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

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.

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.