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CBS Sues Man For Copyright Over Screenshots of 59-year-old TV Show (arstechnica.com)
CBS has sued a photographer for copyright infringement for publishing a still image from a 59-year-old television show. From a report: The lawsuit against New York photojournalist Jon Tannen, filed on Friday, is essentially a retaliatory strike. Tannen sued CBS Interactive in February, claiming that the online division of CBS had used two of his photographs without permission. Now, CBS has sued Tannen back, claiming that he "hypocritically" used CBS' intellectual property "while simultaneously bringing suit against Plaintiff's sister company, CBS Interactive Inc., claiming it had violated his own copyright." "Without any license or authorization from Plaintiff, Defendant has copied and published via social media platforms images copied from the Dooley Surrenders episode of GUNSMOKE," write CBS lawyers. CBS is asking for $150,000 in damages for willful infringement.
What has to actually change to prevent these kind of out of proportion, justice and claims?
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
Live by the $150,000 sword, die by the same as the saying goes.
People who live in glass houses and all that.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Besides the pettiness on display, this is one more reminder that copyright should expire. Two decades is plenty, none of this this absurd perpetual copyright nonsense. Of course, I don't have as much money as the Mouse and his cohorts, so that won't happen for a while
must get off on this kind of thing - got nothing better to do?
Should tilt his/her head to one side, so the brain collects more on one side, and maybe....
Just because it's fair use doesn't mean you can't be sued.
For the record, Gunsmoke is an awesome show. When my grandfather came over here from Sicily, he learned English from watching westerns on TV. He made me watch every episode of Gunsmoke in reruns (and Rawhide).
My friends would come over and we'd all end up watching with grandpa. We used to laugh hysterically when he said, "buckaroo" with his thick Sicilian accent.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This was petty payback by the CBS legal department because the guy sued CBS for using his copyright photos without approval.
So the lawyer at CBS is suing him for using screenshots. Very petty since everyone shares screenshots and screenshots are not photos.
So fucking petty, and this should be a SLAP lawsuit and the Judge should bitch slap the CBS lawyer for abusing the courts.
How can it be the same? They used his photos - a photo is an entire work - they didn't use part of a photo. He used screen shots of TV shows - a screen shot is not an entire work, and should be subject to fair use.
I blame Disney for this
Yes it is complicated. Fair use law is a bit vague, but it considers the substantiality of reproduction. Using most or all of a work is generally considered infringement, but using a small portion is very often considered fair use, depending on the context of how its used. A single frame from a 20 minute video is about 0.003% of it. That's pretty minor, and would almost always be considered fair use (though there are exceptions, such as commercial usage)
They used his photos - a photo is an entire work - they didn't use part of a photo.
We do not know they used the entire photo, and photos are often part of a series. "Entire work" is not a fact in evidence.
He used screen shots of TV shows - a screen shot is not an entire work,
A "TV show" consists of a series of photographs displayed in relatively rapid sequence. A screenshot is one photo from the series. Once again, "entire work" is an interesting phrase but not completely relevant.
and should be subject to fair use.
"Fair use" depends not on the source but on the use. Is "getting revenge on CBS" one of the fair use exceptions?
and then he'd have the amo to get his case won but the tripple the amount.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Such flagrant and legally accepted abuse of the idea of intellectual property by CBS make me feel justified for holding it in utter contempt.
Rule 35 of the internet: "If it can be hacked, it will be". - Charles Stross
Such a government would get kicked out of the WTO for flagrantly violating the TRIPS agreement and see its international trade terms with the developed world quickly demoted to one step above that of state sponsors of terrorism.
Let's see how far you get in your own musical career when *you* have to pay royalties on every three word sequence or three note combination that some other musician has used before... Long expansive copyright harms almost all creative people even if it benefits a very few lottery winners.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The work itself consists of "all of the frames" put together as a whole.
One to three? even a hundred stills out of literally millions of frames? Most definitely fair use, and CBS is gonna lose, bigtime.
