Why is it not allowed to post copyrighted stuff?

[rv6502]

Besides that, the rules say no copyrighted material.. if a discussion on policy should be held it should be on whether or not that rule should be there, not whether or not mali was correct to uphold it. That's his job as a mod. There wasn't really much room for interpretation on this one.

then the rule should be "no copyright infringement".

because just about anything created is subject to copyright.
even this post right here.

so everything should be deleted from this forum because every posts and images are copyrighted.

"In all countries that are members of the Berne Convention copyright is automatic"

any screenshots/photos/doodles/text are subject to copyright.

 

[rv6502]

"Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as for commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching or scholarship"

There is this thing called the rest of the World.

yes, and a big chunk of the rest of the world has fair dealing or equivalent laws.

read the whole post before trying to be a smart a.

 

[mali]

You are talking nonsense, Stephane. Posts are not copyrighted.

One last word from my side: No matter how much rain dance, moaning or ripping out hair someone practises in this thread, these things will be removed when I see them as long as an admin doesn't say otherwise. Start a petition or whatever if it makes you happy.

 

[Exophase]

then the rule should be "no copyright infringement".

because just about anything created is subject to copyright.
even this post right here.

so everything should be deleted from this forum because every posts and images are copyrighted.

"In all countries that are members of the Berne Convention copyright is automatic"

any screenshots/photos/doodles/text are subject to copyright.

I was paraphrasing. When I said "no copyrighted material" it meant improper redistribution thereof, that unnecessary wordful was implied.. not much to the benefit of pedants I suppose.

 

[trix]

There seems to be two issues here, legality, and morality. Legally I believe it's a bit of a grey area, but if the magazine in question decided they didn't like it, respecting a take down request (and knowing ahead of time it will be respected if it happens) would pretty much kill any real legal issues.

Morally, however, is a bit more complicated. To get a bit philosophical (sorry!) we first have to define morals, which could be different for different people. Generally, I tend to define morals as, I do whatever the hell I want, EXCEPT when it infringes upon somebody else doing whatever the hell they want. Example, stealing infringes upon somebody's property. Murder infringes upon their life. Etc. If a person is not messing up my shit, they are fine, morally speaking. Your morals may be different, but if a person is not bothering anyone in any way there are few moralities (though some exist...) that would have a problem with it.

That said, posting a scan of an article related to a project on the forums of said project, without posting the entire issue, does not appear to hurt anybody. Neither financially nor respectfully. If anything it brings attention to the mag from people who may not have known it's existence before, who may want to read the rest of the issue based on the posted article. I simply do not see how this is morally wrong. Especially when (again) you take into consideration that they can ask at any time for it to be removed if they wish, and the people here would comply.

Maybe my morals are less strict then most, however, I've noticed I am one of the very few people who will come back to the gas station an hour later because I noticed they gave me too much change and I felt I had to pay it back. I consider my morality pretty good, even though it sometimes does not match local legality. (I poke smot)

- trix

 

[Tom`]

You are talking nonsense, Stephane. Posts are not copyrighted.

Actually, in the US (and I guess other Berne Convention signatories), they are. However, by posting stuff here, it's generally considered that you grant the right for them to be distributed. There are limitations, however. You could make the case, for example, that (for example) it would be illegal for me to take all of Ari64 and Exophase's posts, print them into a book called "How To Write N64 Emulators" and sell it, without their permission. They could certainly sue me for that, and they'd probably win. Depending on how many copies were sold, it could even be considered a felony.

 

[Fishbong]

Some german messageboards have been pushed out of existance because of stuff far more harmless than this. Users posted images of vegetables from a site called marions-kochbuch.de because they turned up first in a google images search (try googling "tomate" or "paprika" on google.de). Turns out the owner of this site is very litigious and demands 2000€ an image or else he'll sue.

And these were just images of vegetables.

Do we want Evildragon to be forced to pay that kind of money?

 

[trix]

Some german messageboards have been pushed out of existance because of stuff far more harmless than this. Users posted images of vegetables from a site called marions-kochbuch.de because they turned up first in a google images search (try googling "tomate" or "paprika" on google.de). Turns out the owner of this site is very litigious and demands 2000€ an image or else he'll sue.

And these were just images of vegetables.

Do we want Evildragon to be forced to pay that kind of money?

He could just remove the image upon receiving notification that it was unwanted. Problem solved.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Some german messageboards have been pushed out of existance because of stuff far more harmless than this. Users posted images of vegetables from a site called marions-kochbuch.de because they turned up first in a google images search (try googling "tomate" or "paprika" on google.de). Turns out the owner of this site is very litigious and demands 2000€ an image or else he'll sue.

