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Court Rules Against Photographers in Copyright Suit
An anonymous reader writes "Photo District News Online reports a Federal District Court in NY says that republishing Magazine content on a CD is the same as republishing the magazine itself. Photographers claim they should recieve additional compensation for images published on the CD that were published in the orginal magazine articles. IANAL but there is some additional interesting case history in the article as well."
Firstly, IANAL also, but the way I've read this ruling, I see a potentially useful application of it.
/.-ing of various smaller sites, could lead to (hopefully) /. mirroring news stories if they feel the server could go down.
If it is not a breach of copyright to re-publish electronically such as on CD, then that could be taken to mean that mirrors of sites would not be subject to copyright issues - which here, considering the
Only problem I see is that National Geographic had paid copyrights for all of the images once alredy, whereas nothing of the sort will have happened if this appliation...
I'm a third generation photographer. I do mostly art photography in B&W, but my mother is a travel photographer who specializes in just the sort of cutural/anthroplogical images that are likely to appear in NG (although that's one place she hasn't actually been published).
I think this a good ruling. New technologies don't inherently create new copywrite issues at law. A CD republication is just a republication and the current trend to get all weird about it being a digital republication is a bit daft.
We like taking pictures. We sell them. We're perfectly willing to make more money by selling new photographs. The right to publish and republish is the thing the magazine publishers gives us money for. It's a fair deal.
And the added profits obtainable by republication makes the purchase of such photographs more of a viable commercial venture for the publisher in the first place.
On the whole I think a client base with loose purse strings is preferable to one who resents opening it up.
Not to mention the fact that it makes a better deal for the consumer as well, which can only help everyone in the long run.
KFG
Arguing that the CD is the same as the magazine is akin to saying since my subscription entitles me to all issues of the magazine for a certain period, I am owed the CD because it is no different than the magazine and contains the issues that covers my subscription - something I think NGS would disagree with and point out the Cd is a different beast.
Well, "owed" is a bit strong a term. For example, if you own one copy of a magazine, you're not owed a second copy -- whether or not it's in a different format (on a CD).
It would be an interesting legal question on whether or not you could legally make your own COPY of a friend's CD, if you already own the original print version. I'd like to see NGS try to argue both sides of something like that.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan also presided over the 2600 magazine DMCA case, where he famously (and ridiculously) ruled that 2600 could not published the DeCSS code or even link to it.
Anyone seeing a pattern hear (read: "Hi I am Lewis Kaplan and I love big corporations.")
I agree with the article's comment that a Supreme Court appeal is almost inevitable, given the apparent contradiction between this decision and New York Times v. Tasini. The judge made some effort to create space between his ruling and Tasini, but I just don't really see it -- and I especially don't see any way of formulating a consistent policy which is capable of distinguishing between the two different rulings on any kind of general basis.
I think that this one's going straight to the Supreme Court, and I think it's likely that Tasini will prevail, and that this decision will be overturned.
On the other hand, as time goes by, this will make less and less of a difference: In the wake of Tasini (indeed, even before Tasini), publishers have been changing their freelance contract terms to specifically include inclusion in future media collections. The main impact of these decisions, one way or the other, will continue to be on publications with considerable libraries of back issues which have some potential commercial value -- like National Geographic and The New York Times, of course, but also Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Time and Life, The New Yorker, and a few others (some of which may already have had freelance contracts structured in a sufficiently different way to leave them already in the clear, of course).
The way that the photographers could get around this is to license their works -- pull what the music and software industry does. Then, NGS and other magizines that get a wild hair and want to do something like put the articles on a CD-Rom would not have rights to use the photos but a license. Then the photographers would have to include a provision saying that the photos are licensed for printing on paper only with express language stating that CD-Rom's and online libraries are not allowed with out another license.
Now, whether or not the people using the photos will agree is another story. But the main thing is that it would chill such behavior.
Doesn't the photographers have some sort of Gild that protects their intrests in cases like this? I am not saying that I agree with their position; I could actually care less. But it seems like a little creative laywering could stop cases like this from ever reaching the courts.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
First, think of the information that is "gone" from the normal person. How long does a library keep a magazine?
When a student can go to a primary source of information, like a news report of a historical event (with pictures), it is much more valuable than a liberal/conservation/sanitized/biased textbook.
Technically speaking, it is quite fun for electronic students to find Nuts and Volts, Popular Electronics, etc. It primes their brains for innovation.
Let knowledge be free! If you sign a new contract, make sure your lawyers are getting you what you deserve!
The estate of the guy that composed the music in Disney's Jungle Book sued Disney for not paying out royalties on the VHS, DVDs, CDs, etc, which were put out with that music. Disney's stance is that, since the contract did not specify VHS, DVD, CDs, etc, they are not obligated to pay royalties on anything but the film itself.
Somebody can score some easy karma by providing a link- Im to lazy to use google at the moment.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Please keep in mind that these are not just photos. The photos are part of magazine pages that are in turn part of issues of the magazine. The court compared the CD to bound copies of the various volumes of the magazine with added indexes, which process has been going on forever and no-one ever suggested they were in a new format. Neither has anyone ever suggested that microfilm copies of said magazines were in a new format. The disconnect is that most folks think of computers as a visual medium, like TV, rather than a print medium, like, well, printing. But microfilm is not a print medium either, it is a photographic medium. So the distinction being drawn by the photographers is between film and computer images, a rather thin line to try to define. Now if the CDs contained high quality TIFF images, there would be more of a distinction, in that the photos could actually be used to make new high quality printed images. This process might even run afoul of the DMCA (God forbid!).
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
This was an interesting (and pretty short) read, referencing a few important cases. Bottom line: Is a CD of all National Geographic issues, with a search engine, a new product or is a a new version of an existing product?
The judge in this latest case compared it to a book of multiple issues of the magazine, with each page printed as it originally had been, and also containing an index in the back to make it easy to find things.
The fact that the content has been digitized, and the fact that this convenient format makes the magazines attractive to a much wider audience, were found to be irrelevant.
That's a very interesting point, and one that I think I agree with. My first impression would have probably been that this is a new product, but I can definitely see how it's a new version of a product they already produced, and that National Geographic should be allowed to do this type of thing with their content. Of course, if they had to pay all the photographers again, or even get their permission, the consumer would lose because they would never be able to do this type of thing.
RP
It's okay to digitally 're-publish' pictures (photographs) from an analog medium (paper) without paying copyright, yet at the same time it's NOT okay to 're-publish' sound (recordings or radio broadcasts) from an analog medium (a radio station) without paying copyright (TWICE!). If I recall, isn't this a 100% opposite decision from what the Copyright Tribunal ruled with regards to radio stations streaming on the web? You know - the decision that took 95% of them off the web a couple of years ago? Thuis sounds (pardon the pun) like one hand doesn't know what the other is doing, copyright wise.