Here in the US, the issue of Copyrights on pictures used on web sites is being scrutinized very carefully. In a situation involving the use of a picture that was placed on a web site by a client of a web site that is hosted by a company that was just recently purchase by our company, the owner of the web site was ordered by the owners of the copyright to "cease and desist" in the use of the picture because he did not have either a copyright notice or a notice of the source of the picture, ie: "Picture Courtesy of XYZ Company",
The company took the owner served the owner of the web site with a summons ordering him to remove the picture and he still refused, so they filed a suite in the State of California, the state in which both the owner of the Web Site and the Company that owns the picture are located. The case wound its way thru the courts and on March 31st, 2003, the final verdict was handed down by the courts. Here is a summary of the verdict from the California Bar Association's newsletter as it was published on that same date: "DEFAULT JUDGMENT in favor of plaintiff against defendant XXXXX XXXXXX and XXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX in the amount of [USD] $69,486.50., ***Civil Case Terminated.. Signed by Judge Ronald Whyte on 3/31/03. (cv, )" (For privacy purposes, the client's name has been obliterated from this announcement.) The previous owner of the web hosting company was also fined USD $3,000 for his failure to remove the image from the client's web site upon notification by the owner of the image. The court held that it is the "web hosting company's responsibility to immediately and completely remove all improperly used and copyrighted images upon notification of the hosting company by the copyright owner." Remember, this judgment was entered for the improper use of a SINGLE IMAGE! So the moral of the story here is: ALWAYS place a Copyright Notice ON the picture somewhere AND give credit to the source of the item when using it on a web site - EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO USE IT. Companies that own copyrights and the US courts are beginning to take Copyright Infringement VERY SERVIOSLY. Bruce Barnes. CEO ChicagoNetTech / Rinella Internet Services Chicago IL -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 07:16 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [PHP-WIN] Help with gd I can't answer your question, and this may even be off-topic, but copyright law is never so simple as it may at first seem. I don't know the law in any country but my own (Britain), but here in Britain, adding a watermark does NOT make a picture copyright. In Britain, what makes a picture, or a novel, or a piece of music, or any other creation, copyright, is the simple fact that you've published it. In other words, simply putting something on the web _automatically gives you copyright_. Unfortunately, the problem then becomes proving it. If two people both claim to be the creator of the same document, the "winner" - the copyright owner - is the one who published it first. How do you prove this? You can't. So the courts get full of people saying "I wrote this", "No, I wrote this", etc.. To safeguard against this, recommended practice is to seal several copies of your work in a envelopes in which all the edges have been signed and dated and selotaped over, and then send them by registered post to a number of trusted parties, including yourself, at creation time (i.e. _before_ you first publish it). The recipients should be instructed _not to open their envelope_. In the event of a court dispute, the postmark on the still-sealed envelopes is considered proof that the work was known to you on or before that date. The message "Copyright <name> <date>" is just a warning. It carries no legal weight. Nor does a watermark. If I create (and publish) a picture, and you steal it and watermark it, the copyright remains mine. The law will doubtless be different in other countries. Check on the internet for the law in yours. In any case - I seriously doubt that a watermark is unremovable by a talented hacker. There's another interesting legal point to consider. If your work is created by a PROGRAM, do you still own the copyright? (Says I, scarily venturing into the realms of AI rights here). This is actually a very complicated issue and one which is likely to remain unresolved for the forseeable future. Jill -----Original Message----- From: Achilles Maroulis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 1:06 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PHP-WIN] Help with gd is if there is way to print a watermark on a picture in order to make it copyrighted. -- PHP Windows Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP Windows Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
