"Another tedious copyright question..." Topic

My wife has an art and craft Blog. She recently wrote an article about a particular technique, referring to the manufacturers' own web site, using an image from the manufacturers site as an example of the craft work.
Almost immediately the manufacturer emailed her stating that she had to link each picture directly to the manufacturers site or face copyright action.
My wifes blog is in the UK, the manufacturer is in the USA.
What does the law say?

Well, in the spirit of the interent I'm going to jump in and give you a 'half-arsed, not based on any real factual knowledge' answer.

You can quote and use parts of anothers work for review purposes without any breach of copyright.

I'm sure there is more to it than that – but there you go.

Personally I would replace the image with a short description of what happened with the manufacturer's name clearly visible. Ask them which they would prefer – I'll bet that changes their tune. Either that or remove the free advertising that she gave that manufacturer completely.

This isn't really a copyright issue in my opinion because it is a review but it is an issue of commercial stupidity.

Tony H

On lots of the things I deal with in the UK the small print normally says:

The 1988 Act states that fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work for the purposes of research or private study, criticism or review, or for the purpose of reporting current events, does not infringe any copyright in the work, or the typographic arrangement of a published edition.

Not a enough of a legal bod to say if that covers you though. Sounds like it does.

Jeremey
minigerm.com

As a review, sounds as if she is OK and I am surprised that they firm wants a direct link to their pictures on the site.

Its their bandwidth, so if they want to do it that way, why not?

The original owner has copyright. By copying that image without permission you have infringed copyright. Your blog is in the wrong; end of story

another example of copyright madness from the over zealous.

i personally would with draw the picture and put in a very bold statement telling all the readers why……

that will turn free publicity for that company into very bad press as i for one would not generally buy from a company like that.

No expert in any way here but it's a big no-no to lift anyone's imagery without prior permission.

All it takes is a request.

NB: I've copied all manner of imnages to illustrate a point or entertain others reading my twisted wit, but once one posts a blog or other internet related publication that is expected to survive for long you should give all credits where due.

"imnages"?

An edit function, Bill, please, again…

Permission would have been sensible, but nose, spite, face springs to mind, especially as she had already provided a link.

Delete it. Find an alternative manufacturer and ask their permission first. Point out to the first that you will direct people to another manufacturer instead. :-)

A link to the image on their site doesn't infringe copyright. After all, that's the point of the Web and as someone else said, its their bandwidth…

G Bowen and Chris Wimbrow,
Copyright is never so simple as that. Unfortunately there is no easy answer as whether a use is a Fair Use (under US law) or not is weighed individually for each use.
The four factors of fair use are the purpose or character of the use (commercial, educational, review. . .), the nature of the original copyrighted work (fiction vs. non-fiction), the amount of the copying, and the effect of the copying on the continuing marketability of the original work.

In the case of the blog image the use was non-commercial, the image was not especially creative (i.e. a painting or the like), the amount of copying was either all or a very small bit depending upon if you look at the image as a whole or the manufacturer's website as a whole, and the use should have no effect (or a positive one) on the manufacturer. I would say that all of these items lean strongly towards the use being Fair Use. However, I am not a judge and only a judge can render a judgement on this. I am not even a lawyer – just a librarian. :~)

I think that it is important that we defend the priniciple of fair use. Many rights holders want to expand their rights far beyond what the law allows (and the law goes way too far as it is; see Siva Vaidhyanathan's _Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity). Don't get me wrong, I fully believe that creators should benefit from their work but the law as it now stands goes too far into limiting works going into the public domain. Cheers.

John Adkins, Librarian (though sadly not of the 40k kind) :~)

link

Of course, it is always best to ASK permission before doing anything lieke this. And it is always good to lock the barn door before the cows escape.

I wouldn't worry about what the law says-- common courtesy would dictate you do as the owner of the site has asked. I don't think it should be turned into some publicty fracas either. There's too much tit for tat out there as it is. Be the bigger person and just be nice about it.

Approved by the "OFM Grammer and Speling Facscist™ (triple sic) and Miss Manners Industrial Etiquette Joint EMail Apology Commission":
"Oh, you would rather I linked? OK. I'll do that. Sorry if you were upset."

As ever, some stimulating comments.
For the record, Mrs giblabman1( who was genuinely upset at the thought she may have caused offence and,or, breached the law) made a grovelling apology to the business concerned (though she noted that both her blog and the businesses' website hit rates had notably increased since she mentioned the companies product – which I remind you was in terms of praiseworthy criticism.) I especially appreciated the comments of small businessmen – I guess in this case the owner of the product in question was a small-minded businessperson!
The product in question was it seems a FREE download – so no commercial risk!
As for the copyright laws, I am still very much in the dark. In my profesional life as a hospital based scientist I sometimes have to sort out issues of medical ethics – one case in particular this wek was toughto resolve and centered on a very sick patient, but even in this case the medico-legal situation was easier to resolve than a potential breach of copyright. A long time ago I worked in an unemployment benefit office – I had to deal with lots of bankrupt small businessmen, but never an out of work lawyer!

Who was it who once wrote that the name of the organization called the "Junior Chamber of Commerce" translates into some Oriental language (Mandarin??) as "Hall of Childish Tradepersons"?

I was always under the impression that the MAIN reason for copyright was to protect a commercial interest, although obviously commercial would include reputation.

In my case, anyone wants to give a fair review of Garrison figures and use pictures from the Garrison website are free to do so. Any manufacturer not willing to do so – well, frankly I wonder whether they DESERVE to stay in business.

Certainly, I don't want to try and build a good reputation by hiding the bad points of my business – it has weaknesses – but to stop people giving out the good points seems plain stupid!

Who was it who once wrote that the name of the organization called the "Junior Chamber of Commerce" translates into some Oriental language (Mandarin??) as "Hall of Childish Tradepersons"?

Terry Pratchet I expect.

anyone wants to give a fair review of Garrison figures and use pictures from the Garrison website are free to do so.

Anyone even doing an unfair review can do so anyway – because it's a review. They could also parody your stuff using your images. Both are cornerstones of "fair use" and contrary to common misconception most countries operate some version of fair use.

Fair use however does not mean "I can use it because I think it's fair to do so".