Hi Clément,
Interesting anecdote... but not really relevant to the point I was making about
the odious system in the States of having to register your copyright... you
don't have to anywhere else in the world...
Bob
----- Original Message ----
From: clemos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity
<netbehaviour@netbehaviour.org>
Sent: Friday, 16 May, 2008 7:01:22 PM
Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] Fwd: Mickey Mouse Bill
Hi everybody
On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 1:59 PM, bob catchpole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> This is why the AMERICAN system is so fucked up!...
>
> IN THEORY IT'S TRUE "If somebody swipes it, or uses it without your
> permission, you have the law on your side to chase them down and get paid."
>
> BUT IN PRACTICE "Not if you haven't registered the copyright."
In France it's also true;
Two years ago, my brother rented a restaurant for the summer; it was
almost totally empty, except the hoven and other heavy kitchen stuff.
he created all the menus, all the "brand" of the restaurant from
scratch. This included the making of a drawing of the place (made by
the mother of his girlfriend), which was used on advertisement and
menus.
He ran this restaurant for a couple of month (summer) with his
girlfriend, while keeping rather bad relationships with the owner of
the place.
When they left the place, after the season, the owner asked them a
menu, as a "souvenir".
The year after that, my brother went back to the restaurant; he saw
that the menu was almost the same than the one he created, including
the drawing, which was very slightly modified, but definitely created
from the former drawing he used... So he sued the owners of the
restaurant, mainly for the use they made of the picture (not the
menus, etc...)
It has taken several months (French justice...), but he lost: the
court, while implicitly recognizing that his drawing was used as a
basis for the next ones, decided that they were just two different
drawing of the same place, taken from the same angle, with the same
"style" (because it was not 100% figurative), etc... just imagine how
a mere photograph could possibly be "protected" with this kind of
court...
It was basically a court specialized in trade affairs, so my brother
thinks that there has been some kind of "lobbying" : the jury is a
group of people who work in commercial stuff, and he is not, so they
simply defended their peers...
Now he even has to give money to the owner because of the "prejudice" !
In theory, he should have won, but in reality, it depends on the
court, on who you are suing, probably, and on many other things...
+++++++
Clément
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