.
Quote: vendman1I'm by no means an expert in this area...far from it. But if Google, and it's many lawyers, allow sharing of images...don't see how the Wiz could possibly be in hot water.
In all fairness, when you mouse over an image on google.images it indicates the source web site.
I've always been big on attributing sources. Perhaps I should require that, as I do for quoting outside articles, from now on. Let me think on it.
Linking images is too much fun to add too many rules to the game IMO.
If you wanted to make a change, make it so that instead of open-bracket-img-equal-link-close-braket it's like the other forum link codes so I can just copy and paste from photobucket without typing.
Quote: WizardIn all fairness, when you mouse over an image on google.images it indicates the source web site.
I've always been big on attributing sources. Perhaps I should require that, as I do for quoting outside articles, from now on. Let me think on it.
Isn't attribution achieved by the link itself? I'd argue that the link is akin to saying "hey, I found this over here!"
Quote: WizardYou make a fair point. I have always wrestled with the legality and ethics of this. One thing that keeps me allowing it is images.google.com does it too. For example, put in a search for my name and you'll get lots of pictures of me lifted from my site. Is there some ethical or legal difference between how Google and I do it?
I only brought this up because I was surprised you allowed it. Regardless of your own take on the legality or ethics involved I'm surprised you're not inundated with requests to remove the link from pissed site admins. On some rinky dink blog that gets little to no traffic it probably wouldn't blip anyone's radar, but you get a pretty fair amount of traffic here. And site admin paying attention to their logs is going to notice the activity.
As for Google, yes, I believe there is a difference. Google scours the web indexing stuff, then re-displays it to it's own users, but site owners have the option to opt out of Google doing this. Also, I believe Google displays the images from it's own cached copy, thus not using the bandwidth of the site in question.
Perhaps today bandwidth is so cheap that nobody cares. Perhaps the site owners see it as cheap advertising. It would function a lot better in that regard if when posting a picture of a product, like in this thread, that a link to the product page was also provided, I doubt that most members here know how to determine the source of an image so if they wanted to buy that clock they would be out of luck. I don't know what you'd do in the case of someone posting a "funny picture" they found on the net. Sites that typically house that sort of thing are providing that content so users will also see their sponsors advertising and they sure aren't getting that value from the image being posted here.
I'm surprised no one made the YouTube argument. YouTube is happy for their hosted videos to be plastered all over the net. The difference here is that the original content providers can opt out of allowing the video to be embedded and that the videos are clearly branded as YouTube.
But again, if no one is complaining about bandwidth theft then maybe there isn't a problem. In some cases lack of defense of intellectual property constitutes implied authorization.
Quote: jonCopying other sites' photos into a photobucket account or the like and distributing them on this board could be considered copyright infringement. Deep linking in some cases may be copyright infringement but in many cases it is not-- it is on much safer ground.
Of course you'd need to secure the copyright holders permission first. I thought that went without saying.
Ethically, to me at least, it seems the lesser sin to link to the image at the original source than to copy it onto my server and link to it there. It seems to imply that I own the image.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyPerhaps today bandwidth is so cheap that nobody cares. Perhaps the site owners see it as cheap advertising.
I think bandwidth is cheap. GoDaddy.com's cheapest web hosting option, at $2.99 a month, provides unlimited bandwidth.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyIt would function a lot better in that regard if when posting a picture of a product, like in this thread, that a link to the product page was also provided, I doubt that most members here know how to determine the source of an image so if they wanted to buy that clock they would be out of luck. I don't know what you'd do in the case of someone posting a "funny picture" they found on the net. Sites that typically house that sort of thing are providing that content so users will also see their sponsors advertising and they sure aren't getting that value from the image being posted here.
This makes a bit more sense. The seller of an item would obviously have more reason to want their item viewed on their own site, than on other sites where a person couldn't impulsively decided to click the 'buy' button. And even if it's not an item for sale, any site that depends on advertising revenue would again prefer to have their picture viewed from their own site rather than linked to another.
The simple answer may be one of attribution. But it also seems like we had a similar discussion about quoting other web sites, specifically news articles.
Quote: WizardThe number of complaints I have received about deep linking is zero. This may be because no given post is viewed that many times.
I'm no math whiz, but the original thread (I see we've broken off) had an image of a clock, that images is 26,564 bytes in size. That thread has been viewed 535 times (as I type this), this means that the site hosting the image has had ~14,211,740 bytes of data used that they can't recoup in any way. I make the number approximate because all viewers may not have seen all the pages, and some viewers might have seen it more than once. The image appears once on the first page, and twice on the second (meaning everytime the second page loads the hosting site is hit twice for the same image).
