Seller of fake SS cap wants me to delete a started thread

[StefanM]

There seems to be some confusion over public domain and copyright ownership.

Even though a photo/image is posted on a website that is viewable by any visitor i.e. the public it does NOT mean it is in the public domain and therefore copyright free.

Images may only be placed into the public domain by their creators, or they may be public domain because they are ineligible for copyright or because their copyright expired and this depends of the jurisdiction of the country where the images are used as copyright laws are different for example in the US from those in Europe etc. Placing an image or other content in the public domain is usually done via a statement on a website under Creative Commons license or similar.

So in a nutshell if the creator of the images ask for his/her images to be removed as they are used in breach of his/her copyright they are entitled to have them removed, however enforcing any breach of copyright is an expensive legal process and would have to be taken against the "publisher" in this case the forum owners rather than the poster. An unlikely eventuality.

Who owns the copyright to images place on an auction site would be determined by the terms and conditions imposed by the auction site as a condition of using the auction service. The creator might have agreed to pass copyright over to the auction site under their terms and conditions...who ever reads them anyway.

[Wagriff]

All fine legal-ese....but, as said, enforcing and actually going to court is, for all sakes and purposes, pretty much a waste of time. No one is talking about the cover photo of Sports Illustrated, but rather a photo on a world wide web site seen and visited by literally countless people from all over the world and no anti-copying measures set into place. On paper, it all sounds nice and legal and straight forward, but in real life? Hardly practical...Especially if the 2 parties involved are in 2 distant foreign countries. People like Pawel Nowak are more than aware of this issue and take full advantage of it with total impunity...

[StefanM]

A couple of years ago I successfully pursued a breach of my photo copyrights with a US publisher who used two of my Warsaw Ghetto photo collection on a front cover design.

It transpired that their designers downloaded the images from my website at that time and used them without my permission.

Admittedly it cost me a more than few £s to enforce but rather than have to destroy all the copies for sale on Amazon, B&N etc the publisher and I arrived at a non-exclusive royalty image license deal and the royalty monies were donated to USHMM as I have a policy of not profiting personally from any of my collection that is in any way related to the Holocaust.

[HPL2008]

4thskorpion makes some very important points in post # 21.

Granted, in many cases, legal proceedings for copyright infringements will not occur if they are simply not practical or worth the trouble, i.e. if the involved parties are in different countries, the matter is of a minor nature and no actual financial gain/damage results from the infringement.

Still, the matter should not be taken light-hearted and one should bear in mind that copyright laws differ widely between various nations, so blanket statements are potentially dangerous.

Just take the legal situation in Germany as an example:

"Simple" photographs [Lichtbilder] are protected for 50 years after publication or, if unpublished, for 50 years after their creation. In practice, this can theoretically result in nearly a century of copyright protection, namely, if a photograph is first published just prior to expiration of the original 50-year-term starting with its creation. It is worth repeating: This applies to perfectly ordinary, non-artistic photographs, like anybody's holiday pics or birthday party snapshots.

Photographic works [Lichtbildwerke], which require a greater degree of craftsmanship or artistic effort to qualify for this category, are protected for a period ending 70 years after the death of their creator. A practical example: The well-known Third Reich cameraman and photographer Walter Frentz - known among other works for many color portraits of Third Reich personalities - died in 2004, meaning that his estate will hold copyright for these photographs until the end of 2074.

[tempelhof]

i've got a lawyer.

if he wants to threaten you with his, tell him you'll be happy to pull the images down if he'll provide you with a letter from his establishing his copyright. that should take no effort at all.

that's what i'd tell him.

if he can't do that, he's not doing anything else but talking.

on top of it, he has to prove both ownership of the images and damages and i seriously doubt the expense in terms of both time and money would justify the effort.

at any rate, i'm no lawyer, but i'm pretty sure if i pick up the phone, mine's gonna tell me that knowingly selling a reproduction of anything as an original is fraud.

[Wagriff]

Re-Using someone's photos and publishing them yourself in a book is a whole different animal, but posting photos on a forum website to ask opinions on them? The outraged seller of fake hats certainly knows all of this, and I cannot believe that this is still being discussed. Personally, I cannot see where there is even the slightest chance to successfully sue someone today over this. And in another country? They were not posted under the guise of owning them nor were they physically published by the reposter in a for profit manner. If someone wants to pretend like they will be able to do the least thing about it....As they said in the movie..."Good Luck".

[Jerry B]

The images are being used for reference and educational purposes and there is in such a case no breach of copyright as far as I understand the law.

[StefanM]

4thskorpion makes some very important points in post # 21.

Granted, in many cases, legal proceedings for copyright infringements will not occur if they are simply not practical or worth the trouble, i.e. if the involved parties are in different countries, the matter is of a minor nature and no actual financial gain/damage results from the infringement.

Still, the matter should not be taken light-hearted and one should bear in mind that copyright laws differ widely between various nations, so blanket statements are potentially dangerous.

Just take the legal situation in Germany as an example:

"Simple" photographs [Lichtbilder] are protected for 50 years after publication or, if unpublished, for 50 years after their creation. In practice, this can theoretically result in nearly a century of copyright protection, namely, if a photograph is first published just prior to expiration of the original 50-year-term starting with its creation. It is worth repeating: This applies to perfectly ordinary, non-artistic photographs, like anybody's holiday pics or birthday party snapshots.

Photographic works [Lichtbildwerke], which require a greater degree of craftsmanship or artistic effort to qualify for this category, are protected for a period ending 70 years after the death of their creator. A practical example: The well-known Third Reich cameraman and photographer Walter Frentz - known among other works for many color portraits of Third Reich personalities - died in 2004, meaning that his estate will hold copyright for these photographs until the end of 2074.

This pretty much mirrors the image and artworks copyright law in the UK and I suspect also across the EU and those states that have adopted the Berne Convention. I believe the US law makers are considering harmonising US copyright laws with that of the Berne Convention.

Literary copyright is the author's life plus 75 years and unlike in the US a literary work does not have to be registered with an authorising body such as the Library of Congress to be protected. Under US law the copyright of a literary work had to be re-registered after a period of time to remain protected by US copyright law which is why one can find many out-of-copyright (in the US juristiction) works offered by numerous print-on-demand publishers or as free Kindle, iBooks etc. Many of these books may be out-of-copyright in the US but still within copyright in Europe, it depends where the book was published first.

[BenVK]

I've had photos of one of my hats pinched from here which ended up on some Eastern Europe auction site, just ask Ade.

If that's not double fraud, I don't know what is. Not their hat or photos but that didn't stop them.

Did I try and threaten legal action though? Did I hell, what's the point? waste of time and energy.

[Wagriff]

"This pretty much mirrors the image and artworks copyright law in the UK and I suspect also across the EU and those states that have adopted the Berne Convention. I believe the US law makers are considering harmonising US copyright laws with that of the Berne Convention.

Literary copyright is the author's life plus 75 years and unlike in the US a literary work does not have to be registered with an authorising body such as the Library of Congress to be protected. Under US law the copyright of a literary work had to be re-registered after a period of time to remain protected by US copyright law which is why one can find many out-of-copyright (in the US juristiction) works offered by numerous print-on-demand publishers or as free Kindle, iBooks etc. Many of these books may be out-of-copyright in the US but still within copyright in Europe, it depends where the book was published first."



All true, but the original poster is in about as much legal trouble as you can write on a dust mote...