[HN Gopher] Patent Trolling's twin: Copyright trolling
___________________________________________________________________
Patent Trolling's twin: Copyright trolling
Author : Stevvo
Score : 226 points
Date : 2021-06-22 09:22 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (austinmeyer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (austinmeyer.com)
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I wonder. With these floor plans being so vague, could the
| defendants being sued for copyright infringement just argue that
| these copyrights were so vague that they accidentally copied
| them?
|
| That is, say there is a plan on their site for a 2BD/2BA house,
| the floor plan is very simple and a builder that is unaware of
| this company ends up copying the floor plan for no other reason
| that it happens to be a very common floorplan. Could this company
| still pursue damages?
|
| When we think of copyright we often think of companies like
| Google copyrighting the word "Google". Now you can't go out and
| use "Google" in your own work, it's pretty dang obvious. But what
| if Google copyrighted the "Google Grilled Cheese Sandwich" which
| is just a regular grilled cheese sandwich, could they really go
| after folks who just happened to make the exact same grilled
| cheese sandwich just because making one is pretty obvious.
| danaris wrote:
| > When we think of copyright we often think of companies like
| Google copyrighting the word "Google".
|
| That's trademark.
|
| Copyright is for a creative work of some kind.
|
| > But what if Google copyrighted the "Google Grilled Cheese
| Sandwich" which is just a regular grilled cheese sandwich...
|
| ...and this sounds like you're referring to patent protection,
| which is for an invention.
| badRNG wrote:
| One regrettable thing that seems to happen here a lot is that
| pedants will swarm to address some relatively irrelevant
| misunderstanding made in a genuine question relevant to the
| article _without ever addressing the question being asked._
|
| I think the commenter gets it, Christ for the fifth time now
| yes, there's a difference between copyright and trademark. You
| can't copyright a word, got it. Now that we have that bit of
| pedantry thoroughly out of the way, I have the _exact_ same
| question as the one above:
|
| >That is, say there is a plan on their site for a 2BD/2BA
| house, the floor plan is very simple and a builder that is
| unaware of this company ends up copying the floor plan for no
| other reason that it happens to be a very common floorplan.
| Could this company still pursue damages?
| bluGill wrote:
| Floor plans are not copyrightable. The blueprint might be -
| but that includes things like "Joe's architecture services"
| which wouldn't be on your copy, and the dimension markings
| would be in different places (unless the placement is
| standardized in which case the placement is not creative and
| thus not copyrightable).
|
| The floor plan is probably subject to patents. I don't think
| anyone has done this, but I don't see why it isn't possible.
| badRNG wrote:
| The article (and I'm not sure how accurate this is) seems
| to be claiming the houses themselves are in violation of
| DesignBasics' copyrights:
|
| >Now, with these simple, vague floor-plans (not full
| architectural drawings!) out there for everyone to see...
| they look for someone to actually build a house that has a
| similar layout, and then jump in with the lawsuit!
|
| Are they just hoping every builder will settle out of
| court?
| zentiggr wrote:
| That's pretty much the business model. Cost of settling
| can be less than the cost of defending the suit.
|
| Every case where someone with pockets deep enough, holds
| out and gets a judgment against the troll - especially
| with legal costs included - is a huge blow to their
| business. And a single case that doesn't go their way is
| often enough to shut down their business and poof.
|
| Hope one of Design Basics's defendants is in a position
| to say Enough!
| jdironman wrote:
| That's probably why floor plans are only for 4 BR or less
| homes. Middle class, upper middle class maybe. Most
| likely the kind of people without deep pockets.
| ddingus wrote:
| Could potentially be a design patent, given said plan has
| some form and specific function that is not obvious.
| bluGill wrote:
| Potentially, but there are so many houses that it gets
| hard to find something that won't be laughed out of
| court.
