Rips off Jay Maisel and gets caught but doesn't think he did anything wrong....

[cyrus]

In the end, he didn't even win anything legally speaking, because a settlement establishes nothing, neither guilt nor innocence, it simply settles the matter between the two parties. The only thing he may have won is the satisfaction that he made Andy lose some money, ergo a revenge. And over what? A $5 tribute to an artist whose image made him famous to begin with?

Well, its not that simple. It does establish something: that he retains his rights in his copyright and has no intention of allowing it to fall into public domain. Like I mentioned in this thread previously, if you have knowledge that someone is infringing on your intellectual property rights, you must assert those rights (by filing lawsuits if necessary) or else you risk losing those rights and appearing to have acquiesced to having your intellectual property become part of the public domain.

So (in addition to winning some money) he also made it legally clear that he still retains his rights in this photo, and thus no one else in the future can use the photo and legitimately claim that they thought it was "abandoned" to the public domain. That, I'm sure, was the real victory, not the money. This would be particularly important for an older artist, because copyright protection extends to years after the death of an artist.

[Jay DeFehr]

As the means of production continue to fall to the "group formerly known as the audience", and the cost of sharing drops through the floor, the industrial complex becomes obsolete. This is true in all media. Anyone with eyes can see the music industry as we've known it since the advent of commercial radio is living on borrowed time

When I was a kid I had a stereo with a tuner and a dual cassette recorder/player that allowed me to record music from the radio onto cassette tapes. It was time consuming and laborious, and technically illegal, but I and every other kid I knew made mix tapes from songs played on the radio, and traded them among ourselves. How were we different from the Napster generation? They had better technology. Making and sharing mix tapes was expensive; sharing digital files is not. Nothing changed with digital media but the technology, and the opportunities.

Substitute the photocopier for the cassette recorder, and the same dynamics apply to photography. People want to create, and we want to share, and given the opportunity, we'll do both to the extent the opportunity provides.

[cyrus]

Actually, patents are good for a 14-year period that can be renewed once.

Rick "who agrees that current copyright periods are at odds with the original purpose of copyright law which was to get IP into the public domain" Denney

14 years is for design patents only. For utility patents filed after 1995, the term is 20 years. In either case, significantly shorter than copyright protection.

Patents are supposed to protect the investment of the inventor. An inventor who obtains a patent is required to show that his invention is significantly different from what is already invented/common knowledge. That involves significant investment, not only in inventing something new but also proving that it is different from everythig known to date. So, protecting that investment makes sense.

So, in comparison, does a songwriter, painter or photographer, who need not have created anything novel to obtain copyright protection, and mostly did not make the same sort of investment into his product, really deserve exclusivity rights that extend multiple times longer than a patent? IMHO No, frankly.

[cyrus]

As the means of production continue to fall to the "group formerly known as the audience", and the cost of sharing drops through the floor, the industrial complex becomes obsolete. This is true in all media. Anyone with eyes can see the music industry as we've known it since the advent of commercial radio is living on borrowed time.

Yes and that's why the corporations like Disney were keen to try to get the law to stand in the way of this, much like how the horse-and-buggy industry tried to stand in the way of the auto industry by passing silly laws that - for example - required a runner to jog ahead of all cars carrying a latern and firing a warning shot into the air at every intersection.

That passed.

[Jay DeFehr]

I'd like to start a website where photographers can submit photos directly to the public domain. Anyone could use any of the photos in any way, without anyone's permission, and for free. Maybe something like this exists already?

[Jay DeFehr]

Ah, the Creative Commons at Flickr. Close enough.

[PViapiano]

I think that most folks who tout the Creative Commons would change their minds the minute Merck uses their image in a nationwide advertisement campaign that goes internationally viral.

[Jay DeFehr]

There are several different types of licenses available through the CC, some of which prohibit commercial use. The license I would prefer would allow any use whatsoever, and prevent anyone from placing any restrictions on its use. I sincerely doubt Merck would be interested in using any image anyone else could also use, in any way they choose, but if they did, why should I care?

[Jay DeFehr]

There are over 44 million images licensed through the CC for commercial use at Flickr alone, and over 125 million for non-commercial use.

[Kirk Gittings]

why should I care?

Maybe because they are a 45 billion $ for profit corporation that would charge you up the ars for everything they do/