About copyright and hoarders.

[Otterkins2]

As I get deeper into historical studies, I get more and more ticked off about some of the people out there. The whole point of groups like Simmers and 12 O?clock High and whatever is to freely share information so that we can gain a greater grasp on past history?isn?t it? So what?s with all the hoarding of info? What?s with all you guys on sites posting pics you got freely that were like baseball cards during the 40?s and then claiming you own copyright? How do you copyright something that was never produced by you to begin with that at least a thousand other people have in their possession? If I buy one of these photos or cards from a collector, does it now mean I hold copyright too?

I?m sure the motivation for these people is greed. They think if they paste a copyright sticker on it then they can charge ridiculous fees for access to it. Well I?ve got news for all of you members in the Greedy Morons Club. If you did not create the image aforementioned and you posted it on line, it becomes part of the public domain. It never belonged to you to begin with, so you can?t copyright it. If that was the case you?d be suing 100 other guys for having the same image on their website. YOU CANNOT COPYRIGHT HISTORY! You do not own it and you never will.

So here?s the deal. You be straight up and you?ll get credited for the image and probably a link back too. Be willing to share and you?ll probably have people flocking to your site in droves because you?re an honest guy. In fact, your sales might even increase. Be a hoarder though, and I and many like me will shun you like the pariah you are. Sooner or later that picture you?ve been holding back for years will turn up on line because somebody else has it and you?ll be left with nothing.

You are blocking free dissemination of information and allowing confusion into an area where most of us strive to work to clear things up. On its own, history has enough confusion and pitfalls without you adding to the mix for personal gain. History belongs to all of us and the only people that can legitimately use the copyright thingie in a court of law are those that have labored to produce something original like the Simmers here that have studied and worked hard to learn a program so that YOU could have something new and original to look at.

In the meantime, I?ll just shut my big yap.

[BLOWHARD]

YOU CANNOT COPYRIGHT HISTORY!

Unfortunately you can and quite a bit has been already. I think if you look at this less as something you are interested it and more as a monetary issue you'll understand. If you make money from something, something you own, and someone else decides to take something you own and give it away, you'd be upset, yes? It's stealing. Whether or not someone should be able to own or not own something is another question

You are blocking free dissemination of information

Like it or not, once something is copyrighted, IT IS NOT free to disseminate it, unless you get permission from the owner of the copyright.
Hell, I could print what I've written out, mail it to myself and it would be copyrighted, loosely of course, but never the less...

Now I don't claim to have any clue as to what picture you're talking about or who this is aimed at, but if someone has a legitimate copyright, that's that.
I have seen a great many people who scan other folks photos or art and then claim it's theirs because they made the scan. That's just plain stupid.

I think most all of us are guilty of this in one way or another. I've scanned image from books and posted them here. I knew full well I was scanning someone else's material and that it was steeling. If you really believe otherwise, then you're wrong.
Just remember that you may be steeling from someone, history or no
***Now, unless you feel like telling us exactly what you are referring too, none of us will have a clue if you have a legitimate gripe or not :P

[Serval]

Since you post on this site about this: Where on this site do you see invalid copyright claims?

Though I agree with you to some point. I do see many old pictures that are in the public domain and where people do claim copyrights. But it is not as simple as you say: "You got an old picture, you post it on Internet and it is Public Domain". First of all: it is for the photographer/creator to decide if it is public domain. If the copyright owner is a person, copyrights are gone around 60 years after (s)he dies This is different for some countries, since I know some Americans like to apply US law to the whole world. So, you need to know where the owner lives/lived to know what the rules exactly are.

Now: Copyrights of an aircraft (design) are with the factory that made it or the company that now owns that factory. Still if I take a picture of that aircraft, I own the copyrights of that photo. Even if I give the photo away to you, I still own the copyrights. If I seel the photo through E-bay and you buy it... It is still my copyright.
Assume I die today and my wife sells them to you: the next 60 years it's still my copyright and you'll need my wife's permission to publish it. So, no way it falls to public domain there. In 2068 you are free to do with it what you want (laws in my country).

