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.

Comments

How long will this nonsense continue?

[Skinkie]

What has to actually change to prevent these kind of out of proportion, justice and claims?

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sending all the lawyers to the bottom of the ocean would be a good start.

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[Anonymous Coward]

If there was no payout to lawyers for enabling this garbage it would go away

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[alexo]

What has to actually change to prevent these kind of out of proportion, justice and claims?

Human nature.

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[Kaenneth]

Copyright being limited to 25 years.

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[Tjp($)pjT]

Looks like a candidate for being considered a SLAPP suit. Joe Tanner should amend his complaint and request both cases be merged and his damages requested be raised to 100 million as it will irreparably damage his reputation. Or at least present that from his lawyers to CBS's. There is legislation to use to fight SLAPP suits.

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[Gravis Zero]

What has to actually change to prevent these kind of out of proportion, justice and claims?

The election laws in enough places that we can have enough sane representatives to overcome the insane/corrupt ones that are promoted by corporate donations. There are very real ways to change the system but it all comes down to having representatives that represent the people instead of corporations.

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[currently_awake]

It only takes 1 government to retroactively restore copyright to the original duration. We could offer them the same compensation we received when our public domain was taken from us via copyright extension.

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[SuricouRaven]

No, because copyright is governed by international agreements. The shortest they can go is fifty years, under the Berne convention - any less than that would result in the government being sued in international court, and failure to abide by the treaty would result in expulsion from the WTO with devastating economic consequences. For countries in Europe, it's seventy years under the Copyright Duration Directive, or seventy years after the death of the author for works which have an individual individual author

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[Neuronwelder]

Exactly! 2 pictures?? How much more petty will we get? 1 nose hair?

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[Neuronwelder]

I'll see your 25 and offer 10.

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[david_thornley]

In this case, the question is whether CBS pays Jon Tannen for use of his images. The countersuit is an attempt at intimidation. The parties are using the lawyers to get what they want, and the lawyers aren't using the parties to get higher fees.

How and how much the lawyers are paid has nothing to do with these suits.

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[elpgrrrl]

What has to actually change to prevent these kind of out of proportion, justice and claims?

Human nature.

Of course, how could he forget--corporations are people, too.

Re:How long will this nonsense continue?

[alexo]

Corporations are run by people.

Live by the $150,000 sword

[innocent_white_lamb]

Live by the $150,000 sword, die by the same as the saying goes.

People who live in glass houses and all that.

Re:Live by the $150,000 sword

[OverlordQ]

$300k. They used two pictures.

Should be expired

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Should be expired

[omnichad]

So if you write a book and it doesn't get published by any of the publishers you send it to, they can just wait 20 years and print your book for free?

Re:Should be expired

[aitikin]

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

I would argue that two decades is not nearly enough. If I write a piece of music when I'm 17, work the scene for 10 years, get my band to the point where they can be signed, start releasing albums, and the album comes out when I'm 30, the label promotes it when I hit 35, and it turns out to be a hit, I only get royalties for 2 years from when the label starts promoting it. This may sound like an extreme case, but, outside of the pop crap that's written by 10 guys and sung by one girl, this is actually not uncommon.

I'm all for limitations upon copyright, but it has to be done in such a way that it doesn't hurt the content creator...20 year caps means that the corporate entities would start mining 20 year old music for movies and 20 year old novels for scripts.

Re:Should be expired

[angelbar]

Yes... You lost your oportunity... and maybe a big chunk of your life waiting

Re:Should be expired

[msauve]

The problem is you simply don't understand copyright. When you get that hit at 35, the copyright for that recording would still last 20 years, even though the copyright on the tune and lyrics would expire in only two.

Think of Disney, and Snow White. There's no copyright on the Snow White story (Bros. Grimm), but Disney does have a copyright on their cartoon using that story. You can make your own Snow White cartoon, but you can't copy Disney's.

Re:Should be expired

[omnichad]

maybe a big chunk of your life waiting

Waiting? No, you quit trying. You move on because you can't afford to self-publish.

But publishers then have a financial incentive to just sit on manuscripts for 20 years. So the situation would only get better for large corporations.

Re:Should be expired

[omnichad]

The royalties (to the artist) on mechanical reproduction vs. songwriters royalties are much lower because the label owns the recording. Cover songs by other artists get you nothing after that two years. If your song is more popular than you are, you won't even make enough money for the effort to be worthwhile.

Re:Should be expired

[bobbied]

Because it nets them more if they don't have to pay the author, which may make publishing a book profitable when it otherwise wasn't. I don't expect this would be happening very often though.