In fact, I cancelled my subscription to CBS ALL Access, even though I'm a huge Star Trek fan, I won't subsidize CBS's criminal behavior.
Remove your head from your ass.
Of course the copyright is for the entire fucking work you dipshit.
Do you think the Copyright office is going to stand around stamping "Copyrighted" on every frame of every movie or television show? A 60 minute television episode uses 86,400 frames, a 3 hour, 58 minute movie, like Gone with the Wind was roughly 342720 frames.
FYI: Most of those works were filmed @ 24FPS, a 1 hour show would use approximately 86,400 frames
Of course the copyright office wasn't going to assign 60 clerks to stand there for months, if not years copyrighting each and every frame, one by one. (Are you really that much of a blithering idiot, or was your momma and dadda both brother and sister, as well as first cousins, or are you your own grandpa?)
The entire work is what is copyrighted. Even if he had several hundred photos of the work playing on screen, CBS doesn't have a leg, chair or wheel-chair to stand/sit on. If they'd used even a hundred frames, that would represent only 0.1157% of the whole.
Cut that down to 10 or less frames "used", and that is a whole lot less, at 0.01157% or smaller down to 0.001157% of the whole for a single frame.
So yeah, fair use, by anyone's definitition if you could somehow wrangle the truth out of the corporate asshats that are paid to lie, cheat, steal any way they can, which appears to be CBS's M.O. here.
Throw it out now. Wastin' tax payers money.
Thank fucking god I didn't sign up to that shithole company for Star Trek Discovery. I'd feel like an ass for rewarding them now.
A "TV show" would also usually contain a recording of sound that would be played along the photographs. As far as I know, this part was missing entirely from the screen shot shared.
We do not know they used the entire photo, and photos are often part of a series. "Entire work" is not a fact in evidence.
No. Photos are sometimes part of a series. The vast majority of photos aren't.
Fun fact:
The classic Tubgirl photo that has been floating around on internet is actually part of a series of photographs.
In that series it is clarified that the liquid in the most known image is in fact orange juice.
It is one of many cases where a single image have more impact when shown alone rather than part of the series due to the amount of disinformation incomplete images can convey.
Ok, so CBS doesn't want journalists to use pictures of their show, or other potentially copyright able content, like the names of characters, plot synopses, branding & logos.
Let's have _every_ publication adhere to that. See how long his nonsense lasts.
"For works made for hire and anonymous and pseudonymous works, the duration of copyright is 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter (unless the author's identity is later revealed in Copyright Office records, in which case the term becomes the author's life plus 70 years)."
from copyright.gov
The U.S. Constitution specifically gives the federal government the power to establish a patent office, and copyright law. (Article I Section 8. Clause 8 ) -"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
so from a conceptual standpoint, if you write something and never publish it (at least in the United States) it is still covered by copyright during your lifetime no matter what you do. It is not possible for an individual to place something in the public domain - but you can give away your work if you like (conceptually the difference between "free as in beer" and "free as in speech" - maybe?)
It is important to remember that there are no "copyright police" enforcing copyright law en masse. If you create something (e.g. novel, song, software) and it is covered by copyright - it is your responsibility to protect your copyright. A very good way of proving that you created something is to register a copyright (for example in the United States) - then if someone steals your work, you can whip out your registration and prove you created it
while I'm bloviating - from an academic standpoint there is an obvious difference between "plagiarism" and "copyright infringement." If I take a play by William Shakespeare, change the title and slap my name on it, then present it as my own original work - I have committed plagiarism, but not copyright infringement (since Willie's been dead for 400 years and all of his works are in the public domain)
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
Broadcast TV networks in general are a fading image in the public eye. CBS, in particular, has gone out of its way to annoy (Star Trek Discovery) and considers itself a streaming provider. It'll take more than an overproduced sequel of a sequel of a sequel of a sequel to gain enough eyeballs to make it worth their while. They're edging towards irrelevancy and gaining speed.