Copyright infringement, "sharing",and the internet

[Dan Seese]

A couple of recent interactions on the forum got me thinking.

• First, Jack Hollands said he had used some images from my blog for a presentation he was giving and I told him I was honored and the images are there for people to use.
  Secondly, I mentioned that I "pinned" a photo from this forum onto my Pinterest page - a photo of a glass sign Erik Winkler had done.

Now, the thought I have is regarding copyright infringement. I understand the basics of copyright laws which I think can basically be summed up in the fact that ANYTHING you create - even if it is a line drawn on paper - is something you've created and thus you automatically own the rights to it at the moment of that creation. Technically, no one can use that "line" without your permission.

I've run into snags in the past when I've created a sign design without discussing design rights. Later the customer calls up and asks for the design for an ad or something, assuming it is his/her design. I had failed to educate them beforehand about exactly what they were and were not purchasing. I think over the years I've gotten better at being clear and proactive in that department.

At the same time, I really have no original ideas. Everything I do is derivative and I'm constantly borrowing from others. At times, I am quite certain, I violate copyright laws by using source materials for a mural or other such situations.

So with image availability on the internet and especially the explosion of Pinterest, this has become a sticky issue since photos are being thrown around the internet and the whole concept of ownership rights are deteriorating. I'm guilty of contributing to this phenomena. This is a particularly irksome travesty, I'm sure, for people who put in the skill, labor and creativity in photography which then gets thrown around like cheap commodity to which everyone has a "right". I started my Pinterest account a couple of months ago http://pinterest.com/danseese thinking mainly of putting up photos of my work from my own website, which ostensibly could bring traffic to my site an thus potential clients. (Not much success there so far.) However, I've gone on to repin stuff from other sites and other "pinners" and it just all gets diluted and mixed up until there are no lines of demarcation. A great resource but, like so many things, the game is changing.

I may have opened up a can of worms and I know there are strong convictions surrounding this issue so tell me what you think.

[Jack Hollands]

It's an interesting subject that you bring up, especially in the design world, where we rarely create something in it's entirety from scratch and imagination.

I believe that the line of commercial gain is a good boundary to establish and maintain copyrights to.

If I was using your photos without permission and for commercial gain, that would be an immediate copyright infringement. But as I used what is freely viewable to the public, your images, and showed them to others to spread knowledge in a private way, I didn't feel like I was infringing copyright. I'm glad you were happy for me to have done so.

This makes your point about Pinterest, and hopefully bringing in clients interesting. With a commercial gain interest at heart, people could get annoyed that you are potentially making money from their creativity if there is no benefit to themselves.

The photograph of Nick Garretts window gilding I took, which you pinned there, surprised me. I'm glad that you've taken the liberty to do that and share it with a wider audience, but I didn't plan on it going anywhere when I uploaded it here. If I was a commercial photographer, and was charging Nick for my services, the copyright revolving around that photograph could be one of many. He may own it and it's uses, or I might, or it could be a creative commons copyright. It's all very complicated and not very clear up front. The main thing would be that I would chose what copyright to put on it as its creator.

I use a website called deviantart.com where it's community upload their art and can interact and comment on each others work. When you upload work there you can select a few options on what copyright you want to use on your artwork. I normally select a creative commons that says if it is re-used then you must note the original creator. I feel that's fair for non commercial work. Which is what you appear to have done with Nick's work. So thank you. http://pkox.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=0#/d5lpqez You can also find the photo on there, but on the bottom right of the page it establishes what copyright is attached to the work.


One tutor gave a good lecture about being designers, with useful tips and information on copyrighting your work for clients. Pricing different uses of the work accordingly. He said it is very important to make clear when dealing with clients that you own the copyright to your designs, and that they can buy the copyright if they want (with whatever figure you want to put on it). You can then charge for different iterations of your work if they want to use it.