| ddingus wrote:
| Right! I agree, and really was just stating the only
| possibility I see.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| Clean room reverse engineering is a valid protection against
| copyright claims. So as long as whoever drew the plans didn't
| know about the original they are safe. Even if the builder
| had a copy of their plans and gave whoever did the drawings
| leading instructions to get them to draw something similar to
| the original.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| That's probably why they mass mail these plans to
| homebuilders, to make it harder to prove they didn't copy
| HotHotLava wrote:
| > That is, say there is a plan on their site for a 2BD/2BA
| house, the floor plan is very simple and a builder that is
| unaware of this company ends up copying the floor plan for no
| other reason that it happens to be a very common floorplan.
| Could this company still pursue damages?
|
| No. The ruling in this case actually covers this in detail:
| Proving copyright infringement is a two-step process, first
| you must prove that something was _actually copied_ and then
| that the copied portion was substantial enough to constitute
| infringement. But the first part is a necessary precondition,
| without copying there 's no infringement. They give the
| example of two comic book authors inventing a character
| called "Dennis the Menace" independently on the same day.
| extra88 wrote:
| > Google copyrighting the word "Google"
|
| You can't have a copyright on a word. You're thinking of
| another category of intellectual property, trademark. Google
| has a trademark for the word "Google" but trademarks are for
| specific uses of words related to the business. The intent of
| trademark law is a form of consumer protection, you can't fool
| the public that your product or service is offered by the
| trademark holder by using the trademarked term.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| This is the same reason there can be huge, famous,
| influential companies with the same name in different
| industries.
| bena wrote:
| You're confusing trademark with copyright.
|
| Google can't copyright "Google". That's not how it works.
| Google would apply for trademark protection on the wordmark,
| Google in relation to search and/or advertising. The USPTO has
| all the details if you can handle searching their site (it's a
| bit of a mess).
| fortran77 wrote:
| You're confusing the word "copywrite" (to write copy) with
| "copyright" (the right to make copies of a creative work).
| bena wrote:
| I did make that mistake in one spot.
| taeric wrote:
| Nit:. Google is trademarked. Copyright is a different thing.
|
| And pretty sure independent creation is a valid thing. Is how
| the initial pc clone industry got its start.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| >so vague that they accidentally copied them? //
|
| No, but you're on the right track.
|
| Copyright covers copying, if you didn't copy _and can prove it_
| then that 's an absolute defence (see eg WIPO PROOF).
|
| Copyright being a tort, the usual measure of proof is 'balance
| of probabilities'. That means if you didn't copy, but you
| _cannot_ prove you didn't, and it looks like you probably did,
| then a court can find against you.
|
| There is also the notion of _distinctiveness_ , generic, non-
| creative things don't acquire copyright ("common elements";
| trademark has similar aspects, it's hard to word things without
| confusing the two, they're differently concepts with the same
| names).
|
| However, in 2012 there was a case in UK law over an image of a
| London bus, where a re-creation of the image was used
| commercially. The copyright in the original photo was
| considered to be infringed despite the image being highly
| generic (Temple Island V New English Teas, 2012). A lot of
| people, myself included, are not convinced of this decision
| (see also Kenrick V Lawrence).
|
| USC and UK law differ, but as copyright is based on
| international treaties such as Berne Convention and TRIPS you
| find they're broadly analogous in a lot of ways; I can't
| comment on where the line lies in USA law.
|
| _This is my personal opinion, unrelated to my employment; this
| is not legal advice._
| [deleted]
| gnopgnip wrote:
| Independent creation is a defense to copyright infringement
| fortran77 wrote:
| I can assure you that "Google" never "copyrighted" the word
| "Google."