It's good that there have been no complaints. Site admins that are concerned can block deep-linking, so perhaps the ones that care have done this and the others aren't concerned.
Having a attribution to the link is a nice thing to do.
1 TB a month will costs around $90 (on a quick survey). That puts a 1 GB at 9c, and therefore 14Mb at around .126c in cost.
It's not worth the hassle at that level. It certainly used to be, for sure.
Quote: konceptumI think bandwidth is cheap. GoDaddy.com's cheapest web hosting option, at $2.99 a month, provides unlimited bandwidth.
The concept of unlimited bandwidth is a little deceiving. In this sense "unlimited" means you can use as much as you like and you won't be charged extra for it. But in reality all bandwidth is finite. If you've ever hosted a web site on a shared server and one of your neighbors becomes extremely popular over night you will have felt this effect as your site, and all the others on the server slow to a crawl. Two factors contribute to this problem, the aforementioned popularity and the hosting company overselling the server, which is pretty common. So you can be on an over sold server and not even know it, until one of your neighbors goes viral.
Quote: thecesspitBandwidth is so cheap these days, that image links I don't think are causing anyone too much hassle.
Having a attribution to the link is a nice thing to do.
1 TB a month will costs around $90 (on a quick survey). That puts a 1 GB at 9c, and therefore 14Mb at around .126c in cost.
It's not worth the hassle at that level. It certainly used to be, for sure.
I understand what you're saying but it's not like it stops at 14M. The thread has only been up a day, how many hits will it get over it's life? How many other guys out there are posting the image? How many times will someone hit quote and include the image again?
So, yeah, even if the usage went up by an order of magnitude the cost would still be minimal. And if the hosting site has an "unlimited" bandwidth plan it costs them nothing.
Newbie webmasters get pissed about it and try trolling hotlinkers by replacing images with Goatse. One-click image hosts like imageshack have "upload url" options exactly for that reason. As they get older, they get to embrace it.
It's just how WWW works. Browsers already give you the image url on "inspect" or "view image"; it's not being copied, it's being displayed from the original source.
If you have problems with outgoing bandwidth - which is often unlimited - you might not even be in the optimal entrepreneurial avenue (a sentiment historically more commonly expressed in ways more cryptic than polite, such as "gb2tripod"). It's a safe bet that any non-piracy site that has problems affording its bandwidth has far deeper problems than someone hotlinking to its pictures, or, put simply, isn't successful.
to as many pic's and sites as you want and its
perfectly fine. In fact, they encourage it. I have a
site that has 5000+ fans (likes) and every time I
post a pic from another site 5000 people see it.
FB has it all set up to link, if it was illegal they
wouldn't be doing that.
Quote: EvenBobSomebody better tell Facebook cause you can link
to as many pic's and sites as you want and its
perfectly fine.
I just checked and this is correct. If you click on "add photos/video" and then put the URL of any image on the web it will upload it as part of one of your comments. This indeed makes me feel better about allowing it here.
Fair Use under the copyright laws also allows limited use of copyrighted material for discussion, analysis, news coverage, etc.
Under the law if a copyright holder objects they must notify you first of their objection and give you the opportunity to remove the copyrighted material. Until notification is made, "fair use" applies.
You all recall the Darth Vader of copyrights lost all of its cases and one reason (besides many others) is that it never notified anyone in advance prior to filing a lawsuit.
If you have copyrighted material that you don't want used, you don't put it on the Internet. If you do put copyrighted material on the web and people use it, blame yourself. then ask them to remove it. Only if they refuse do you have any kind of legal action.
I run a site quite a bit bigger than this one and I've never had a complaint. We don't host images.
Quote: WizardThe number of complaints I have received about deep linking is zero. This may be because no given post is viewed that many times.
Ethically, to me at least, it seems the lesser sin to link to the image at the original source than to copy it onto my server and link to it there. It seems to imply that I own the image.