An interesting example of this was some sign writing I was working on the other week. We felt that the design an agency had created for one of the signs needed altering. Some text needed re-sizing and a new stencil needed printing. The agency were happy to release the artwork, for an extortionately large fee!
So we changed the artwork ourselves anyway, without getting it through them.
Technically we haven't infringed copyright, because we changed the design. It's a complex ordeal.

I think I'll stop waffling now!

[Dan Seese]

Jack,
You bring up some good points which help me in thinking through how I will choose to navigate this new "social medium".

Also, let me clarify: When you pin a photo in Pinterest the original source stays with that pin. For instance, when a person clicks on the photo of Erik's glass piece in Pinterest, it takes them back to this forum. The same holds true for your picture of Nick Garrett's window - it links back to the post where you originally shared the picture. So it is an extension of sharing what you had already shared.

The only pictures which link back to my website are ones I've uploaded to my website and then pinned to Pinterest. For the most part those are pictures of my own work or, in some cases, pictures I've taken of old signs. Then I have photos from my blog about some of my favorite lettering artists. I notified both Dave Smith and John Stevens of my blogs about them but not of pinning their work. Even at that, I've linked those blog posts to their websites so it could potentially benefit them.

The liberality in sharing knowledge which is intrinsic to the Letterheads movement is something on which I thrive. There is nothing I have except what was given to me, and it is a pleasure to pass on what I have to others. At the same time I can't give away what is not MINE to give. It is critical to consider the ethical issues such as intellectual property rights and financial interests which need to be protected in this atmosphere of "no boundaries" fostered by the very nature of the world wide web.

I currently am talking with a client about painting the names of some universities on the walls of an office where interns from these schools work. I don't pay a collegiate licensing fee (and it wouldn't be worth doing so for this particular project) so we've discussed how to approach it without using the school logos or ways we may be able to obtain permission to use the logos. But I told them I'm not comfortable just doing it on the sly. You mention the multitude of purchasing options we can negotiate with a client regarding use-rights and this is something I've worked out on several occasions. I found the Graphic Artists Guild guide https://www.graphicartistsguild.org/handbook has useful parameters for working that out and it's nice to have something to show the client so they understand these are standard industry practices.

[Mike Jackson]

Dan,

Instead of me paraphrasing this guy, I will simply put the link here:

Seven deadly myths about Copyrights
http://webnet77.com/webstuff/copyright.html

I'd suggest that EVERYONE here read the entire page. While it is written about photography, most of it still applies here.

As I write this, I am in the process of making 600 pixel images for my photos for the last half of November to submit to the US Copyright Office. I have been doing this this twice a month for several years.

I spent a lot of time researching Pinterest. There are tons of pages discussing it on the Internet, both from people doing it and from lawyers examining it. The trick is in Pinterest's user agreement. They make you agree that if you post anything on Pinterest you are THE owner of the image or data. They say that they will hold you responsible if they get sued including all costs. They say that if you agree to the rules and post something of someone elses, they will not be responsible. Pinterest claims they committed no crime. The poster (Pinster) may have broken the law.

7. Indemnity

If you use our Products for commercial purposes in violation of Section 1(c), as determined in our sole and absolute discretion, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Pinterest and its officers, directors, employees and agents, from and against any claims, suits, proceedings, disputes, demands, liabilities, damages, losses, costs and expenses, including, without limitation, reasonable legal and accounting fees (including costs of defense of claims, suits or proceedings brought by third parties), in any way related to (a) your access to or use of our Products, (b) your User Content, or (c) your breach of any of these Terms.

Translation:
If we are sued because of something your business does on Pinterest, you have to pay our costs. Also, you should have created a business account and agreed to our commercial terms in the first place.