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| Copyright trolling cost me a fairly successful blog my wife ran.
| The ads paid out more than hosting cost! She had shared an image
| from a girl who took the photo with permission, but then that
| girl sold the photo to a copyright troll who then sent a demand
| letter. Either pay a yearly license of $1750 and a back-pay for
| the 4 years it had been hosted, or get sued. I retained a lawyer
| to prepare for lawsuit because we were given permission by the
| author to use the photo, had email proof. But after a few months
| of back and forth, we ran out of money to keep fighting and had
| the lawyer negotiate just killing the site.
| beervirus wrote:
| If the facts are really so clear-cut, it sounds like your
| lawyer did not do a great job.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| My entire instruction was to do everything to avoid court. I
| didn't want to get tied up in court.
| munk-a wrote:
| I know there's a lot of backseat lawyering going on in this
| thread but you probably took precisely the right action.
| Patent trolls have war chests to weather the occasional
| lawsuit and it's likely they could've outspent you on
| appeals.
|
| There are many people two decades into civil suits that
| have experienced a level of pain you thankfully dodged. It
| is really regretful that the troll forced a full site take
| down but the legal system can be a harsh mistress - at
| least you're not penniless.
| beervirus wrote:
| If you have a license to the photograph, why not just send
| proof of that to the troll and threaten them with Rule 11
| sanctions if they sue you? I have to think anybody with a
| brain would just drop it at that point.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| Our "license" was the "photographer" replying to an email
| saying it could be posted on our blog. It was just a
| cellphone photo of Robert Pattinson in nyc. Troll
| wouldn't even let me remove the post. Eventually they
| just took the loss and let me kill the site.
| [deleted]
| Thiez wrote:
| In a reasonable world, shouldn't the copyright troll be suing
| the girl instead? Presumably she sold the troll an exclusive
| license (otherwise the copyright troll wouldn't be interested
| in obtaining the license) which she must have lied about
| because she had already licensed the photo to your wife.
| hhjj wrote:
| well i think the defense lawyer was a bit disingenuous. I
| guess the only step should have been to confirm the agreement
| with the girl, forward it to troll and then tell them you
| have a license so get lost or see you in court. But it looks
| like they didn't go to court at all...
| teawrecks wrote:
| My understanding is that the troll would love to take it to
| court and keep it there until you can't afford to fight
| anymore.
| munificent wrote:
| Court costs trolls too. They don't want things in court.
| They want you to settle.
| munk-a wrote:
| Trolls adore it when people settle out of court - but the
| cost of occasionally bankrupting people to scare everyone
| else into compliance tends to be accepted.
|
| Bear in mind that a lot of times the patent troll either
| has a practicing lawyer on staff or has an intimate
| relation with one - so they're considering the cost of
| labour rather than the market rate.
| fny wrote:
| I have been in this situation. If you have this level of
| evidence, you absolutely do not need a lawyer. Let me guess,
| BWP Media?
|
| The minute they try to get a court to take the case, it'll get
| knocked out. (They know this by the way.)
|
| Now let's say this isn't the full story and little girly sold
| the picture to you after having given the rights to the
| copyright troll...
|
| ...then you take the hit and take the girl to small claims
| court.
| coolsunglasses wrote:
| Counter-party risk. 9/10 times you won't get the money back
| from the girl.
|
| You're right about the case getting tossed in most
| circumstances but you can suss that out by asking for proof
| of when they bought the copyright from the girl and checking
| the effective date.
| generationP wrote:
| Killing an entire site because of one photo?
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| It was too much work to fight and they wouldn't accept
| removing only the offending post. I'm sure if I wanted to go
| to court I would have won but at what cost?
| lethologica wrote:
| Why couldn't the photo just be replaced with another?
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| Troll wouldn't even let me remove the post. Eventually
| they just took the loss after months (a year?) and let me
| kill the site.
| float4 wrote:
| Atrocious that such a trivial case cost you so much money that
| you actually lost (not strictly, but it must've felt like a
| loss).
|
| My dad is currently suing has past employer (the state). It's
| taken two years so far and they try to screw him over in
| whatever way possible. Luckily the union is paying for his
| lawyer, so he doesn't really care.
|
| As someone in his early twenties who knows very little about
| law, the way such cases go down is mind-blowing to me.
| Trias11 wrote:
| Could you "transfer" the blog to another entity registered
| overseas to make it really expensive for troll to pursue?