Perfect 10, Inc vs Amazon.com
Quote:Google does not...display a copy of full-size infringing photographic images for purposes of the Copyright Act when Google frames in-line linked images that appear on a user’s computer screen. Because Google’s computers do not store the photographic images, Google does not have a copy of the images for purposes of the Copyright Act. In other words, Google does not have any “material objects...in which a work is fixed...and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated” and thus cannot communicate a copy. Instead of communicating a copy of the image, Google provides HTML instructions that direct a user’s browser to a website publisher’s computer that stores the full-size photographic image. Providing these HTML instructions is not equivalent to showing a copy. First, the HTML instructions are lines of text, not a photographic image. Second, HTML instructions do not themselves cause infringing images to appear on the user’s computer screen. The HTML merely gives the address of the image to the user’s browser. The browser then interacts with the computer that stores the infringing image. It is this interaction that causes an infringing image to appear on the user’s computer screen. Google may facilitate the user’s access to infringing images. However, such assistance raised only contributory liability issues and does not constitute direct infringement of the copyright owner’s display rights. ...While in-line linking and framing may cause some computer users to believe they are viewing a single Google webpage, the Copyright Act...does not protect a copyright holder against [such] acts....
Linking doesn't generate a violation of copyright law. Ethics may be a different story, but at least legally you should be ok.
Quote: vendman1I'm by no means an expert in this area...far from it. But if Google, and it's many lawyers, allow sharing of images...don't see how the Wiz could possibly be in hot water.
Search engines are specifically exempted from the DMCA through fair use, forums are not. Fair use starts to get cloudy once a forum user posts something copyrighted.
Are they using the image to provoke a discussion or make an opinion's point? That is probably fair use. Are they using someone's meme (who may not hold the copyright either) to make a silly statement? Now I think you have moved out of fair use.
I do not think who hosts the image really matters. If someone downloads my image and then uploads it to an image hosting site and posts it on a forum I still own the image whether it is hot linked from my site or not. It makes no difference.
A forum owner should have a DMCA registered agent to avoid having conflicts.
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/
Quote: PokeraddictI do not think who hosts the image really matters.
It makes all the difference and it's about the only thing that makes a difference.
A link is not a copy. It is not legally or theoretically possible for hotlinking, in whatever way or form it's done, to violate copyright. Copyright is intended to protect a publisher's right to profit from a creative work; it protects unique, but imitable and non-useful creative expression. URL addresses are useful and non-imitable, so they can never be subject to copyright.
As for the content of the link, it doesn't even enter the equation. Unless you copy the image, all you are hosting is the URL address, and that's all you can be held responsible for. Legally or morally.
Quote: EvenBobSomebody better tell Facebook
Tell Facebook what exactly? That some of it's members are using a feature they provide to infringe copyright? I'm sure they already know this and have covered themselves with the TOS agreement. I haven't read it, because I don't use Facebook, but I'm sure there's a clause in there somewhere that indemnifies them against their users behavior.
Quote: EvenBobcause you can link
to as many pic's and sites as you want and its
perfectly fine. In fact, they encourage it.
Just because a feature has the capability to be misused doesn't mean they won't provide it, especially if they've legally insulated themselves. Here's an analogy: A gun is capable of killing people, everyone knows this, but it doesn't mean it's ok simply because it has the capability. There are plenty on non-copyright infringing uses for the feature you've described. Infringing copyright is not the only thing it can be used for.
Quote: EvenBobI have a
site that has 5000+ fans (likes) and every time I
post a pic from another site 5000 people see it.
FB has it all set up to link, if it was illegal they
wouldn't be doing that.
Your perspective strikes me as very naive.
Quote: P90It makes all the difference and it's about the only thing that makes a difference.
A link is not a copy. It is not legally or theoretically possible for hotlinking, in whatever way or form it's done, to violate copyright. Copyright is intended to protect a publisher's right to profit from a creative work; it protects unique, but imitable and non-useful creative expression. URL addresses are useful and non-imitable, so they can never be subject to copyright.
As for the content of the link, it doesn't even enter the equation. Unless you copy the image, all you are hosting is the URL address, and that's all you can be held responsible for. Legally or morally.
I'm not sure I'm buying this. I see the logic of what you're saying, but a copyright holder's ability to control their material is really the question that needs to be addressed. A site like Break.com which hosts funny pictures and videos depends on the content being viewed on their site for their business model to work. If I make a website with my own affiliate ads and link all of their content into my site I'm effectively competing with them and making them pay the bill for all the bandwidth. If what you're saying is correct I could do this with legal impunity. Are you saying this is possible, legal and moral, or have I misunderstood your assertion?
This also isn't really a big deal. Anyone who cares disallows hosting or linking anyway.
And the answer to your last question is yes. Refer to Google images.
Quote: bbvk05Sorry, its not copyright infringement. The host is providing a copy directly to the user. The 3rd party site is just providing directions to the users computer. Hosts are free to stop giving out images any time they would like.