Re:Should be expired

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe a big chunk of your life waiting

Waiting? No, you quit trying. You move on because you can't afford to self-publish.

But publishers then have a financial incentive to just sit on manuscripts for 20 years. So the situation would only get better for large corporations.

/quote

Simple solution. You own the copyright until you sell it. Once sold it expires in 20 years. No extensions, no resets and after 20 years it goes into public domain.

Re:Should be expired

[Anonymous Coward]

"So if you write a book and it doesn't get published by any of the publishers you send it to, they can just wait 20 years and print your book for free?"

Copyright in the US doesn't work that way, as long as you follow the Rules. One is providing a copy for Registration to the US Copyright Office. This is ironclad. Copyright is automatically granted on creation by Law, but Statutory Damages, that is, Damages awarded above and beyond potential Monetary Damages, usually only applies to Registered Works. Lawyers generally won't bother representing non-Registered works.
Publishing in its entirety without permission is very much against the Rules, something that both Twain and Dickens railed against.
But another Rule applies to Fair Use, and this is evolving. Fair Use for Academic reasons, that is in textbooks or Research papers, is generally allowed, as is Fair Use in commentary; that is, a Still from a TV Show in a larger Work describing Acting or Lighting technique is OK, and in fact, this is also protected by Copyright.
What is a big Nono is distributing that entire TV Show for profit without permission. This is generally considered Piracy, and quite rightly.

Without seeing the full context of the works in question, a case for Fair Use is nothing that we can determine for ourselves. Frankly, Tannen seems to have an excellent case, but not a $150,000 case.
Maybe a $60 each infringement case.
CBS has no case at all, since Tannen apparently in context took full advantage of Fair Use, placing the Still in context of a larger work, that is, a defense of Fair Use itself.
BTW, Dillon was a Murderer, Doc was a Drunk, and Miss Kitty was a Publican/Whoremaster. CBS should not be holding them up as something that they are proud of. Festus... he was an OK dude.

Re:Should be expired

[Alok]

You're really desperate for some argument to justify more than 2 decades of copyright is somehow insufficient.

If any publisher was crazy enough to just 'sit on a manuscript' for 20 years, what stops the author from shopping around and going to other publishers - or nowadays, just self-publishing? Also anyone who tried this would a) be the target of a big lawsuit that would likely bankrupt them; b) Not get any more submissions except from the crappiest and most desperate authors.

As another matter, how many manuscripts do you think are timeless enough to be appreciated on a delayed release of 20 years?

Re:Should be expired

[omnichad]

You're really desperate for some argument to justify more than 2 decades of copyright is somehow insufficient.

Opposite. Just looking for a least-effort example to show how ridiculous it is. 20 years is not a long time. Some projects take that long to complete.

Re:Should be expired

[pr0fessor]

You forgot sign with an indie label for 10 years and you have to wait to put out a new album until the contract expires because the terms where terrible and although your lawyer recommended not signing the 4 other idiots in your band didn't want listen to or understand what the lawyer said and the band voted to sign anyway because they wanted to be able to say they were signed.

Re:Should be expired

[Alok]

In your example, what exactly are you supposed to be doing from 17-35 that you don't have any other output?

Also, I don't get why every piece of music needs to be profitable or have a decade to rake in royalties. There have been games that became popular when their studios were already insolvent or headed there - should they have some special way to increase sales figures because the public appreciation was delayed? There are probably cases where a game studio/dev became a hit, and people discovered his earlier works were also gems ... but because they've aged, the price is discounted in Steam etc. Should there be some legal way for the studio to bump up the price so they can earn the maximum on their earlier works?

Re:Should be expired

[msauve]

So? The exclusivity of copyright isn't in any way a natural law - it's an artificial creation which society provides for a limited time to encourage creation, so that society can afterwards gains from unrestricted use of that work. Nobody writes a song assuming an ROI covering more than 20 years. Copyright doesn't need to be longer than that (or the original 14 + one 14 year renewal, which I support) in order to encourage creation of new works. Current term is life of the author plus 70 years. Would you at least agree that is too long?

There's no reason for Beatles songs to still be under copyright, either songwriting or performance. Same for Disney's Snow White. It's long past time for society to get paid for providing those exclusive rights to begin with.

Copyrights are automatic at the time of creation. A patent is much more effort to obtain, not just the idea but the documentation and process. Yet they last only 20 years. And there's no lack of new inventions because of it.

Re:Should be expired

[bobbied]

How about lifetime of an individual creator unless its ownership is transferred or assigned, in which case the copyright expires in 25 years from the first transfer date. Copyrights held by more than one individual (such as a company or corporation) only get 25 years from the creation date.