|
| There must be other approaches not to win but make it very
| expensive for troll to proceed.
| copywrong wrote:
| Perhaps naive... but in a case where it is so plain that there
| is no case to answer, what is the rationale behind hiring
| lawyers rather than simply filing court documents yourself if
| they _do_ sue? The copyright troll was looking to make money:
| shutting down your site didn't do anything for them -- it was
| likely just a negotiating tactic that went awry when you called
| their bluff (actually shut down the site).
| rhino369 wrote:
| Federal civil courts aren't a small claims court. The rules
| aren't easily understood and are full of pitfalls that trip
| up even experienced litigators. Your answer to a complaint
| needs to address every single allegation AND raise all
| affirmative defenses--or they could be waived.
|
| You are pretty likely to foot fault and end up just putting
| yourself in a worse negotiating position.
|
| Trolls already have pre-made complaints, discovery requests,
| etc. already lined up. You'll have to work a long time to do
| what they can in a couple hours.
| a4isms wrote:
| The fact that we ask this question leads us to asking, "Who
| is the best person to answer the question of whether it's a
| good idea to file the documents yourself, and if so, how
| things are likely to go over the next ___ years of
| litigation?"
|
| And the answer is... A LAWYER EXPERIENCED IN COPYRIGHT AND
| INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LITIGATION.
|
| That answers your question for me. In cases roughly similar
| to this, I have begun with a lawyer. Yes, there are two times
| I recall where they said, "Do it yourself, but watch out for
| X or Y, and call me back if Z." That alone justified what I
| was paying for the first proper, clock is ticking,
| consultation.
|
| What happens after the first consultation would depend upon
| the case.
|
| INAL, YMMV, &c.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| IMO it's also very important to be incredibly hands-on, to
| manage your attorney after getting them to explain the case
| to you.
|
| When hiring one of the best attorneys to defend the type of
| action brought I had to be very clear about what they were
| to do in between our calls (ask the third party to agree to
| drop it if we get plaintiff to drop it, ask plaintiff these
| questions, if they don't do X we will do Y, offer them Z).
|
| It was also important to stop them from taking pointless
| actions that would have cost tons of hours: do not read the
| discovery (hundreds of pages of details that wouldn't
| change things), do not read the third party's ToS looking
| for a loophole (another ~50 pages) as the company likely
| had already spent hundreds of thousands writing it and
| millions testing it in court.
|
| We would have done those things if necessary but they
| didn't need to be done simultaneously and the settlement
| attempts paid off immediately. It was not an IP case and I
| don't think it had merit, but it would have likely cost at
| least a little more (or possibly much, much more) just to
| find out and I wasn't interested in finding out. It was not
| a scenario where some floodgates could be opened if we
| settled.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| > IMO it's also very important to be incredibly hands-on,
| to manage your attorney after getting them to explain the
| case to you.
|
| Wow. So now you almost certainly have to have a lawyer
| because of byzantine 'tested' language _and_ you have to
| nanny them to avoid getting soaked for billable hours!?
|
| It feels like such a racket.
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| This is true of basically all professional services that
| you hire.
| a4isms wrote:
| A velvet glove around what you just said is that it's
| like you are a product owner, and the lawyer is a pure
| engineer.
|
| They are the expert in implementing the business outcomes
| you want, but you and only you know all the context
| required to take the tradeoffs your lawyer articulates,
| and decide which tradeoffs to make.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| If parent was incorporated and the corporation was sued they
| cannot defend the corporation without a lawyer. They can
| defend themselves as individuals without a lawyer if sued
| individually.
|
| Of course the copyright troll may never have sued. But your
| lawyer will happily charge an hourly rate to repeatedly write
| letters saying "If you sue us we will win!"