Not that I don't believe you, but can you site a decision that would support this?
Quote: bbvk05
And the answer to your last question is yes. Refer to Google images.
Google images isn't doing what I described, so it doesn't seem an adequate comparison.
Quote: bbvk05Anyone who cares disallows hosting or linking anyway.
.
Why are we beating this dead horse? If you don't
want a picture linked, just disallow it like bbv said.
Linking to a pic is fair use if not used for commercial
purposes. Look it up, this stuff isn't rocket science..
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyI'm not sure I'm buying this. I see the logic of what you're saying, but a copyright holder's ability to control their material is really the question that needs to be addressed.
There isn't such an ability. The purpose of copyright is to secure for publishers (sic, not authors) an exclusive right of publication so as to realize the gains from their investment. What measures of control copyright law gives to the rights holder are incidental to this purpose.
For a long time a work had to be published and registered to be copyright protected. This has changed recently, but, still, as in the instance of "Copyright Extension Editions", publication is expected and in this instance required. Copyrighted works are not owned through natural right to private property, like physical assets, but rather have exclusive publication rights to them granted by the State.
In the recent years, copyright has come to be misinterpreted as what it isn't (despite the similarities), an extension of physical property rights to information. This is what causes a number of misunderstandings when people base their expectations of its behavior on incorrect premises. The only control copyright establishes is that over publication, not over access to information. This is why libraries can operate: a publisher has no right to control over who reads his book, only over who prints it.
An internet link has mostly the same legal status as book's reference to another. Since a reference is not a copy of the work, copyright law can not restrict their use.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyIf what you're saying is correct I could do this with legal impunity. Are you saying this is possible, legal and moral, or have I misunderstood your assertion?
Yes, you could do it with legal impunity. Not just that, but it's a whole small industry on the internet.
Modern search engines follow deep-linked frames and give strong preference to original pages.
Quote: P90It makes all the difference and it's about the only thing that makes a difference.
A link is not a copy. It is not legally or theoretically possible for hotlinking, in whatever way or form it's done, to violate copyright. Copyright is intended to protect a publisher's right to profit from a creative work; it protects unique, but imitable and non-useful creative expression. URL addresses are useful and non-imitable, so they can never be subject to copyright.
As for the content of the link, it doesn't even enter the equation. Unless you copy the image, all you are hosting is the URL address, and that's all you can be held responsible for. Legally or morally.
Absolutely untrue, if I design an image and you hot link it onto your site from mine without permission and your use does not fall under fair use it is the exact same as hosting it on your own site.
Quote: Pokeraddict
Absolutely untrue, if I design an image and you hot link it onto your site from mine without permission and your use does not fall under fair use it is the exact same as hosting it on your own site.
Sorry, you are wrong. I am wondering how you became so certain in your incorrect position, considering that the law has been quite clear on this issue for years.
Inline linking, hot linking, and framing all ALL perfectly acceptable and fall under fair use. Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146 (9th Cir. 2007). Note that this case actually strikes down a district court opinion that incorrectly followed your reasoning. The distinction between infringement and fair use is WHERE the image is HOSTED. If you copy the image and host it on your servers then you have a copyright violation via republishing.
On the other hand, if you link to the creator's servers without hosting it on your own you are completely good-to-go. The creator still has total control of the way the image is served to viewers. Your link or frame simply routes 3rd party requests to the host's servers. It is up to to the creator if they want to allow this.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyNot that I don't believe you, but can you site a decision that would support this?
Google images isn't doing what I described, so it doesn't seem an adequate comparison.
Check the post above for a good case on the issue (I wrote that before I saw your post). Also, I disagree that google images isn't doing what you described.
Here is what you said: "If I make a website with my own affiliate ads and link all of their content into my site I'm effectively competing with them and making them pay the bill for all the bandwidth."
"If I make a website with my own affiliate ads"-- Google is obviously a noncreator, and their images search (showing other people's creations) has ads. These ads only gain revenue because people look for images that google aggregates and places ads around.
"and link all of their content into my site I'm effectively competing with them and making them pay the bill for all the bandwidth." Google does exactly this. Millions of people use Google images to find and obtain images inline linked from the creators. The bandwidth is borne by the original host. Google gets the ad revenues. It might be easy to go to the original creator's website via Google, but it isn't much harder than a standard inline link. Also, it doesn't change the analysis of who is hosting and receiving- which is the important distinction.
Quote: bbvk05Sorry, you are wrong. I am wondering how you became so certain in your incorrect position, considering that the law has been quite clear on this issue for years.