If the owner of the photo's is a company, then the copyright never falls away. Even if the company is gone, for example because it is bankrupt, some one has claimed it's inventory as payment for the depts. So, the copyrights stay with the company or the new owner of (the remains of) the company. Fokker is gone now, but many old photo's of Fokker aircraft did belong to the company are now owned by the Fokker Heritage Trust. I got lots of these pictures, but I still need to credit them for the copyrights when I use them. No public domain there.
The US goverment, like many other governments does publish photo's into the public domain unless stated otherwise. Those are photo's you can use freely.

I know of the ridiculous situation where some foundations have as goal to bring forgotten aircraft to life. They gather whatever they find. But on the other hand they never give such information to people who ask for it. I contacted a motorclub about a veryold motorbike asking "what type is it exacly" so I could search for drawings for a 3D model. The answer I got "we only give such information to members". Now that is what I call hindering distribution of information. On this site people are pretty willing to share information, and sometimes it's on the edge of copyright infringement.

Now, if you refer to my photo's here that have this annoying copyright statement: I can prove I made them. There has been a lawsuit about that, as the old members here know.
Well, you immediately now know why it has this annoying notice: because some moron got some of these pictures, and some other images, and tried to get the site I had before this one off-line with claiming the copyrights of my work!!! No you say such practice is fair? Due to that the people who liked my site were 6 months without it due to this. I did cost me a lot of money, plus the whining of people who said I took the site off-line due to greed.
So, that matter made me decide to state on photo's I publish on the Internet that I'm the owner. That way one has to edit the images to get it away and that makes it much harder for them to prove they are the copyright owner. Beside that I never publish EXIF data with my pictures and allways lower resolutions. Not because I don't like people to use them, just to stay out of trouble. If someone needs a version without the text, they can contact me, and I must have a good reason won't I give them. For all others, even though the text is there: they can enjoy then and use them as reference. The photo's are just as usefull as without the text. It's just harder to misuse them.

Now, on this site we are generally strict on obeying copyrights. Even though I have a feeling a copyright claim can be false (those old WW2 pics), we will remove such material and give the person who posted them an infraction. First: we can not be 100% sure the owner claiming copyrights does not own these copyrights, what would mean trouble. Second: even if that person does not won copyrights, just a rare photo, it's only polite to credit that person for sharing.
If you post images here: ask permission, give credits and link back to the site. A little effort and a big joy for everyone. In the 6 or 7 years I do this I only got a no once and no reply at all once. All others said yes.

And as a matter of fact, just these days we have a matter where someone posted photo's in the gallery of which is pretty clear he does not own the copyrights. Copyright claims on them are from other people and signs like that. In the gallery it's even m ore simple: there we only want images that the people created themselves. BTW: we do not watermark any image here, like airliners.net does even though we could. And I have seen cases where a newspaper misuses photo's take from Airliners.net without even crediting the photographer, let alone pay him (since the newspaper makes money over someones photo). Now I ask you, who's the greedy one here?

And to state clearly: we don't sell anything here. The income from the Amazon and Google ads is the only income we have here. And that doesn't make me rich. It even doesn't cover the costs of the traffic of this site. Not that I care, I like to run the site and as long as I can afford to, I will. But lawsuits like mentioned above can change that due to costs and motivation on my side. Besides we think it is fair to give credits to who is sharing information, that is the other main reason for our policy. Yeah, it's greed... I don't want to become a poor man because of lawsuits since some people don't want to obey copyrights.
If you are pointing at the fact that we block linking photo's from other sites directly. There I think the site linking to "our" photo is the greedy one.
Many sites (forums) don't want to host photo's since most photo's are 10-100 times bigger then this whole thread. This costs traffic. And traffic costs money. I found many other sites linking to photo's and dowloads on this server. At some point that was 80% of the traffic!!!
So, I was paying a server and traffic. But 80% of all that traffic was to the profit of other sites. I hope you understand that is not the reason why I started this site. At the other hand: we also don't accept you here link to a photo hosted on another site, unless it's a photo/file hosting site, your own site or with perission. Rather link to the page where the photo is or upload a copy to this place, with permission and a link back to the source.