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| I'm curious what the rationale is for the corporation. Why
| can't a ceo represent his own company?
| anotherman554 wrote:
| I imagine the theory is unless the CEO owns 100% percent
| of his company it's not his company. He's engaged in
| unauthorized practice of law and screwing over his
| investors since he has no idea how to practice law.
| There's also the fact that lawyers have background checks
| before getting a law license, and if a CEO could practice
| law without a license it would potentially be a big
| loophole for fraudsters and other known criminals who
| commit fraud to be able to practice law.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Even if the CEO owns 100% of the corporation, it's still
| a separate entity. That's one of the benefits of
| incorporating - when someone sues the corporation, they
| can go after its assets, but not the CEO's.
|
| But that means the corporation gets treated like a
| separate person. And just like you can't represent your
| friend in court (unless you're a lawyer), you also can't
| represent your corporation.
| SerLava wrote:
| Patent law was designed for giant companies to stop other
| giant companies from using their stuff.
|
| Nobody could really "publish" things on their own.
|
| And the fact that it's overbearing for normal people is now a
| feature rather than a bug.
| munk-a wrote:
| Patent law has evolved into that - but it was designed for
| independent creators to stand up to giant corporations that
| want to steal their stuff.
|
| It is terrible as it exists today but some form of device
| patenting needs to exist.
| dnautics wrote:
| because (IIRC) if you win and you get a SLAPP judgement
| against your harasser, then you be awarded a penalty. Depends
| on jurisdiction, of course. Possibly not in federal.
| [deleted]
| sokoloff wrote:
| Sending back a letter on a lawyer's letterhead is also a
| negotiating tactic. It's probably what I'd have done as well.
| Emailing back from joe_blow_blog_157@gmail doesn't send the
| same signal as "deal with my lawyer; we think we're right;
| what's your next move?"
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Let me guess: Getty Images?
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| I cannot disclose who, but it wasn't Getty or any of the big
| names.
| MikeUt wrote:
| Those kinds of non-disclosure agreements should be illegal.
| Not just unenforceable, but illegal, with penalties for
| those that draft them. The public has a right to know the
| abuse carried out in the name of its legal system.
| munk-a wrote:
| I disagree - that fact that a settlement doesn't deem
| either party at fault is one of the big appeals. Making
| settlement negotiations necessarily public will remove
| that benefit in most cases.
| frankincense wrote:
| Does anyone know a good web accessibility troll to sue
| designbasics for their site's accessibility violations?
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| Brilliant. It sounds a bit like those guys who brute-forced every
| melody below a certain size.
| tech-historian wrote:
| Those melodies were used to fight copyright, not profit from
| extortion. Different use case.
| ysavir wrote:
| Can anyone speak to the viability of fighting these cases in
| court? Is it a sure win/loss? Is it guaranteed to take at least X
| months and cost Y dollars?
|
| If there were free resources online on how to fight these cases
| in court, with information for both defendants and their
| representatives, is there any chance of making it fast and cheap
| enough that it won't be worth the troll's time?
| cwkoss wrote:
| All failed IP suits should have to pay attorney's fees for the
| defendants and invalidate the IP that was claimed to be
| infringed.
| tzahifadida wrote:
| I had a similar situation whereby someone sued me because i
| worked with someone 10 years earlier and he was hoping to get
| dirt on him by extorting me. I called my cousin and the deal was
| that he will represent me and take the whole compensation for a
| dumb ass lawsuit. Fortunately it worked and i saved about 8k$ in
| legal expenses.
| MikeUt wrote:
| What's needed is a general defense against frivolous lawsuits.
| Something like a pre-trial phase where you're represented by a
| free public defender, and only if the plaintiff wins, can they
| move on to a "real" trial.
|
| Edit: I should add that this should not be used to punish the
| plaintiff if they lose (or punish them very little), because that
| would imperil legitimate lawsuits. If you had a valid case, would
| you dare sue a multinational, if you knew losing the pre-trial
| meant having to pay their overpriced team of lawyers*?
|
| *As an aside, the defendant should only be allowed the use of the
| free, public defender in the pre-trial, otherwise this pre-trial
| would be treated as just another full trial, with all the expense
| that entails.