That way the creator is protected for their life, then upon their death it transfers to their estate and is protected for 25 years from that date.

A transfer is any change in ownership or contract (other than a will) to transfer ownership, in whole or in part, of the copyright of a work regardless of if it's compensated or not. This way you cannot promise to assign your copyright at your death or some later date for compensation today as a way to extend the length of the copyright.

Re:Should be expired

[farble1670]

the 4 other idiots in your band didn't want listen

What about the one idiot that hitched their wagon to 4 other idiots?

Don't expect copyright law, or any law, to dig you out of your bad decisions.

Re:Should be expired

[Calydor]

If the book is worth publishing, some publisher will pick it up. As an example, look at how many times J.K.Rowling had to submit Harry Potter before someone published it - but eventually someone did because they saw potential for earnings TODAY.

If the book is not worth publishing, waiting 20 years won't make it any more worth publishing - and comes with the constant risk that someone somewhere takes a chance on it first.

Publishing is a seller's market. If one publisher says no, you shrug and submit to the next one, and the next, and the next.

Re:Should be expired

[srmalloy]

And that's another problem with copyright as it's been implemented. When you publish a work, you are contracting with the government to protect your work for the period of copyright at the time you publish the work; if the term of copyright is later extended, it should not retroactively apply to already-published work. Those works were published with the full knowledge and agreement of the creator knowing what the term of protection was; if they weren't satisfied with the term of protection, they were free not to publish.

Re:Should be expired

[farble1670]

Should there be some legal way for the studio to bump up the price so they can earn the maximum on their earlier works?

Pretty sure the studio can sell licenses to their games at any price they like. If you meant go back and change the terms of a sale they've already completed, no, of course they can't do that and I don't see how that's relevant.

Re:Should be expired

[St.Creed]

Some projects take that long to complete.

Do you work for Accenture by any chance?

Re: Should be expired

[St.Creed]

How about they make a law where we repossess your wife? I mean, one failed analogy leads to another, right? It's a slippery slope down the hill of bad arguments.

Re: Should be expired

[Swave An deBwoner]

I don't like the present system of copyright extensions but your examples are of concrete objects. The actual house, chair, wiring, and ore are singular items.

However the design of the house, chair, and possibly wiring, may be subject to some sort of copyright or patent protection, so in that sense I guess that they are similar to a book or a movie.

Re: Should be expired

[Anonymous Coward]

If a bricklayer builds a house, is that bricklayer entitled to be paid for 20 years for the one house? If a woodworker builds a chair, is that woodworker paid for that one chair for 20 years? If an electrician wires a house, does that electrician get paid for that house for 20 years? If a miner digs up an ounce of ore, is that miner paid for that ore for 20 years? If a farmer plants some grain, is that farmer paid for that grain for 20 years?

All great questions. The bricklayer, woodworker, electrician, farmer etc. all get paid for way longer than 20 years. They get paid for 40 to 50 years for doing a job that is relatively simple to them, but hard for a layperson like you and me, because we don't have the skill. So the 5 years or so these tradesmen spend in learning their skills repays them over their working lives and that is quite a return in investment compared to minimum wage for unskilled workers.

The jobs these skilled workers do does not have repeat value. You lay a brick and that's useful for only the one house. You build a chair that's useful for only the one customer that bought the chair. The electrician's work is only useful for the house he wired.

A creative work, like a book's manuscript, OTOH, has repeat value. The manuscript is like a template for all the physical paperbacks and hardcover books sold in bookstores. So the author's book manuscript can be used to sell thousands or millions of physical books. For each book that is sold, the author gets 5% to 10% of the retail price; the bookstore and the publisher split the rest. The author is paid a royalty for each book because he is largely responsible for the profit of the sale of each book.

Non-creative, but skilled work like the electrician's and bricklayer's work, has no repeat value and is therefore paid only a fixed amount over cost.

Re: Should be expired

[Dragonslicer]

That would require massive collusion amongst every publisher. If you could demonstrate that actually happening, the FTC would probably love to hear about it.

Re:Should be expired

[Tjp($)pjT]

The argument of course is was Joe Tanner's use, fair use. It certainly was not a threat to the original work. If anything it raised interest in it. But one frame of a TV show in a social media post would be hard to be anything but fair use. But not a lawyer, do deal with IP, but a Judge and Jury will decide ... unless the judge outright admonishes CBS for filing a frivolous lawsuit themselves.

Re:Should be expired

[youngone]

Some projects take that long to complete.

Why would that affect the length of the copyright period?
The clock doesn't start when the project is started.

