So called "copyright" pictures

I saw that movie 20 years ago and have been trying to find a copy!!! I was working at a video engineering company and one of the tape ops was duping it. I wanted a copy then, but ethics didn't allow it.

Thanks for the info.

Reply to
Jim Stewart
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Gimme a break.

This would be like the guy that built my house trying to hold a copyright over the size of the rooms. I paid him to build a house with rooms of these sizes. Just like I pay a photographer to take photographs of my wedding, and guess what - I even told him who I wanted in the pictures.

Perhaps there is something so special about what a photographer does that makes their paid work fundamentally more valuable than other peoples?

And you cant tell me that a photographer making only a grand for an afternoons work is going to send him to the poorhouse if he doesn't screw you on prints of photos you paid him to make.

If he wants to do original and creative things that are copyrighted he should do them on his own time. He didn't 'invent' wedding photography just for me. He followed an professional trade like any other professional, using a formula he didn't invent.

It's bad law and deceptive practice by the photographic industry.

Ralph

Reply to
Ralph Mason

True now, but the United States didn't join until 1989. I think we were the last major country. Before that, there was a more universal convention (the name escapes me at the moment) which did not set a required term but only required signatory governments to give the same protection to works copyrighted in other countries that they gave to works copyrighted in their own country.

-- Patrick

Reply to
Patrick Scheible

Yeah, you and the guy in Nigeria with the oil money he needs to deposit...

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Reply to
Charles Richmond

Hell, even the Casio watch company is till paying royalties to use the "Happy Birthday" music some of their fancy watches...

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+----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond richmond at plano dot net | +----------------------------------------------------------------+
Reply to
Charles Richmond

Well, the grand he charged you is just sticking in the knife... the money for copying pictures is the "twisting" of the knife.

...enjoy your wedding...

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Reply to
Charles Richmond

And that's fine because that is an agreement, of sorts, that you both have something to bring to the final CD but neither of you can produce a finished, saleable product without the assistance of the other. That is moral and equitable.

However let's say I'm rich and generous and pay my hired sound man $10,000 for his days work because I want to make a really good quality CD for my white haired old mother to listen to - is it still fair and equitable that the sound man owns the coryright?

I very much doubt many photographers quote a fixed price for a wedding which will leave them out of pocket if additional prints are not ordered.

It's not really about the photographers, my concern is about bad law.

But I didn't tell the letter writer what to write, I didn't pay him any kind of fee to write a letter to me.

Porsche paid all the development costs for that car and, morally, have a right to a return. If a photographer phones me up one day and says he wants to come along to my wedding - at no cost to me - and take photographs which he will own the copyright of then that is morally OK too, but if I pay him to be there then, morally, copyright should rest with me.

Mike Harding

Reply to
Mike Harding

I think you missed my point.

Mike Harding

Reply to
Mike Harding

There is a guy named Rombaldi who is selling really, really nicely done DVDs of the movie. The copyright situation of that film is really confused, but its maker -- Mike Jittlov -- claims to be the copyright holder, and has authorized Rombaldi to make copies. Actually, Mike says anybody is welcome to make copies, but not to sell the result for a profit. Googling for "Rombaldi" on groups.google.com should turn him up.

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Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D.       Phone -- (505) 646-1605
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Reply to
Joe Pfeiffer

If you don't think that's equitable, then you shouldn't agree to that. Put in the contract that for your $10,000 you get the copyright. Is that so hard?

But -- I didn't "pay the photographer to be there". I agreed to buy a minimum set of prints, he agreed to take the pictures and sell the prints.

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Someone in DAYTON,
                                  at               Ohio is selling USED
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Reply to
Grant Edwards

You're missing the point: I am saying that copyright law (in this respect) is morally indefensible. Agreements are nothing to do with it. Grant, do you genuinely believe a law which dictates the above is a _good_ and _proper_ law? In the example I give it clearly takes ownership from one person and gives it to another.

Mike Harding

Reply to
Mike Harding

I'd be happy to scan those puppies in for you, although if you're not in th LA area, you'd be nuts to send them to me.

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Kevin D. Quitt              91387-4454            Kevin@Quitt.net
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Reply to
Kevin D. Quitt

Shouldn't this be followed by ", including this one" ?

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Reply to
arargh311NOSPAM

Sorry, I just don't see how ownership is being "taken" from somebody and "given" to somebody else by the law.

IANAL, but my uderstanding is that the copyright for a work belongs, by default, to the person who created it. In copyright law, I believe the "creator" is the person who fixed "it" in a medium. That person may sell/assign the copyright to somebody else for money. When a regular employee is acting as an agent of his employer, that employer is considered the "person" who created the work. For independant contractors, the contract must explicitly transfer ownership of the copyright if that is desired.