From Pinterest's agreement

Also, in the agreement, you are not allowed to post images of your own work on Pinterest. Someone else is supposed to do that for you. Catch 22. The concept of letting someone post an image with a link back to your site is actually pretty nice, especially for companies with a product or object, like a doorknob or a pair of shoes. Many sites now have a PinIt button. For them, it is better to join them than fight them, because the button adds the hyperlink back to their site. Photographers may or may not like someone taking their images because the image or concept might be something they want to control when and where it is used. Many images on Pinterest are actually taken from another site and no links are supplied back to the site, nor credit give to the originator. Again, that group of Pinsters claim they own the image by "signing" the user agreement.

If you go to my web site at http://www.tetonimages.com, you will now see a big C copyright in the middle of each image, my copyright © in the lower right and an embedded URL in the photo. Photoshelter, the site that hosts my photos, had included a script to slow down Pinterest image thieves. I added it originally, but after doing the triple slam copyright watermark, I really don't care if someone did grab one of my images and post it there. If they do steal on of my images with all of the copyright notices, knowing my image is copyrighted with US copyright office, I could contact the lawyer that wrote the initial article at the top of the page. I started adding the URL in the watermark after reading up on Pinterest.

You, or anyone else, can do an electronic registration with the US copyright office for $35. You can register one or an almost unlimited numer of designs at one time for that price. This time, I will be submitting 612 photos, but I have submitted 4000 at one time. Once submitted, the copyrighted image has teeth and not just a bark. You can register a small group in 15 minutes using the templates you build for yourself.

Again, everyone NEEDS to read the page linked at the top of my reply. I am not a lawyer, but the other guy is!

Mike Jackson

[Dan Seese]

Hi Mike,

Um . . . can we just change the subject now?

Actually, this discussion continues to clarify my thinking and adjust my practices. I read the legal link and have saved it in my bookmarks. I’ve just kind of been exploring the Pinterest thing, at the recommendation of a couple of “social media experts” I know. So far my account has been fairly latent and I haven’t really pursued it aggressively – though the plethora of exciting content on Pinterest is a diversionary magnet for my time and attention.

While I haven’t solidified exactly how I’ll use the medium, I’m going to take it slowly and not put too many eggs in that basket. One thing I did not find in their terms of use is your comment that you “aren’t allowed to share images of your own work”. In fact, if you have a business account (which I don't) you are encouraged to share content from your site and examples are given of how companies do that. It’s probably true that the most effective use is to have others pin content from your site or repin from your board onto their own board which can exponentially spread the content and thus link back to the source – your website. However I see nothing forbidding the practice of pinning from your own website.

All kinds of extended ethical issues have arisen through social media and this particular issue is just a subset of a host of other issues. The frenetic energy that goes into the apparent need to create and maintain a marketing “buzz” is just more froth that contributes to the endless stream of noise and essentially dilutes everything. I wish there were another way – I’m actually just trying to figure out the best way to stay in business, and inbound marketing seems to be a key element. It’s a bit tiring.

So does anyone have constructive thoughts on sound ethical ways to take advantage of these social media for promoting our services without violating others’ rights or getting sucked into the vortex?

[Mike Jackson]

Hi Dan,
I'll dig around and see if I can find the references about posting your own work. It has been about 9 months since I studied the options. They recently changed their user agreement (Middle of November 2012) and I believe they may have added the option for a business option in the interim.

I didn't mention it earlier, but the agreement also says this:

How Pinterest and other users can use your content. Subject to any applicable account settings you select, you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, display, reproduce, re-pin, modify (e.g., re-format), re-arrange, and distribute your User Content on Pinterest for the purposes of operating and providing the Service(s) to you and to our other Users.

Again, once you or someone else uploads files and information to Pinterest, they can use it any way they want, including selling and redistributing it. The big complaint here is is the practice takes total control away from the actual "owners". Ultimately, anything posted to the internet exposes the content to everyone else. The whole thing had me spooked when I first looked into it, but after adding the extra watermark information helped a lot.

I agree. Things are changing around us on a daily basis. Business is being done differently now, so most of us need to keep an eye out for opportunities or requirements. I am open to hearing ways people are using Social Media to their business benefit.