Inline linking, hot linking, and framing all ALL perfectly acceptable and fall under fair use. Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146 (9th Cir. 2007). Note that this case actually strikes down a district court opinion that incorrectly followed your reasoning. The distinction between infringement and fair use is WHERE the image is HOSTED. If you copy the image and host it on your servers then you have a copyright violation via republishing.
On the other hand, if you link to the creator's servers without hosting it on your own you are completely good-to-go. The creator still has total control of the way the image is served to viewers. Your link or frame simply routes 3rd party requests to the host's servers. It is up to to the creator if they want to allow this.
I had not ever heard of the case so I researched it. Correct me if I am wrong, but this lawsuit was against Amazon and Google because their search engines collected and linked to images they felt were theirs and that they felt these search engines violated copyright laws in doing so.
As I mentioned earlier, the DMCA does NOT cover search engines. This case was against search engines who are clearly exempted under fair use by DMCA. I fail to see how this case covers forum posters in any way. Of course search engines are allowed to hotlink websites.
This is nothing like we are talking about forum posters using images in their posts or images being used on other websites. You may disagree with that statement but the DMCA does not.
Quote: PokeraddictI had not ever heard of the case so I researched it. Correct me if I am wrong, but this lawsuit was against Amazon and Google because their search engines collected and linked to images they felt were theirs and that they felt these search engines violated copyright laws in doing so.
As I mentioned earlier, the DMCA does NOT cover search engines. This case was against search engines who are clearly exempted under fair use by DMCA. I fail to see how this case covers forum posters in any way. Of course search engines are allowed to hotlink websites.
This is nothing like we are talking about forum posters using images in their posts or images being used on other websites.
I see what you are saying, but you are trying to make a distinction where the court didn't make one. Google wasn't protected in this case by their search engine status. They were protected by the fact that hotlinking/inline linking is FAIR USE, which is the same standard as the DCMA. Yes, the fact that they were thumbnails helped. I don't think the case actually turned on that, because the court was wrong about that. They are and were thumbnails until you clicked on them, then google showed a full-size hotlink.
GOOGLE was hotlinking INFRINGING SITES! And they were still protected under fair use. They also threw forward a DCMA defense, which the court didn't care about because if hotlinking is fair use then it the other DCMA provisions don't matter.
Copyright violations occur when websites host copyrighted material. Hotlinking a website is just asking the host to display a portion of their website on a viewer's computer. The host is free to accept or reject these requests.
It would be a different story if someone uploaded infringing material directly to a forum, where the forum's server's host the material. Then the creator/host would not be able to remove or control the distribution of the image. I've had this problem on my website, which is the primary reason I eliminated uploads. Hot-linking only now. I actually believe this is the best policy for both creators and webhosts--- it allows the creators the most control and avoids republishing copyrighted material.
BTW--- this was all the ethical rage in 2003-06, when IMG code became popular. You'd see creators switch their hotlinked images to hardcore porn and gore images and such. It was kind of fun. Now I think most creator/hosts see the benefit of control and are more intelligent of disabling hotlinking via software.
In the Casino Chip of the Day thread, I have posted numerous images, almost entirely photographs. These are photographs that I have taken myself, and the image files are stored on servers at a hosting service that I pay for. The links are to a domain that I own. I post the images; I pay for the storage and bandwidth, and I created the images. That part sounds just fine to me.
Now, the photos show chips that involve designs that I assume are copyrighted by either the manufacturer or the casino or maybe even both. So does posting my images of those chips on this forum violate anyone's intellectual property rights? Suppose I posted a photo of a building -- can the architect sue me for posting his/her creative design without permission? Sounds like a real stretch.
Quote: DocJust to throw in another complicating wrinkle ...
In the Casino Chip of the Day thread, I have posted numerous images, almost entirely photographs. These are photographs that I have taken myself, and the image files are stored on servers at a hosting service that I pay for. The links are to a domain that I own. I post the images; I pay for the storage and bandwidth, and I created the images. That part sounds just fine to me.
Now, the photos show chips that involve designs that I assume are copyrighted by either the manufacturer or the casino or maybe even both. So does posting my images of those chips on this forum violate anyone's intellectual property rights? Suppose I posted a photo of a building -- can the architect sue me for posting his/her creative design without permission? Sounds like a real stretch.
There is a lot of case law on this. Honest answer is that you would probably be good to go. The chips circulate in the public domain and you are making limited use of them for educational purposes.