Re:Should be expired

[currently_awake]

99% of copyright revenue happens in the first 7 years. Your hypothetical band would make more money touring for 18 years than the big record label would pay in 30. https://bandzoogle.com/blog/re...

Re:Should be expired

[gumbi west]

Politicians aren't bought and paid for in DC, it mainly happens in your home district. DC is just the place that has to accept them after you vote them off your island.

Re:Should be expired

[gumbi west]

I agree with you completely. The best argument for copyright is that e.g. the Simpson's characters are over 30 now and so their images could appear on unlicensed materials now, and in unlicensed poses. So, Fox would be producing a show and others could use images from that show to make fun of it or degrade it.

At the same time, I kind of don't care, and maybe Fox should move on anyways.

Re:Should be expired

[Maxo-Texas]

Most books are going to be worthless after 20 years. They are a product of their times.

The old and the sea would disappear without a splash into the ocean of content today.

The hunger games would be hopelessly out of touch with public mood after 2 decades.

Anything about the present day would be completely worthless just a year or two later.

So yea, I guess there might be some way publishers would sit on books for 2 decades and then risk a lot of money to publish them. But after they sat on just a few dozen of the books they received, people would start sending their books to other publishers. And people would require much bigger up front fees from publishers and less of the profits.

Re:Should be expired

[AvitarX]

Bug publishers have minimal incentive to publish unheard of public domain, I don't buy your premise.

Re:Should be expired

[omnichad]

Are you saying something isn't protected by copyright when it's under development? I think it is. It's not first to publish - it's when it's created - no one can take your draft and publish it as their own.

Re: Should be expired

[omnichad]

Collusion or standard practice? The cable companies aren't being accused of collusion when they slice up the US by region.

Re:Should be expired

[omnichad]

Is the Linux Kernel "finished"? Or is it copyrighted?

The GPL is meaningless when every major project is in the public domain by now.

Re:Should be expired

[omnichad]

That would be a trademark violation.

Re: Should be expired

[Dragonslicer]

They probably could be, but since they're already government-sanctioned monopolies, clearly the rules don't apply to them anyway.

Re:Should be expired

[youngone]

That makes no sense, as others have pointed out here. It's also wrong and as an argument is poorly thought out.

Re:Should be expired

[ChrisMaple]

Most novelists can crank out at least one book a year. Some plots have technical angles (like cell phones) that if delayed 20 years make the book look stupid. Slang changes, same effect. Much fiction and even more nonfiction declines substantially in value over 20 years.

Re: Should be expired

[ChrisMaple]

Paying authors once for a work of fiction, as an industry standard, greatly increases the risk to publishers and disconnects popular sales (the primary measure of a book's worth) from the author's reward. It would result in more books being written to appeal to a publisher's taste than to popular taste.

Re:Should be expired

[ChrisMaple]

The Simpsons are already degraded.

Re:Should be expired

[tepples]

The Supreme Court of the U.S. refused to allow use of the Lanham Act to extend the effective term of exclusive rights in a copyrighted work in Dastar v. Fox .

Re:Should be expired

[mysidia]

Waiting? No, you quit trying. You move on because you can't afford to self-publish.

The speculation: "You can't afford to self-publish" doesn't hold water anymore. You can self-publish basically for free these days ;
  there are PLENTY of options to market your works thanks to eBooks, Amazon, Lulu, Apple iTunes, and on-demand printing options.

Then that should factor into your calculation before submitting to a publisher.

Re:Should be expired

[mysidia]

Are you saying something isn't protected by copyright when it's under development?

It's called "Unpublished work", and unpublished work if properly noticed is still subject to copyright protections, BUT the expiration timer doesn't start ticking until after copies of the work have been sold or publicly distributed ("publication").

Re:Should be expired

[omnichad]

That was a copyright claim with someone using the original work. We're (partly) talking about new works with trademarked characters. And characters are not just protected by Copyright. At least when they're in your logo or used as your mascot. That's nothing to do with recreating prints of original drawings or freely copying old episodes that are out of copyright.

I say this, but we all know the real reason Disney is remaking all their old cartoons with live action characters.

Re:Should be expired

[omnichad]

You can self-publish basically for free these days

Publishing in the traditional sense, meaning that it includes marketing and promotion - neither of which are now free.

Re: Should be expired

[yndrd1984]

Homeowners shall pay each tradesman who built their house in perpetuity, because there's still value in the fact that it's a house, after all! Don't like it? Well, that's just like being forced to renew ownership of your car!

So you've never heard of renting a house or leasing a car? Weird.

You do realize that you can purchase a copyright, as well as make lots of other arrangements, right?

