Re: newsgroups with binaries?

Lumpy wrote:
Lump:
Nope. It's copyrighted whether you label it,
file for it etc. Copyright exists from the moment
the work is placed in public. The requirement for
labeling went out several decades ago.

Rufus:
I had a class on this subject within the last few years, and they taught
what I describe - no expressed intent, no copyright. At least, that's
the law as of that time in the USA.

I think it was the late 1980s when the requirement for
the © or "copyright Joe Blow, 1974" or (c) or
"all rights reserved" etc was dropped.


My class was sometime in the 90s, so I'll believe what I was taught until I consult council...


[recording a public domain classical piece]
That recording is copyrighted. He doesn't need to file
for it, label it or anything else. He owns the copyright
to the recording. He can choose to give it away if he
cares to. Or he can choose to maintain control of the
rights and grant permission on an individual basis.
He DOES have to grant permission if the person wishing
to use it pays the statuatory license fee. ie, if snark
wants to buy the rights to the recording, learnwell
can't turn him down, as long as snark pays the fee...

Again, I don't believe that. People can and do place things directly
into the public domain, most often times without realizing they are
doing so.

I'd like to hear examples. Placing something on
the web does not place anything into public domain,
whether the rights owner understands that or not.


...."ignorance of the law excuses no man"...a lot of people make assumptions only to find out they were wrong later. There are lots of public spaces where your "rights" are limited, or even legally non-existent...the web is such a space.

I had a very interesting conversation with my judge-cousin once re: the "right" to privacy...judge says (and he's correct) that there is no "right to privacy" guaranteed by the US Constitution...I managed to argue him to exhaustion in opposition from the standpoint of "expectations" as to pubic vs private information, though...

As for an example, the GNU Public License for free software is a good one, I think:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License

....interesting..."copyleft"...I'd never heard that one before.

...3D artists generally don't earn royalties as
far as I can tell...just profit on sales volume.)

What is a "royalty" but a profit on sales volume?


Like a residual, or a recurring profit on a per-application/performance basis, like a musician or actor can. I have a venture capital investment in a company whose biz model is per the latter - license of use of technology, but not formal ownership of associated hardware. I'm not clear as to if they require a residual from the application as part of the license, but given the recent Actors Guild settlement I hope they do...

In the case I mentioned (two 3D content distributors that I know of), the distributor splits all profit 50/50 with the originator in exchange for the hosting, distribution, and legal support. Purchasers are not required to profit share commercial gains from use, as stated within each product license - I own a goodly amount of this sort of content myself.

Products sold are licensed for both private and commercial use, but they (both the distributor and the artists) also give away free content (weekly/monthly) as teasers/advertising...these are also delivered with similar license statements, so yes - they are true "giveaways", and I also have a few Gig of such content that I've collected over the years. These are all over the net, and if you get familiar with enough of them you sometimes see some of the better ones pop up in advertising, video games, and forensic animations. (I see a lot of such on the evening news.)

2) they are given away by the author or a third party host and usually
licensed by the author for non-commercial use only; (expression of a
limited copyright, I suppose.) though some authors will expressly
allow commercial use if given a credit - still, without royalty.

"Given away by the author" for restricted use implies the
rights owner does indeed own the rights. Otherwise he
wouldn't be able to "give them away" and he certainly
wouldn't be able to give them away for one use but
not for another. He's simply exercising his right
to NOT charge for the usage license. The end user
is still obtaining "permission" (license) he's
just not having to pay for that permission.


Not only "implies", but states specifically what those retained rights are - and that's the point. Yes, he does - but only because he has stated so from the outset, in writing, at the time of distribution. A ton of freeware and shareware are distributed under such agreements...restricted to personal use but restricted from commercial use. I have and use lots of such.

....I once chatted up a content artist for using my online nick as a name for a character...we had a laugh, and that was the end of it. I ain't NEAR this cute in person...

http://www.ladylittlefox.com/Plushies.html

....under your model I should sue just because I posted as the character "Rufus" long before Lady Littlefox invented her little guy and therefore should own the "rights" thereto...I doubt I'd get anyplace with that if I did...

4) unsigned, non-copyrighted material which is generally posted on
binary groups - in these cases it's sort of a closed community, but
people very often place works such as background mats directly into
the public domain both expressly and by omission of expression. Such
work generally shows up in a flood of works by other artists in
homage and with thanks to the originator for a few days.

Anyone "can" place something in the public domain. And anyone
can place a creative work in a place where it might be easily
taken without permission. And that rights owner may choose to
do nothing about it willingly or out of ignorance of his rights.
But that certainly doesn't mean that posting something
negates any copyright.


Actually, it does...depending on how it is posted, and inclusion of indication as to intent. At least, that is what I was taught. And generally what happens amongst the 3D community. Permission is expressly given or denied within the content of the posting.

The bottom line issue is that laws regarding what is placed on the net are lagging far behind the reality of what is going on - loopholes are still waiting to be closed by adjudication and/or drafting of new laws.

Don't make the mistake of equating "copyrighted" with
"registered with the US Copyright Office". It doesn't
have to be registered to be copyrighted.


Lumpy

In Your Ears for 40 Something Years
www.LumpyMusic.com




I'm not - and I agree, on that point. But as I was taught in my class, unless the originator at the very least makes a formal indication or declaration of intent to copyright at the outset when they post something, they are very likely not protected (or only have limited protection) as to copyright under the law.

--
- Rufus
.

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