| pitaj wrote:
| What if we just got rid of copyright? Alternative forms of art
| monetization already flourish.
| jtbayly wrote:
| And if they lose the pretrial, the plaintiff has to pay all of
| what they were suing for to the defendant.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| That, or severe penalties, including reimbursement of all legal
| costs and the voiding of all copyrights owned by a firm that is
| found to be attempting to enforce copyright frivolously.
| jotadambalakiri wrote:
| Obligatory: https://github.com/ASCII-Rightholders/the_characters
| bogwog wrote:
| Only $1000 for the rights to use ASCII characters? That's a
| steal!
| jedberg wrote:
| I just checked out their website. There is another website called
| floorplans.com which I'm pretty sure is legit (they will sell you
| construction plans) and I found some very similar designs between
| the two.
|
| So Design Basics is either stealing their designs from elsewhere,
| or as the article points out, their designs are so generic they
| end up matching existing designs.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Remember there are people that spam Wikimedia and Flickr with
| various CC-FZ-AT-UT-W2 licensed images, then use search engines
| to identify misuse of their "work":
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Undeletion_reques...
| mdasen wrote:
| For those of us who don't know as much, could you elaborate? I
| know "CC" is Creative Commons, but I don't know what FZ-AT-
| UT-W2 are.
|
| From the link (which can be hard to grok for people like me who
| are unfamiliar with Wikipedia processes), it looks like there
| are users who upload images and mark them with a free license
| and then try to sue people who re-use the photos on other sites
| for minor infractions of the license terms.
|
| It seems that while the images may legitimately be licensed as
| Creative Commons, the user takes a very strict view of the CC
| licensing and sues people for minor infractions. "re-users have
| complained about receiving costly cease and desist orders on
| behalf of this Flickr-user for minor infractions of the
| licensing terms." (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?ti
| tle=Commons:Admi...) Because the CC license's attribution
| requirements can often be a bit hazy or difficult to comply
| with, it makes it easy for someone to claim that the copyright
| has been infringed for "minor" infractions.
|
| _You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the
| license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in
| any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the
| licensor endorses you or your use._
|
| That's some of the guidance from the CC license page. It would
| be easy for someone to re-size the image and not indicate that
| changes were made, not include the title of the work, etc.
| There are whole pages about how you should attribute things
| depending on what information is available:
| https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/License_Versions#Detai...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page#/media/File:Ryan_Cro...
|
| I'm literally looking at the featured photo from the "In the
| News" section of English Wikipedia right now. It has an
| attribution source of http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/rio-2016/
| foto/2016-08/noite-..., but that page doesn't exist when I try
| to view it.
|
| Looking at the "more details" page, it gets confusing. What is
| the "title"? Do I have to duplicate author information if it's
| in the title? Given that the photo, "has been extracted from
| another file," I guess I'd have to cite both the original and
| the derived work if I were to re-use it.
|
| Based on the attribution comparison chart, I think I'd have to
| write something like:
|
| "This work, 'Ryan Crouser in 2016' (https://commons.wikimedia.o
| rg/wiki/File:Ryan_Crouser_Rio_201...) by Materialscientist
| (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Materialscientist) and
| licensed under CC-BY 3.0 BR
| (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/br/deed.en), is a
| cropped version of 'Rio de Janeiro - Norte-americano Ryan
| Crouser bate recorde olimpico e leva ouro no arremesso de peso
| nos Jogos Rio 2016, no Estadio Olimpico. (Fernando
| Frazao/Agencia Brasil)' (http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/rio-20
| 16/foto/2016-08/noite-...) by Reporter Fotografico, Fernando
| Frazao/Agencia Brasil used under CC-BY 3.0 BR
| (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/br/deed.pt)."
|
| What if I just casually grabbed the photo and linked to the
| Wikipedia page? I think most Wikipedia people would be like
| "eh, close enough". I think some might send me an email being
| like, "Could you please put my name next to the link? Thanks!"