There are four factors the court will use:
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3.the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
4. and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Honestly posting an image of a casino chip on a gambling forum is a winner on all four of these. Of course you'd have to have a casino do something about their copyright in order to have a problem. This is significantly unlikely, as they create those images specifically for advertising--- which is what you are doing for them.
But seriously don't all this discussion relate to the SOPA and related bills that were overwhelmingly voiced against? - so without these such created laws its pretty much ok?
Quote: MalaruIn the spirit of the discussion....... I had to press the button.
But seriously don't all this discussion relate to the SOPA and related bills that were overwhelmingly voiced against? - so without these such created laws its pretty much ok?
I think so. If you research this, you get conflicting answers one way or the other. I see the slight likelihood of lawsuit to overwhelm any view, because who wants to get sued by some slimeball nitpicker. Other forums, ran by Vbulletins, I am on will not allow links for some sites, probably because of those sites blocking them from being used. I harken back to SCOTUS viewing a case of origin of manufacture of copyrighted items, to be scared about common people being subjected to extreme laws passed to blow the mind. If it goes the wrong way, without congressional action, you may not even be able to legally sell items by describing what they are.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/business/supreme-court-hears-copyright-case-on-imported-textbooks.html?_r=0 It is some scary stuff being proposed.
This has been said slightly differently but I want to clarify. If you publish an image at a URL (e.g., http://foo.com/mypic.jpg), you are saying to the world "come look at my image at this URL." When someone visits that URL, their browser or other client downloads the image from your server into transient storage (e.g., memory) so it can be displayed. If you instead only want your image to be viewable from an HTML page on your server, you have several technology options available. The two most frequent are (1) use server-side scripting to display the image without actually publishing it at a URL, or (2) use a URL for the image but reject all accesses from other domains.Quote: PokeraddictAbsolutely untrue, if I design an image and you hot link it onto your site from mine without permission and your use does not fall under fair use it is the exact same as hosting it on your own site.
It's important to remember how the technology works. If I link to an image on your website in a post on this forum, your website re-delivers your image to every person who accesses my post, every time they do so. If you change the settings on your server after I make the post to disallow direct access to your image, future viewers of my post -- and even returning viewers of my post -- will see a broken image icon instead of the picture. But as long as you are explicitly instructing your web server to send your image to anyone who asks for it, how can it be copyright infringement when someone does?
Quote: P90There isn't such an ability. The purpose of copyright is to secure for publishers (sic, not authors) an exclusive right of publication so as to realize the gains from their investment. What measures of control copyright law gives to the rights holder are incidental to this purpose.
I read it a little differently, but going with your take, when someone links an image so that it appears on another site, it is very potentially usurping the copyright holder's exclusive right to publication. Say I have a picture that many want to see and I've set up a web site to charge them $10 to look at it. Then someone links to it on their site where they charge a lesser price. They are effectively publishing it and interfering with me realizing the gains from my investment.
Quote: P90
In the recent years, copyright has come to be misinterpreted as what it isn't (despite the similarities), an extension of physical property rights to information. This is what causes a number of misunderstandings when people base their expectations of its behavior on incorrect premises. The only control copyright establishes is that over publication, not over access to information. This is why libraries can operate: a publisher has no right to control over who reads his book, only over who prints it.
I don't think the library analogy is very accurate, and the DMCA makes certain allowances for libraries and a few other cases.
Quote: P90
An internet link has mostly the same legal status as book's reference to another. Since a reference is not a copy of the work, copyright law can not restrict their use.
Again I don't think books accurately can reflect what we're discussing here. It would be one thing to mention another book, quite another to include the entire content of it. Of course this wouldn't be allowed because the book, not being the internet, does not have this ability without infringing copyright. I think it's an apples vs oranges situation.
Quote: P90
Yes, you could do it with legal impunity. Not just that, but it's a whole small industry on the internet.
This I don't believe. Can you show us an example of where this is happening? I realize there is rampant copyright infringement in some countries, so if you're example is a site with .ru in the domain name I'm not going to see that as a very valid example.
Quote: P90
Modern search engines follow deep-linked frames and give strong preference to original pages.
Not sure how this has anything to do with the example I gave, unless you're saying my copycat site wouldn't be all that successful, but that would tend to contradict your statement about the small industry on the internet doing it.
Quote: bbvk05Sorry, you are wrong. I am wondering how you became so certain in your incorrect position, considering that the law has been quite clear on this issue for years.