Re:Should be expired

[ch0knuti]

20 years is not a long time. Some projects take that long to complete.

Wow never knew that G.R.R. Martin's slashdot nick was omnichad. So how's "The Winds of Winter" coming along?

Re:Should be expired

[mysidia]

Publishing in the traditional sense, meaning that it includes marketing and promotion - neither of which are now free.

You don't get Marketing and Promotion for free even if you do go with a traditional publisher ---- It will come out of your profits upfront; You'lll actually pay the cost of promotion AND THEN some one way or another, even if you don't self-publish.

Marketing and promotion of your self-published product is not massively expensive.

Re:Should be expired

[SuricouRaven]

That's not how copyright works. Only the version from twenty years ago would be in the public domain. That's why you often see software with a copyright notice listing a range of years - it means that not all parts were written at the same time.

Re:Should be expired

[JonnyCalcutta]

Why would a publisher wait 20 years to print a book which is now out of copyright and therefore freely available to everyone, including other publishers?

Re:Should be expired

[omnichad]

Where free means no out of pocket cost. Come on, you know what I mean.

Marketing and promotion of your self-published product is not massively expensive.

Citation needed. Especially if you're not a publisher and don't have any industry contacts.

Re: Should be expired

[yndrd1984]

You've never heard of paying perpetual royalties to the people who built your home? Wierd.

That's usually called 'rent', but yes.

You've never heard of being denied making modifications to your home under federal law, or having anti terrorism resources dedicated to making sure you live in your home as the home builder intended?

It's usually more local ordinances, but yes. If I rent a house rather than buying, I have the right to hang pictures but not knock out walls, I can throw parties there but not run a business. If I want to own it myself, I have to buy it.

You know, there's lots of ideas that only come through copyright law, which is why companies are trying desperately to redefine physical goods as intellectual ones -- because you can own your home, but not if home builders can sneak in just the right poison pill to change your home into an intellectual property work

There are plenty of reforms I'd like to see in copyright law, including real limits on how long they last. But ownership of physical goods that people rent out lasts longer than copyright - it's literally perpetual.

Re:Should be expired

[pr0fessor]

That was my younger brother's band. He didn't want to sign he new it was a bad deal and he took the band to see his lawyer and he agreed.

They initially self published and my brother insisted they do it right and file the copyright on everything before releasing it the label approached them after they opened for HellYeah the second date on their small mid-west tour they had planned. Which is good because I'm sure the label would have tried to own the copyright instead of just getting distribution rights for the duration of the contract.

Re:Should be expired

[Zarquon]

If the book is good, why would they wait 20 years to publish it, and forego profits from the next 20 books? It takes time and money to generate interest in an author; one hit wonders are fairly rare.

-R C

Re:Should be expired

[afgun]

*cough* Rothfuss *cough*

Re: Should be expired

[Quirkz]

I see this every time.

"I have an analogy for one business model. Thus, no other business model is valid."

I mean, clearly everyone pays one time for everything. Thus, renting a place to live should not be allowed. Why should they pay every month?

Why should anyone pay their cable bill every month? What if they didn't watch as much this month as last month, shouldn't they pay less?

Re:Should be expired

[Quirkz]

At 30 years, that's a whole generation. I'd say that's more than enough time. Season 1 ought to be free for all to watch and share, any time they like.

Re:Should be expired

[gumbi west]

If it was just about season 1, yeah. It's about the characters. Remember, Sherlock Holmes was still covered by copyright (you couldn't use the character) because the last book's copyright was still valid (until a few years ago). So, you couldn't use the character in stories without a license.

Re:Should be expired

[david_thornley]

Extended copyright hurts lots and lots of people in indirect ways, usually not too badly. Extended copyright benefits a few people a lot in direct ways. Therefore, the ones that benefit have good reason to pressure politicians to extend it, while the ones that suffer consider it a very minor issue if they worry about it at all.

To be honest, a promise to help drop copyright back to death plus 50 would have very little effect on my decision to vote for someone, as there's numerous other issues I care more about.

Re:Should be expired

[david_thornley]

20 years is not a long time. Some projects take that long to complete.

Since we're talking about copyright, and hence creativity, projects that take that long are normally not done for money. Nobody pushes get-rich-slow schemes. People do take more than twenty years to write books are typically not in it to get rich.

Moreover, if the clock starts on release, it doesn't matter how long the project took. It used to be that the copyright clock started on registration, which probably had to be reasonably close to release time. We'd probably want protection for unreleased works, but that's the same problem we had earlier with sensible copyright laws.