So, policy on this site is: there are copyrights, it's a difficult matter. But we obey them, period. If someone claims the copyrights and there is no way to prove otherwise, then we obey that claim as well. You agreed to the copyright policy with signing up to this site. If you do not like that on second hand and find me greedy, then do what you have to do. We won't change the policy even though we would like to share everything in the world with everyone.

[x4btr]

Some very clear replies there, BH and Serv. Great discussion of a tricky topic.

I will avoid the moral aspect of this matter, because frankly I find neither the law(s) nor the reality to my liking. However, IF one is indeed an honest historian engaged in honest historical work (analysis, composition, research, etc) with regard to the law, both in Europe and North America, the use of such material is permitted. Well, I should say "limited use", really.

The provision for Fair Use exists in both hemispheres, and the laws are pretty similar (not identical, so be aware). For 'academic' type purposes (i.e. conducting proper history, or such) one may reproduce and exhibit such images for the purposes of such historical (or academic, etc) work (discussion, analysis, etc) PROVIDED THAT (and this is a gross generalisation, so do please check your local laws):

- The image is reproduced in Book Standard format (72 dpi, no hidden or extra layers, no encrypted data)

- That the use of the image is not for profit in any form whatsoever

- That the use of the image does not reasonably impeded the execution of the holder's Copyright

Therefore, you should be able to employ such images in the historical work you are doing to the point that is necessary to make a reasonable historical interpretation of them. It is your right to do this. However, be warned that attempting to use the provisions of Fair Use to 'sneak around' the law is not only immoral, but very illegal.

Hopefully one will not encounter such persons who misuse their solicitor to prevent historians from employing Fair Use. This does happen; it has happened to me, and indeed it was done to the owner of this site. That is another matter, a problem pertaining to the greedy and litigious modern world. But, in the event, academic progress is at least supposed not to be hindered, according to the law.

[Otterkins2]

WHOA!!! Simmer down here guys! This comment is NOT directed at this site. It's directed at all those backwater jerks out there grubbing for money off of something they themselves did not personally create. These people act as roadblocks to history buffs and academic historians. The truth about some events is stalled or may never be known because these people are holding them up for ransom. It is unfair, unethical and evil.

To my knowledge, this site has ALWAYS held a strict adherance to copyright infringement and outright theft and that is how it should be. However for someone to claim copyright to the image of a trading card (such as the ones done of famous personalities in the Third Reich) or photos that were publicly handed out to thousands many years ago is simply rediculous. History DOES belong to all of us! If the law believes otherwise then it truly is an ass! (Who said that first anyways?)

Serval certainly does make a valid point about the theft of photos, and I believe that too. I am not accusing Serval of greed...in fact quite the oposite given all he has put into Simmers. No, the bone I'm picking over is with those that go out of their way to dig out old photos, pay peanuts to the unsuspecting vendor and then turn around and duplicate them for profit. Money fer nothin! When you profit from someone else's work without compensating them, it's theft...pure and simple. My point is, where do we draw the line? I bet there are a lot of photos out there that have yet to surface. Does this mean finders keepers mine gimmie-gimmie or will they be shared with the world?

[Serval]

Thanks for clearing things up.
I agree, there are lots of photo's claimed under the name "copyright" where there is no copyright to claim. But I think it is better to get in touch with those people and try to get what you want/need in a polite manner. Even though it can be hard.
I know a lot of unique WW2 photographs sold at places like E-bay are bought by a couple of very rich people willing and able to pay $x00 for a single photo...
I even think more than twice when I find a rare book for that amount.