Inline linking, hot linking, and framing all ALL perfectly acceptable and fall under fair use. Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146 (9th Cir. 2007). Note that this case actually strikes down a district court opinion that incorrectly followed your reasoning. The distinction between infringement and fair use is WHERE the image is HOSTED. If you copy the image and host it on your servers then you have a copyright violation via republishing.
On the other hand, if you link to the creator's servers without hosting it on your own you are completely good-to-go. The creator still has total control of the way the image is served to viewers. Your link or frame simply routes 3rd party requests to the host's servers. It is up to to the creator if they want to allow this.
I read the brief on this case and it doesn't seem to address the issue we're discussing here. The case involved other sites copying Perfect 10's content (which was not accessible by Google) and then Google indexing the images from the infringing sites. Also a bit about Google making thumbnails of them, but that isn't what we're talking about either and the court didn't seem very interested in this aspect of the complaints argument.
Also, in my reading of the DMCA there appears to be specific exclusions or limits on liability for search engines.
Quote: bbvk05Check the post above for a good case on the issue (I wrote that before I saw your post). Also, I disagree that google images isn't doing what you described.
I'm not sure how I can explain this any clearer. I asked if it would be legal for me to make a site that included another (singular) copyright holder's material, and make money off the content while making the original site foot the bill. I can see how it could be argued that Google is doing just that, but they aren't. When you use Google Images you type in a search term and the results come from all over the place. I've never seen a Google Image search that pulled up only the content of one site, and formatted it like the original site.
For all I know maybe Google is perfectly allowed to do this, but as I stated elsewhere the DMCA makes some exceptions for search engines, and the site I'm describing is definitely not a search engine.
Quote: bbvk05
"and link all of their content into my site I'm effectively competing with them and making them pay the bill for all the bandwidth." Google does exactly this. Millions of people use Google images to find and obtain images inline linked from the creators. The bandwidth is borne by the original host. Google gets the ad revenues. It might be easy to go to the original creator's website via Google, but it isn't much harder than a standard inline link. Also, it doesn't change the analysis of who is hosting and receiving- which is the important distinction.
I disagree. Google caches images and/or thumbnails of images, this doesn't pose a burden on the original site. If a Google Images user clicks one of the thumbnails they're taken to the site that the image is from.
And all the copyright crap aside (because I can find just as many references to this being ok as I can it being not ok, and the copyright website is a little fuzzy, not making a very clear distinction between copying and linking, it often just says "using"), my example would still be bandwidth theft which is a type of theft of service, how can that possibly fly?
I think there are perfectly legal and ethic uses for using an image from a different site, I just don't think it applies to "Hey, look what I found on the internet, isn't it funny?" posts on a message board. I really don't see how that meets the conditions of Fair Use as I understand them from reading the government copyright site and the DMCA. I don't think the argument that if they didn't want the image used that way they'd stop it really applies. If I forget to lock my door does that mean it's ok to take what ever you find useful? I don't think so, but apparently others disagree. Whatever.
But it's all really a moot point if no one is complaining to the Wiz. I'll keep watching the thread and I'd be really interested in reading about a case that supports the views that I'm opposed to, but unless something really, really merits my comment, I'm out.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyI read it a little differently, but going with your take, when someone links an image so that it appears on another site, it is very potentially usurping the copyright holder's exclusive right to publication.
No. The copyright holder's authorized server is still the publisher.
You can show a copyrighted book to anyone you want. You can't publish another copy, but you can show the one you have. You don't even have to legally own the book to do it. Only copying can violate the law, not public display, regardless of author's preferences.
In this case it's even the original server that's showing the image.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyI don't think the library analogy is very accurate, and the DMCA makes certain allowances for libraries and a few other cases.
DMCA isn't even copyright law proper, it's a piece of partially unconstitutional legislation piggybacking its provisions. But at any rate, libraries' right to lend out books has never been in question. It's only other services that are addressed.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyAgain I don't think books accurately can reflect what we're discussing here. It would be one thing to mention another book, quite another to include the entire content of it. Of course this wouldn't be allowed because the book, not being the internet, does not have this ability without infringing copyright.
True. A deeplink can then more accurately be compared to a coin-operated binoculars that allow you to look through a window at copyrighted content.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyI think there are perfectly legal and ethic uses for using an image from a different site, I just don't think it applies to "Hey, look what I found on the internet, isn't it funny?" posts on a message board. I really don't see how that meets the conditions of Fair Use as I understand them from reading the government copyright site and the DMCA.
It does not matter. The picture itself is not being copied, thus there is nothing to violate.