|
| Oops, actually, my attribution is wrong! I haven't put in the
| copyright notice which is, "EBC-EMPRESA BRASIL DE
| COMUNICACAO/Agencia Brasil. Uso sob a Licenca Creative Commons
| Atribuicao 3.0 Brasil. CREDITO FOTOGRAFICO OBRIGATORIO:
| FERNANDO FRAZAO/AGENCIA BRASIL"
|
| Let me correct that:
|
| "This work, 'Ryan Crouser in 2016' (https://commons.wikimedia.o
| rg/wiki/File:Ryan_Crouser_Rio_201...) by Materialscientist
| (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Materialscientist) and
| licensed under CC-BY 3.0 BR
| (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/br/deed.en), is a
| cropped version of 'Rio de Janeiro - Norte-americano Ryan
| Crouser bate recorde olimpico e leva ouro no arremesso de peso
| nos Jogos Rio 2016, no Estadio Olimpico. (Fernando
| Frazao/Agencia Brasil)' (http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/rio-20
| 16/foto/2016-08/noite-...) by Reporter Fotografico, Fernando
| Frazao/Agencia Brasil used under CC-BY 3.0 BR
| (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/br/deed.pt) with
| the copyright notice, 'EBC-EMPRESA BRASIL DE
| COMUNICACAO/Agencia Brasil. Uso sob a Licenca Creative Commons
| Atribuicao 3.0 Brasil. CREDITO FOTOGRAFICO OBRIGATORIO:
| FERNANDO FRAZAO/AGENCIA BRASIL'."
|
| DONE! Wait... the copyright notice specifies, "FOTOGRAFICO
| OBRIGATORIO: FERNANDO FRAZAO/AGENCIA BRASIL", but the "author"
| is listed as "Reporter Fotografico, Fernando Frazao/Agencia
| Brasil". Do I go with the author as specified in the image or
| with how the CREDITO specifies it? I'd think I should go with
| how the CREDITO specifies it, but I definitely didn't see that
| initially.
|
| For those that think I'm being pedantic, I am. However, as one
| person noted: _As not all of you may know, the copyright law of
| Germany and Austria allows the copyright-holder to issue a so-
| called Abmahnung (sort of Cease and desist) against anyone who
| in his opinion infringes his copyright, without first calling a
| court. The typical cost of an Abmahnung is between 500 and 1200
| Euros for 1 image. As no court is involved, there is no
| independant evaluation of the case. Many people pay the amount
| requested in order to avoid going to court, as this might be
| even more costly. IANAL._ (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/inde
| x.php?title=Commons:Admi...)
|
| I understand that maybe you could fight it and win in court.
| However, the complexity of the attribution requirements do
| allow a bad actor to be evil to people while claiming to be
| legitimate. Given that users have been complaining that this is
| actually happening, it's somewhat worrying.
|
| I'm not trying to sound negative about anything other than the
| fact that it's easy for trolls to "well technically" people. If
| I used the cropped Wikipedia photo and didn't note the
| modification, but did properly attribute the title, author, and
| original URI (which seems to be a dead link), am I using it
| wrong? Well technically I would be since it was modified and I
| didn't note that (and didn't provide credit to the modifier).
| It would be an easy mistake to make: grab the author, title,
| and URI from the Wikipedia page and I think I'm done! I think
| most courts and the CC folks would be like, "c'mon, they put in
| a good faith effort and yes they need to correct it, but they
| shouldn't be subject to thousands of dollars in penalties!"
| However, courts aren't cheap and there's a lot of risk.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm willing to bet that, to a first approximation, even
| people who go out of their way to credit photographers almost
| never get the exact form of the attribution 100% correct.
|
| Furthermore, no one--including CC--understands what non-
| commercial means. (There were protracted discussions on this
| before CC 4.0 and CC basically punted.) For everyone who says
| it's fine so long as you don't actually sell the photo, there
| will be others who say you can't use it even on a little blog
| that runs ads. And everything in between.
