Court Ruling Limits Copyright Claims

Spamicles writes "A federal appellate panel in Atlanta has reversed its circuit's 6-year-old opinion in a major copyright case, declaring the ruling's mandate on behalf of freelance photographers to be "moot." Until now, publishers could be forced to share with freelancers whenever they reproduce and sell those freelancers' previously published works in merchandise designed for computer access. The new ruling says that reproduction on a CD or other media is not a new use of formerly published issues. The full court decision (pdf) is available online, and Law.com has an analysis of the ruling's repercussions."

Comments

Er, contracts?

[Fishbulb]

Well, it should depend strictly on the contract the freelancer signs with the publisher, period.

However, in general if the publisher gets paid, the freelancer (regardless of the work done) ought to get paid as well.

Lesson: get it in writing!

Less Laws, More Justice?

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

this may sound off topic at first, but I think I have a relevant observation - please bear with me.

I was in a parking lot at a local shopping center the other day. I saw a person come speeding out of a lane and almost hit another car. There was screeching brakes, blaring horns and unfriendly exchanges between drivers, but there was no collision.

This got me thinking: have I ever seen a collision in a parking lot? Of course they happen, but neither my wife nor I could recall having ever seen one. I would propose that collisions are more common (statistically) on the road.

One could assume that because parking lots are slow-driving zones that drivers have more time to react to situations. I would propose, however, that it is the lack of explicit (imo overwhelming) signage and laws which allow (force) people to take responsibility for themselves. People need to negotiate between each other without the ability to hide behind a stop sign or a no-u-turn sign.

My point is that I think laws are good to a point: after that point laws will become burdens to the very safety they were created to protect.

I applaud any action which intends to help the current nutty copyright situation, however I think adding more laws ("signs") would only cause more collisions, ultimately.

In this case a ruling is overturned (if I'm not totally off, it was essentially done-away-with) which would seem to result in less law. As per my above observation, I think this is good.

Re:Less Laws, More Justice?

[mcmonkey]

In this case a ruling is overturned (if I'm not totally off, it was essentially done-away-with) which would seem to result in less law. As per my above observation, I think this is good.

I don't think the analogy holds in this case. The presumption for most traffic laws is no one wants to hit another car or purposely hit a pedestrian. Traffics laws are instructive to help us all get along on the road.

In this case, the corporation doesn't mind hitting the freelancer. In fact, it will hit him, throw the thing into reverse, and do it again, if it is to its advantage. The law should be protective, not instructive.

In the case of a freelance photographer and National Geographic, I agree transfer between mediums shouldn't be an issue. If the magazine wants to sell a collections of issues on CD-ROM, the original agreement should hold. But the issue for the photographer in this case was not a simple transfer of the original photographs from print to CD, but a change from the context of the magazine to a special presentation produced exclusively for the CD-ROM.

Here is a better analogy: music sampling. I sample someone's song on my CD. Should I get an OK from the copyright holder on the song or from the record company that did the distribution? (These may be the same entity, but in this case let's assume not.)

The ruling in this case says I only need to go to the distributor. Although the original intent may have been to only release these sounds in the context of the song as a unit, the distributor can now change the context of the distribution. The photographer may have intended to release his pictures in the context of the magazine, the distributor is now free to change that context in any manner.

This ruling just reinforces that fact that the current copyright system heavily favors distributors (such as publishers and record companies) to the determent of the content producers (writers, photographers, musicians).

(BTW, I have seen, and been involved in, several parking lot collisions. But I agree with your general premise on why there aren't more collisions in parking lots.)

Title is Misleading

[asphaltjesus]

They are "limiting" copyright in what, to me looks pretty harmful to the photographer.

Media conglomerate acquires an image from a photographer. Specific rights are normally spelled out in the contract for the image. I have personally seen contracts that forbid re-purposing. With this ruling the media conglomerate is granted all rights automagically.

I'd like to hear from some pro photographers though.

I support this

[crow]

If I understand this correctly, it means that, for example, a magazine publisher can put out an electronic archive of past issues without having to negotiate the rights with everyone who contributed material to the relevant issues. I've had a couple of magazine articles published, so this could impact me, but I still think it's a reasonable ruling. Similarly, they shouldn't have to renegotiate rights to music and such when putting out old TV shows on DVD. This is especially true with the new media didn't exist when the original work was produced (so they didn't think to include it in the contract to begin with).

LOL

[Colin Smith]

...in the coffin for the argument that these laws and regulations protect creators and innovators. Any laws. All laws are there for the benefit of the people who buy them.