Mike Jackson

[erik winkler]

A very interesting point here Dan.

Let me start with my opninion that the biggest stealers of desgins and ideas are the mayor companies like Disney Sony music etc.
Ofcourse this is a hit and run statement, but in someway it is true:
If you go to the German castle 'Neu Schwanstein' you can see that they copied this design.
If you have ever been lucky enough to visit the castle, you will know as a fact that Disney not created the look, feel and details of ' their creations', but it was all copied.
The same with a lot of the music that is under 'copyright' of Sony MG; a lot of big musicians used, sometimes without knowing it themselves, have been influenced by compositions of Mozart and other great composers.
Both companies, now claim the work as their own and dare 'o dare who will copy something from them, you will get problems.
My suggestion, allways bypass them and link to the original masters who are now long gone and do not have copyrights for their true creations.

Still creations have to be protected, otherwise artists will not get paid so they can buy their daily bread.
Daily bread.... yes bread; in my opninion money earned from copyrights sometimes go too wild.
One idea like 'Windows' can make a company the most whealthiest in the world.
I think that is not good and has to be limited, everything should have its limits, as well as the earnings of a copyright.
If the company can buy their bread and butter and bit more, it should be enough.
I am definatly not a socialist, but sometimes there are excesses in whealth and earnings, while other people have to fight the whole week on their jobs to earn some money so they can pay the rent.

For my own case with 'pinning' a photo from me on Pinterest: I am honoured and everybody can 'pin' my photo's as much as they want. I just wished that photo's used would link to our own website's so we could get some extra backlinking/'google-points'.

By the way, I still think the limit of 700pixels for photo's is too little, I could have posted beautifull photo's where everybody could look in detail.

If I make a design it is my design and the client payed for the hours I worked on it.
If the client wants to own the design and do with it whatever they want, they can buy it from me which costs extra.
Since I not want to be a pain when making a quote, I try to leave out these dealings and only refer to my sales conditions mentioned on our website: Our conditions page in Dutch.
If a client used my design and goes to an other signmaker for instance, I am able to say he used my design even if it his logo.

Ownership is allways a pain, but if you ever have doubts, I would place the information where it came from.
So for the cartoon movie Snowwhite: storyplay by brothers Grimm? and design by German masters who worked on castle Neu Schwanstein.
The rest is only an interpretation of us.
Which in fact means we can all steal the caracter Bambi, because again this is a replica of a murial done in the castle.
I have seen photo's of Disney and his workers sitting in front of the murial photographing and drawing copies the desing and details on paper.

O yeah, your Santa Claus concept which the Coca Cola company used and still uses to boost their sells is stolen from the Dutch who celebrates his saint/day for centuries now. Can you just imagine how crazy it would be if we/the Dutch or the Coca Cola company would protect the rights of using the concept Santa?

Happy holidays are coming.

By the way the castle photo was not mine, I found it with google, could have safed it on my desktop and upload it to the forum. But ofcourse that would be illigal and stealing ones photocopyrights, so I just linked the url to post the photo here.
Everyone happy I guess.
But if the owner decesides to remove the photo from his or her website, this will mean that anyone who will read this post in the future will see a dead link and no photo. What a world....

[Dan Seese]

Hi Erik,

The points you're making are important to the discussion, i.e. - the fact that we are all strongly influenced by the world around us, sometimes imperceptibly and other times very consciously. None of us are "creative" in the absolute sense, rather all of our creations are derivative. So whether our work is influenced by a tree or by a fellow artist, we are taking cues from those points of contact. The Disney castle (which isn't an exact replica), the Coca Cola version of Santa Claus, etc. are examples of this.