The case against google was about their thumbnails and cache.
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Quote: DocSuppose I posted a photo of a building -- can the architect sue me for posting his/her creative design without permission? Sounds like a real stretch.
A photograph of a building is a highly transformative work and can not in any way replace its purpose. A photo of a sculpture is already transformative enough for fair use, but it can be borderline. A photo of building elements, even copyrightable ones, is well in the green. This is complemented by the building being functional, and only non-functional elements can be protected; most buildings don't have enough originality to protect them from copying.
Quote: DocNow, the photos show chips that involve designs that I assume are copyrighted by either the manufacturer or the casino or maybe even both. So does posting my images of those chips on this forum violate anyone's intellectual property rights?
Elements of chip design can be copyrightable. However a gaming chip is a functional object.
It could be protected by a design patent, like old Coca-Cola bottle's shape, or by trademark protections (against copying the chip, aside from counterfeiting laws), and the inlay image may be copyrighted, but the chip is not in itself copyrighted. I believe even a very detailed photo should fall under fair use, but, due to inlay images, it may not be completely square-cut.
Probably just to the point of not being tossed. Perhaps the casino could have a case if it was selling souvenir chips and could substantiate a claim that their value was in the artistic merits of their design as a work of art in itself, rather than as token design. But IANAL, it may depend on local factors.
Quote: P90It does not matter. The picture itself is not being copied, thus there is nothing to violate.
Technically the picture is being copied, but not so it matters for copyright purposes. The specific sequence of bits that form the picture are copied from the publisher's web server to the viewer's browser, either to memory or to a temporary file. In most cases, the viewer can save that image permanently to their computer's storage. But none of that matters for the original question because the image data is not copied via the forum in any event. The only data on the forum server is the URL to the image, not the image itself. The browser, in rendering a forum post (or any other web page for that matter) fetches content from whatever URLs it encounters in the HTML, whatever (and wherever) those URLs happen to reference.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyI read the brief on this case and it doesn't seem to address the issue we're discussing here. The case involved other sites copying Perfect 10's content (which was not accessible by Google) and then Google indexing the images from the infringing sites. Also a bit about Google making thumbnails of them, but that isn't what we're talking about either and the court didn't seem very interested in this aspect of the complaints argument.
Also, in my reading of the DMCA there appears to be specific exclusions or limits on liability for search engines.
Google was hotlinking copyrighted images. They are allowed to hotlink copyrighted images because it is a fair use. This is the relevant portion of the case for our purposes.
Yes, there are differences between that case and ours. However, the reasoning and holding make it abundantly clear that hotlinking copyrighted images IS NOT INFRINGEMENT.
You are just missing the relevance of the DMCA in the case. The DMCA didn't matter because Google's hotlinking was fair use.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyI'm not sure how I can explain this any clearer. I asked if it would be legal for me to make a site that included another (singular) copyright holder's material, and make money off the content while making the original site foot the bill. I can see how it could be argued that Google is doing just that, but they aren't. When you use Google Images you type in a search term and the results come from all over the place. I've never seen a Google Image search that pulled up only the content of one site, and formatted it like the original site.
Again, you are making a distinction that doesn't matter. Why does focusing on one site matter? Each indidivudal image is either an infringement or not an infringement.
I know you want to believe that what google does is different, but legally speaking it isn't. Google's hotlinking is the same as anyone else's.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyFor all I know maybe Google is perfectly allowed to do this, but as I stated elsewhere the DMCA makes some exceptions for search engines, and the site I'm describing is definitely not a search engine.
And as you read in the case, none of that matters. Hotlinking without hosting is fair use.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyI disagree. Google caches images and/or thumbnails of images, this doesn't pose a burden on the original site. If a Google Images user clicks one of the thumbnails they're taken to the site that the image is from.
You just aren't very familiar with google images? The case jabove explained that Google DOES impose a bandwidth burden on the original site. Google images does not serve the images to you. This is why images will render very slowly sometimes--- the host server is slow. In the case this is called "framing." It's exactly the same as hotlinking.
Quote: MonkeyMonkeyAnd all the copyright crap aside (because I can find just as many references to this being ok as I can it being not ok, and the copyright website is a little fuzzy, not making a very clear distinction between copying and linking, it often just says "using"), my example would still be bandwidth theft which is a type of theft of service, how can that possibly fly?
You can't steal something that is being given away for free. The host determines how images may be accessed on their server. If they allow URL links from anywhere then they are allowing hotlinking.