Re:Should be expired

[david_thornley]

Publishers advance authors money, both in giving advances and in paying for expenses and expecting to be recouped (on the average) through money that could otherwise go to royalties. With self-publishing, you don't get the up front money and resources, but you get to keep a lot more of the sale price.

If you're self-publishing nowadays, it's probably out as an ebook, which means you don't deal with bookstores and distribution systems. You have to get reader interest in your book, and I'm not sure publishers have that great an advantage to make self-publicity a big problem.

Re: Should be expired

[david_thornley]

Correct, but it's worse than that.

The only revenue stream to pay authors with is the sale of books, which is highly reliable if there is no copyright. Assuming copyright is held by the publisher, the publisher needs to make money off each upcoming sale. Why should we assign this role to the publisher and not the author? We've just kicked the can a sidewalk square down the street.

If we drop copyright with this scheme, somebody has to pay the publisher and the author, and this will be disconnected from future revenue streams. With rare exceptions, the only entity that does that sort of the thing is the government. No matter how much you favor big government, this is not something government should be involved in.

Every publication is a potential political football. Was the application denied? Approved? Politics! It would put the government in the position of having to regulate our literature by political expediency.

George Bernard Shaw wrote about this. He wrote plays, and needed a government license for each play. He simply didn't write some plays he wanted to, because he knew getting a license would be politically impossible. Some plays he couldn't have performed intact in the UK. Biting political satire would result in a license to produce the play without the satire. He wrote a play once about the German invasion of England. It got a license. It was therefore a diplomatic incident, since the German government saw this as the British government fear-mongering.

Re: Should be expired

[david_thornley]

How about they make a law allowing us to shoot sufficiently stupid Anonymous Cowards?

Nobody's talking about any law that would take anything away from the author. Copyright is not the normal state of affairs. It's counter to free speech and freedom of the press, and is only legal in the US because the Constitution specifically allows it. Nor does any ownership terminate when copyright expires. Everybody owns the exact same stuff.

Re:Should be expired

[omnichad]

Even if the clock starts on release, 20 years of income for 20 years of work is just barely a minimum.

Re: Should be expired

[david_thornley]

Woodworkers get paid for making chairs. Cool. They get paid by people who want chairs, and have no cheaper way to get the ones they want than paying the woodworker. This works.

Who pays an author for writing a book? Without copyright, once you have a copy, you can give copies to everybody and their uncle, and nobody buys it, because copying is far cheaper than having the author write another book. There's no revenue stream to pay anybody. So, please tell me who should pay the author, and out of what money?

Re: Should be expired

[david_thornley]

Car: something I own. (A red 2017 Subaru Forester, if you're interested.) File containing novel that's probably not good enough to be published: something I own.

Suppose I email you a copy of "The Empty God" (2013 Nanowrimo success). I still have everything I had. I still own the computer, the file, However, you can make a copy of the file. It won't affect me. I won't be aware of it. Now, I've opened up that possibility by letting you have a copy. You will find it easy to make indefinitely many copies and distribute them.

Now, suppose I let you borrow my car. I don't have my car. You do. You return it, and then you don't have it, but I do. You can't copy it while it's in your possession (at least not without paying far more than it would cost for you to go to a Subaru dealer and buy your own).

Now, suppose you bought your own Forester and have a copy of my novel. You can legally do as you like with the car, subject to the usual restrictions (vehicular homicide is still a no-no). You can't legally do as you like with your copy. In particular, you can't copy it and distribute it legally, although there's no technological reason for the restriction. Your right of free speech is limited when it comes to the novel. You don't have freedom of the press to print it. I'm using the legal system to restrict what you can do with your property.

Re:Should be expired

[david_thornley]

No, the estate claimed that he was still under copyright. I found this techdirt article that explains that the courts told the estate that they were wrong. Anyone could legally use the character; they just couldn't use a significant amount of anything in the final ten stories until they went out of copyright.

Now, this doesn't mean you couldn't be sued for using him without a license. It does mean that you'd win the case.

Re:Should be expired

[Maxo-Texas]

Limited copyright is granted to encourage works to enter the public domain.

But sure.. there are lots of worthless works that I woudn't personally care if they were in copyright for infinity.

Right now copyright is broken. My view is works should become public domain 28 years with an annual tax based on a percentage of profits. If you dont pay the annual taxes, then the work becomes public domain after 14 years.

The current system is stifling works from entering the public domain.

Re:Should be expired

[Maxo-Texas]

Most works become classics because they were really popular at the time. It's much less common for works to become popular later. I know from personal experience with television that there are some real gems out there that were cancelled after 13 episodes (battle creek, the finder) and they are not going to suddenly become popular with the public 20 years from now.