Now if Disney had picked up that castle and moved it to California without permission, that would be stealing. Of course that would be a physical difficulty but it demonstrates a category distinction between being influenced on the one hand and taking what I don't own on the other. Even your suggestion to "link to the original masters" is difficult. How do you do that except by using a photograph someone else has taken? This is where intellectual property rights come into play. It's much easier today, with the click of a mouse, to steal this kind of property once it has been displayed on the internet and that's where thinking through the ethics is crucial as well as some of the safeguards Mike has highlighted and used in protecting his photo craft - which is, by the way, truly remarkable.

At least that's the way I understand it. OK, I need to let this be now since I'm the main one talking in this lengthy thread.

[Mike Jackson]

We'd need a copyright and intellectual property rights lawyer to take this discussion too far. The thread had several spurs or potential directions when it was originally posted and his has lots more now.

If Disney did use that castle as inspiration for their castle design, they'd still have the rights to "own" the graphic they made. Anyone else might be able to make a graphic inspired by the same castle but they'd need to make it their own by designing it to look different than the Disney version. US copyrights have limits on the number of years an image or graphic can be protected. For a long time, it was only 40 years or so, but it has been extended by the courts to much longer. From what I understand by reading a few accounts, Disney was a big player in getting it extended to protect Mickey Mouse and the rest of their early characters and keeping them from going into public domain. But, if there are Bambi looking characters on the old castle and the Disney artists used them, the original illustrations would likely be in public domain. Once the Disney team did their version, they protected them.

There are some glaring lines in the sand discussed here however. Let's say someone painted a sign, got paid and then photographed the sign and put it on their web site. Then someone pinned the photo of the finished sign on Pinterest, was anyone really be hurt? Probably not, but maybe the person really didn't want it on Pinterest. He/She didn't get asked. That's an issue. Then, what if someone took the sign photo and included it on their web site, not necessarily stating they did it or didn't do it. The assumption for most viewers would be they did it because it was on their web site. They might have grabbed the photo off the original web site or from something like Pinterest. The originator at some point might start feeling like they have been damaged or harmed.

In the case of photography, the photo is the valuable element. Granted, most Internet images are very small and of little value, but still might be used for paintings and followup artistic endeavors. The photographer may have had to get up at 4:00 in the morning and drive to a spot for the off chance a moose will cross the little stream in the morning light with perfect clouds and in a wonderful setting. When it finally happens and they get that shot, the last thing they want is to walk into a gallery and see their hard earned photo used as a source for an artist's painting. Any photographer CAN put their images on sites and give up all rights to them if they want, but they should also know they should have total control of the image once they copyright it or put it out into the world.

Similarly, if someone hand draws a curly-Q or graphic, then digitizes it, they should be able to expect to control it. This is a good time to drag Dave Smith into this discussion. He may have been originally inspired by a lot of old graphics, but when he designed the album cover, I am pretty sure most of it came from his Eberhart 2B pencil and his skills. No one except Dave Smith should be able to digitize any of the elements in the image and start selling them or giving them away. Dave owns the rights. Some of them may be derivitives of things he's seen, but they are his derivitives. In 100 years, someone might get legal access to them if they go into public domain.

The rule of thumb on the Internet is to NOT put anything on it that you don't want to get stolen in some form or another. With all of my watermarks on my photos, I will be adding PinIt, Tweet it, and FaceBook it buttons on my photo site. It takes official Copyright registrations to add teeth to a copyright. Otherwise, all people get to do is huff and puff about damages.

I will report this info as being true, but I don't know where I'd go to get the verification...There are a few photographers now that make more money off the copyright cases than they ever did from the photos themselves. Once copyrighted through the US Copyright Office, they look for infractions and immediately sue for damages. Either they go to court or settle out of court with pretty good settlements.

And remember the photograph of the finished sign I mentioned earlier? If the sign maker took the photo and registered the photo with the US Copyright Office, then someone used the photo on their web site, they'd could get financially nailed for the infraction if the person that took the photo wanted to take it to court.

Lastly, the best action for anyone is to err on the safe side than to take a gamble.