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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!
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?
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.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
$300k. They used two pictures.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I blame Disney for this
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.
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.
Some projects take that long to complete.
Do you work for Accenture by any chance?
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
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.
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*
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").
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.
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.