On modern interpretation- couldn't agree more.

For those who are left in 100 years, star wars will be retold differently. And shakespeare will be told differently.

Re:Should be expired

[gumbi west]

Their loss is recent. They successfully argued the case e.g. against TNG which later licensed Sherlock several seasons later.

Re:Should be expired

[david_thornley]

Nobody starts an art project on the grounds that they might make money forty years in the future. Art projects that take twenty years are done for love, not cash. It's a good thing to reward artists of all sorts, but twenty years is going to motivate all the ones motivated by money.

Miss Kitty

[PopeRatzo]

images copied from the Dooley Surrenders episode of GUNSMOKE

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.

Re:Miss Kitty

[tquasar]

Grazie PopeRatzo. Gunsmoke is still aired on TV where I live and my grandparents emigrated from Sweden and Czechoslovakia. One became a bank vice president in Iron Mountain Michigan, the other worked building cars for Nash Motors in Kenosha, Wisconsin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Miss Kitty

[Brett Buck]

Also for the record, the radio version of Gunsmoke was arguably even better. Many times, innocent people get killed horribly or pointlessly, the bad guys get away, and the show just ends that way. The producers of the radio show resisted making a TV show because they knew they would water it down, which led to them having it taken away from them and getting watered down.

      Even the last episode was entirely matter-of-fact. Dillon had to evict someone from a farm for a minor problem with the paperwork that could easily have been worked out, had the guy who was taking advantage of them even slightly compromised, but didn't. Dillon refused to evict them. Eventually they send a deputy sheriff out to do it, he locks them up. It gets worked out, but asks, "hey won't you get in trouble for that?" and he says "Yes. I always wanted to know what California was like, anyway". End of show, end of series nothing else, after 10 years.

Re:Miss Kitty

[PopeRatzo]

Also for the record, the radio version of Gunsmoke was arguably even better.

Oh yes, William Conrad as Matt Dillon I learned about the radio version as an adult and listened to every one. It had an existential feel to it that was unsurpassed in westerns until the Rawhide series.

Rawhide was the most existential TV show. It was a cattle drive that was going to Sedalia, but never got there. It had a dark, haunted look to it that is still effective. If I remember correctly, after season six, Rawhide got a new producer and they had an episode where they actually made it to Sedalia. The show went downhill from there. But those first five seasons are some of the best Westerns in TV or movies.

Lawyer payback

[BrookHarty]

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.

Re:Lawyer payback

[slew]

screenshots are not photos

They are reproductions of frames from somebody's film or video production. Copyright law is there to prevent people from reproducing your work in whole or in part without your permission. A screen shot is a reproduction of part of the work. How are you not getting this?

Although copyrights technically apply, I suspect this would fall under a "fair-use" exemptions of the copyright statutes. A "fair-use" would be copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses are allowed without permission from the copyright owner.

Posting screen shots of TV shows on social media for the purpose of commenting on them has long been considered "fair-use" as far as I know...

Re:Lawyer payback

[PhunkySchtuff]

There's this pesky little thing called "fair use"
https://fairuse.stanford.edu/o...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Lawyer payback

[Obfuscant]

Very petty since everyone shares screenshots and screenshots are not photos.

No, not everyone shares screenshots. And digital images are not photos, they are a digital representation of an image. Everyone shares "photos", so why is the photographer's suit not harassment, too?

I think "live by the sword, die by the sword" is an applicable saying.

Re:Lawyer payback

[PhunkySchtuff]

The smaller the percentage of a work used, the more likely it is to fall under fair use provisions. As a rule of thumb, the use of up to 10% of a work us usually considered fair use (depending, of course, on the context in which it's used).

Using a single still frame from a motion picture is a fraction of a percent and is highly unlikely to be prosecuted as copyright infringement.

Re:Lawyer payback

[Zxern]

Pretty simple really, CBS used the entirety of his work for commercial purposes.

He used a single frame to comment on a commercial work.

Re:Lawyer payback

[gumbi west]

The exception to that if Ford's autobiography. The man is only interesting because he gave a Dick a free pass, so when the section on what he was thinking was published by a magazine the SC called it infringement. They said, basically, nobody cares about Ford except in relation to Dick, so it wasn't fair use.

Re:Lawyer payback

[Solandri]

I'm pretty sure a photo/screenshot of a TV show, representing 0.002% of a 25 minute show (at 30 fps), would fall under the commentary and criticism section of fair use. Publishing that single frame does not in any meaningful way detract from or degrade the value of the video to the copyright holder.