I'm afraid I don't see what is so wrong and inequitable about that.

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  I'm also pre-POURED
                                  at               pre-MEDITATED and
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Reply to
Grant Edwards

Houses are manufactured goods, and again copyright doesn't apply. Presumably because there's no R&D cost so they don't need monopoly protection.

House plans can be and are copyrighted.

What they share with other copyrighted art forms is that their art is hard to produce the original but cheap to duplicate.

You paid him to take photos and supply you with prints.

$1000 for an afternoon sounds like a lot, but if all he does is weddings he probably gets at most one job a week, probably less. And he'll take a couple of days developing the negatives, deciding what to print, enlarging, cropping. Film, chemicals, and good photo equipment take a bite too. If that's his only job he may not in the poorhouse but he's not shopping for Boxsters either.

Sorry if you don't think you got your money's worth. That doesn't mean copyright doesn't apply.

The standard for creativity in copyright material is low. Even phone books are copyrighted.

It couldn't possibly be a consumer failing to inform himself about standard practice in copyrighted art forms?

In practice, if you do figure out how to bypass the copy protection, it's not that likely he'd catch up with you if the photos are just going to sit on someone's nicknack shelf... but if he does be prepared to pay up pretty handsomely.

-- Patrick

Reply to
Patrick Scheible

#define LEGAL_CONTEXT USA

This is a curious case.

Circular 56 of the US LoC has some interesting notes on this situation. What is curious is the vagueness of the following snip:

The author of a sound recording is the performer(s) or record producer or both.

So, your assumptions of the alleged moral indefensibility falls short prima facia. Furthermore, even if the recording engineer/producer were to hold copyright on that specific Sound Recording, would not the Sound Recording be a derivative work of the unpublished performance by the author of the compisition?

Finally - the one time I had cause to use a professional recording facility, the contract had work-for-hire text in it making clear that copyright was held by the actual performers, and not the hired recording engineer.

So, copyright law is NOT in this respect morally indefensible, because it does not in theory or application cause this "clear ownership transfer" to take place.

Reply to
Lawrence Statton N1GAK/XE2

According to copyright law I believe you are correct, but: Is the creator of the art (in my example) the person who wrote the words, wrote the music, sang the words and played the music (without any form of assistance, payment or contract from another) and then paid someone else (a handsome sum) to record him doing that or is it the man with the tape recorder?

I'm afraid I cannot but see that, morally, the artistic creator is the musician - copyright law says otherwise - that is why I believe it to be wrong and bad law.

Mike Harding

Reply to
Mike Harding

No, I don't think the original performance is copyrightable, so the recording is not a derivative work. The fixing of the sound in a tangible media (recording) is copyrightable.

I agree. Also, anyone who pays a sound man $10,000 without understanding the realities of the transaction isn't going to be rich for long ;-)

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Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting
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Reply to
Alan Balmer

Somebody cited a case in another posting that the answer in that case law says for recordings, both the singer and the recorder. The copyright for the song itself is serparate and distinct from the the copyright for the recording of the song.

Creating a good recording takes a lot more than being able to play and sing. You may place higher value on the vocal and instrumental skills than on the recording/producing skills, others may not. I've heard recording that I regarded mainly as the creation of the performer and others that I regarded mainly as the creation of the producer/engineer. Apparently, case law says both count -- so next time you're making a record, make sure the copyright stuff is in writing.

Nobody will ever want to listen to (let alone record) me singing or playing...

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Now I'm telling MISS
                                  at               PIGGY about MONEY MARKET
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Reply to
Grant Edwards
[...]

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

If you mean the record "producer," then yes. If you mean the guy running the sound board, then not necessarily. Consider "bootleg" taping of live concerts.

No. Copyright law says the "author" of the work owns the copyright. Specifically in the instance of sound recordings, the "performer(s) or record producer, or both."

Note this is different from the musical composition copyright: "Copyright in a musical work includes the right to make and distribute the first sound recording. Although others are permitted to make subsequent sound recordings, they must compensate the copyright owner of the musical work under the compulsory licensing provision of the law (title 17, United States Code, Section 115)."

To bring it back to the photographs, the "author" of the work is the photographer, regardless of their subject (wedding, news event, the grand canyon). The wedding might belong to the bride, but the image belongs to the one who "fixed" it. There's more to photography than releasing the shutter: posing, composing, cropping, retouching, etc. The wedding party and guests aren't there to create the image. The photographer is.

Only because you are misinformed. See

formatting link
for more (USA-specific) info.

Regards,

-=Dave

--
Change is inevitable, progress is not.
Reply to
Dave Hansen

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