| biztos wrote:
| A friend of mine had the Abmahnung thing happen to her.
| Accidentally included a photo without permission, in a batch
| of photos she otherwise had permission for, in a portfolio of
| architectural work. After a few years she got a claim for a
| couple grand.
|
| She was lucky in that the request came from the actual
| photographer, so she was able to negotiate a "fair"
| settlement of about 400EUR IIRC, this was over 10 years ago.
|
| Thing is though, she at least understood she was in the
| wrong. Try explaining to the average Instagram celebrity that
| every single post is in fact a copy and you don't
| automatically have permission to copy something just because
| you saw it on the internet. I guess Facebook's legal
| department just bats that stuff away or something.
| nicbou wrote:
| I was smacked by one of those:
| https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/abmahnung-creative-commons
|
| I'm much more careful about which images I use since then, and
| made a habit of releasing my own images with a CC0 licence.
| eli wrote:
| I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure I saw someone post photos
| to wikimedia under a CC license. But then later claim that
| person was an imposter and wasn't authorized to do so. Now they
| get to make claims against anyone who, in good faith, used the
| wikimedia image believing it to be CC.
| ttty2 wrote:
| What if someone posts a copyrighted image on Facebook. Do they
| sue Facebook and win?
|
| I think Facebook will take it down and that's the end of the
| story.
|
| Maybe this only happens because it's Facebook and small players
| can't afford to just take it down.
| dahart wrote:
| There was a story not too far back about some musicians
| generating every possible combination of 8 notes and publishing
| it in order to prevent future music copyright trolls.
|
| At the time I thought it was kind of a stunt and was a neat idea
| but not addressing a real problem with music copyright and real
| lawsuits. It looks like I might be totally wrong, because that's
| exactly what Design Basics is doing. :/
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22440944
| akudha wrote:
| I guess the real problem is court cases can ruin people
| financially, even if they win. Ideas like this are nice, but
| the real solution would be to make it difficult for these
| trolls to go to court in the first place
| Igelau wrote:
| We probably need this.
|
| I got whatever degree of nastygram that isn't a "strike" from
| YouTube once for a video of me singing a 150 year-old folk song
| from my own arrangement. Someone claimed to have copyright. I
| didn't fight it in earnest, but _if_ I had a monetized account
| that I was depending on financially, I might have had to -- and
| of course, you pursue that at the hazard of losing your channel
| and Google account.
|
| Got a C&D once for a text graphics Whac-a-mole clone in Basic
| when I was a teenager. Kinda soured me on everything related to
| IP rights going forward.
| munk-a wrote:
| Courts are actually pretty reasonable about music copyrights in
| most cases[1] - nobody wants really strong copyrights in that
| field anyways since "derivative" work is a really strong value
| creator.
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgsL5yW3bao
| nitin_flanker wrote:
| There's a similar publication in 3D printing too. It's called
| Joshua Pearce's Algorithm[0] which covers all the major
| parameters and components of 3d printing materials and other
| factors.
|
| It was built with an intention to invalidate 3D printing
| patents that cover broad elements and general materials and
| ideas, on the grounds of obviousness.
|
| [0]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01722...
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| Just for fun, I searched for a plan loosely similar to my current
| home. Found an almost perfect match, including the facade, in
| less than ten seconds.
|
| This is the equivalent of taking photographs of thousands of
| vehicles in existence, then claiming intellectual property over
| their design. Nonsense.
| cwkoss wrote:
| IP laws were created to encourage innovation, but have perverted
| to the point where now they are mostly used by people hoping to
| suppress it or seek rent from others' work.
|
| Patent duration should be shortened to 10 years or less.
| Copyright duration should be shortened to 5 years or less.
|
| The digital age is moving faster than the people who wrote these
| laws anticipated.
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(page generated 2021-06-23 23:00 UTC)