And these were just images of vegetables.

Do we want Evildragon to be forced to pay that kind of money?

That sounds like a scam to me. He probably gamed Google to get his images first in the list, then waits for his prey...

Sounds like a remarkably easy way to make money.

 

[Nova]

Some german messageboards have been pushed out of existance because of stuff far more harmless than this. Users posted images of vegetables from a site called marions-kochbuch.de because they turned up first in a google images search (try googling "tomate" or "paprika" on google.de). Turns out the owner of this site is very litigious and demands 2000€ an image or else he'll sue.

And these were just images of vegetables.

Do we want Evildragon to be forced to pay that kind of money?

He could just remove the image upon receiving notification that it was unwanted. Problem solved.

Yeah, if they aren't on the server, how could he ever prove in court that they were. And also, what lawyer in the world would take up that preposterous lawsuit?

 

[Fishbong]

That sounds like a scam to me. He probably gamed Google to get his images first in the list, then waits for his prey...

Yup its a scam. They categorize their cookbook as an encyclopedia, which increases its google rankings and in each recipe they have links to the ingredients, so common ingredients have hundreds of links to them, increasing their rank further.

And no, removing the image will not resolve the matter, as the messageboard owner still has to pay the "Abmahnung", which costs about 200€€. Additionally he has to agree to a cease and desist which, if broken, is way more expensive.

And according to legal precedence a messageboard owner in germany has the possibility to review each post to make sure it is legal so he is accountable for everything that's posted on his board. The judges said that messageboards are "pressemäßig" (comparable to the press) with the owner being the publisher.

Such is legislation in germany. Preposterous? For you and me, perhaps. But that's the way it is and this kind of stuff happens here. :angry:

 

[SomeGuy99]

^ Wow. That's just crazy!

Do we fall under the same rules? Does it only affect German forums?

 

[Fishbong]

gp32x is a german forum. I wouldn't have posted all this if it wasn't relevant.

 

[SomeGuy99]

gp32x is a german forum. I wouldn't have posted all this if it wasn't relevant.

So it relates to the location of the server, not the language spoken?

 

[mali]

So it relates to the location of the server, not the language spoken?

Who would you send the letter to if you want to exploit these stupid laws? The board owner/hoster or the embassy of a random country where English is the first language?

 

[diegor]

It's not allowed because someone could sue the owner of the forum and shut the community down, that's why.

there is this thing called fair use and fair dealing.

"Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as for commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching or scholarship"

so posting scans of magazine articles talking about the Pandora in a Pandora forum are clearly fair use.

It's not clear at all. Fair use is about the right to talk about an original work and the right to quote small parts of it, not the right to copy the original work.

Immagine this: i write a game recension that is like this:

The first byte of the ISO is A0.
The second byte of the ISO is BC.

and so on. So that you can rebuild the entire game from the article. Is still fair use? I really don't think so.

Fair use is limited to quoting the original work. As written in the wikipedia article:

reviewer may fairly cite largely from the original work, if his design be really and truly to use the passages for the purposes of fair and reasonable criticism. On the other hand, it is as clear, that if he thus cites the most important parts of the work, with a view, not to criticize, but to supersede the use of the original work, and substitute the review for it, such a use will be deemed in law a piracy…

Screenshot of a game is not the game. You can't play with a screenshot. A scan of an article, let you read the whole article, so it's a copy of the article.

It's quite clear the difference to me.

 

[trix]

But the copyrighted work is the MAGAZINE. And he only posted a single article from it, which is no way makes that issue of the magazine unnecessary. He quoted the one article, to criticize it. Sounds /exactly/ like fair use to me.

 

[Fishbong]

According to your reasoning, uploading single tracks from an album would be fair use as long as it's not the whole album.

 

[Tom`]

But the copyrighted work is the MAGAZINE. And he only posted a single article from it, which is no way makes that issue of the magazine unnecessary. He quoted the one article, to criticize it. Sounds /exactly/ like fair use to me.

The article is a copyrighted work in itself, though - any written work is as soon as it is created, if you're in a country that ratified the Berne Convention. Fair use is generally cited when copying a few sentences or paragraphs, not an entire work. The fact that the article was printed in a magazine along with other articles has no bearing on whether reprinting it would be considered fair use.

 

[Goity]

So it relates to the location of the server, not the language spoken?

Who would you send the letter to if you want to exploit these stupid laws? The board owner/hoster or the embassy of a random country where English is the first language?

This is completely unrelated to this topic in any way, but I saw you by complete coincidence earlier on a forum writing about laptop processors.