Re:Lawyer payback

[Spamalope]

Use for commentary is an affirmative defense for copyright infringement. De minimus and non-commercial use alter the rules as well.

TLDR: CBS wants to lay off staff photographers then take the work of independents for free.

Stack that against commercial for profit use of a professional photographers work in a way that renders it valueless to the owner. Man on the scene current events photography only has value while the even is written about, and can't be sold to more than one news outlet except in exceptional circumstances. (i.e. competing papers won't illustrate original reporting with the same photo, they'll only license story + photo from a newswire like AP, and that's still only 1 sale to the photographer)

Adding CBS branding to the photo is slander of title. The only trick they missed was filing a copyright takedown with FB against the photographer for his own pictures.

They offered to credit him? If that had any value whatsoever it'd be promoting the sale of the photos, when that very act from CBS ruined the sale-ability of that photo while advertising him as a source of free photographer work you don't have to pay for if he accepts that treatment.

Re:Lawyer payback

[Obfuscant]

Pretty simple really, CBS used the entirety of his work for commercial purposes.

I don't see where that is claimed in the fine article. They used two, and it is very likely they cropped the original, but we don't know either way.

He used a single frame to comment on a commercial work.

Single frames are still covered by copyright.

But the point I am trying to make is not whether CBS or whoever was wrong for doing whatever. It's that claiming "they used the entire work" is not a fact that we know, and that even single frames from a TV show have copyright attached. The argument of "part of the work" and thus "ok" runs into the same argument for the photos, probably. We assume, but don't know.

Re:Lawyer payback

[Obfuscant]

Stack that against commercial for profit use of a professional photographers work in a way that renders it valueless to the owner. Man on the scene current events photography only has value while the even is written about, and can't be sold to more than one news outlet except in exceptional circumstances.

Let's look at what few facts are provided in TFA. (A fine example of journalism, huh?)

The photos were taken in Sep and Dec of 2016, published to Facebook. Are newpapers going to pay for month-old football photos after they appear in a public forum? Probably not. They're a month old, and you point out that the value is gone a month after they were taken. Nobody is writing about a month-old football game at a high school.

So, the commercial value of the pictures has vaporized.

Second, the author claims he was given the photos by the player. He didn't scrape them from Facebook, he got them from the subject.

And third, the author claims that photo credit was given.

They offered to credit him?

Photo credits appear all the time in various media. They claim they did it. Why is it important to credit photos unless it's to promote the sale of other photos from that photographer?

when that very act from CBS ruined the sale-ability of that photo

I'd say that posting it to Facebook ruined the "sale-ability", and was a sign that the photographer wasn't trying to sell it anywhere. The fact it was three month and one month old football photos tanked the remaining value.

while advertising him as a source of free photographer work you don't have to pay for

I'm sorry, but how do you get from seeing a photo credit on a picture to "free photographer"? I see such credits all the time for work that is clearly not free. Even if you could make that enormous leap, how do you assume that a photographer giving away one photo means all the rest are free for the taking?

No, I'd look at that credit and think "hmm, this guy was at the games, maybe he has photos of other players I need to put on a story about the team or the other players. I'll call him to see how much we wants for them..."

This is all moot. You admit that fair use is an affirmative defense, and I agree. What is important to realize is that "affirmative defense" means you can still to to court over it. And the only point I'm trying to make is that we don't know all the facts, so the arguments being used to make CBS look really bad and the photog an innocent party are not valid.

Re:Lawyer payback

[david_thornley]

One of the criteria for fair use is the impact on the market value of the copyrighted work. If most people were only interested in the section the magazine published, then it would have a large impact on the market value.

Similarly, if lots of people looked at that Gunsmoke screenshot and thought, "Okay, I've seen it now, so there's no point in watching any of the episodes", that would have seriously lowered the market value and it would not be fair use.

screen shot is fair use, use of whole photo is not

[cjonslashdot]

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 know who to blame

[AndyKron]

I blame Disney for this

Re:I know who to blame

[St.Creed]

Yep. Although to be honest, while they fucked over the world, the EU did the same by trading Disney's copyright extension for continued support of EU agriculture subsidies. Equal opportunity assholes.

He should lose

[future assassin]

and then he'd have the amo to get his case won but the tripple the amount.

In a strange way, I like seeing things like this

[Cyberpunk Reality]

Such flagrant and legally accepted abuse of the idea of intellectual property by CBS make me feel justified for holding it in utter contempt.

That would violate TRIPS

[tepples]

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.

Long copyright harms most creators

[Paul Fernhout]

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.

the Disney rule vs individual authorship

[mbaGeek]

"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)

CBS is irrelevant

[LesserWeevil]

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.