Can I steal your image?

Photographers should be familiar with legislation such as:
The Copyright Act of 1976
and the No Electronic Act of 1997

They both "Protect" our rights to our work from people who want to steal our images and use them for financial gain or for personal use.
 
I'm short of time and have to run, but here's a link to dig in if you're interested;

U.S. Copyright Office

I think the section that pertains to didtal photos is title 18.

Gottago- have fun.


... It's all about what you can get away with.
 
I'm amazed that ad wasn't banned. There are so many bold-faced, outright lies, it's laughable.

Besides, this one's better :lol:


Only, "to take" implies depriving someone of exactly what you've taken.

True - but when I take your photo I have not deprived you of your face have I now? But I have still taken your photo.
It implies depriving - but implications are not the point - you have still taken (via the method of copying or saving the image) the image and are using it for your own desires.
and yes I am aware that every image on the net is already saved to a computers harddrive upon viewing - and it makes things comfusing

It's hard to beat British humor!

the internets won't let me watch it - and I am in Britain too! :(
 
It's not an issue of stealing the photo but depriving the photographer of the money that they should have earned from it. It seems a pointlessly pedantic exercise to argue about the use of the word 'theft' in this case.
 
You're clearly not understanding the contrast between a physical object and an abstract idea.

Sure I do -- for some reason you've drawn a distinction between things you can touch and things you can't, and have decided to value only the former. The law (and the rest of society) values ideas the same way that it values the paper on which they're written.

A photo is an abstract concept. I can put it on my hard drive. If you copy it from my hard drive to a CD, it's copyright infringement, not theft.

It's conversion (a "taking") of the underlying rights, which in most situations is civil copyright infringement. You seem to be hung up on the word "theft" (for reasons that I suspect are explained further down in your post) -- so I'll certainly grant you that under U.S. law the tort (or criminal charge, if the conduct was severe enough) would not be "theft" in its technical sense.

You can't own a specific photo, but you can own the "right to copy" it, hence the term "copyright". If two people have a photo of the same subject and a similar or same composition, neither of them stole it from the other, but each own the copyright to their specific photo.

Now you're very close to getting it. What you want to say is that an idea for a picture cannot be copyrighted. And that's (partially) right -- everyone is entitled to take a picture of the Empire State Building or the Hoover Dam, and to do it from whatever angle they like. (Although explicitly copying another's shot can get you into a grey area.) Unfortunately, what you're also saying is that the photo itself enjoys no protection -- and while that may be your idea for what the law should be, it's certainly not the law.

Whatever "value" you have placed on the photo is imaginary and abstract. No idea has a concrete value that you can put a dollar amount on.

You can put a dollar amount on a tree based on size, weight, quality, age, health and many other concrete factors. Nothing is concrete about artwork.

How do you value a tree? (Or, for that matter, how do you value Citibank stock?) Assuming you're going to sell it, you value a tree by the going rate of wood in the lumber market. That's based only on peoples' demand for lumber -- and IP is no different. Someone will pay $5 -- or they won't. If no one will pay $5, someone will pay $4. Or they won't. IP is subject to economics in the same way as any other good or service. You're trying to assign abstractness to it -- but it's not an abstract concept.

My heart bleeds. You can't base your business what people should do, but what people will do. If it's easy to copy, people will copy it. Live with it or go out of business. If you can otherwise add value to it, people are usually willing to pay for that value.

Hmm. So you're basically saying that if someone can break through the locks and copy something, then they're legally entitled to it. :er: I hope you think the same applies to everything else you own, because if so I know some guys who would love to have your address. But, fortunately, you're wrong -- one of the ways we prevent someone from breaking into our houses and stealing our stuff is making it illegal to do so. The same is true with IP.

Copyright is not a right to make money from your work, it's a right to try to make money from your work as long as it progressive according to the constitution (in the US).

...and destroying any possibility of making money from your work eliminates that right. :er:

Great, something I can relate to. I am a web developer by trade, which includes writing website management software. I charge a reasonable rate to get the job done for each customer and that's it. If the customer decides to pickup and go, they're free to take the software with them.

Why should I care? I already got paid for it. Copyright may give me the right to charge for it in perpetuity, but I'm not a greedy hog, so I don't.

If it turns out to be the next Windows, and they get filthy rich off it, and you're ok with only your upfront fee -- hey, that's your choice, man. But the law would have granted you greater rights if you chose to exercise them.

Repeat after me: copyright is not a retirement plan.

Ok, that's your view, and you're entitled to it. So what do you want to retire on? You work hard -- you don't deserve to retire?

Here's the problem with accusations and conviction of copyright infringement: if I download a crapload of commercial software using bittorrent, I'm doing it because:

1) I'm cheap, or
2) I'm poor, or
3) I'm lazy

No matter what you do, you are not going to money out of me in the first two situations, and only maybe in the third.

If I'm cheap and the software is not available via warez channels, I won't buy it anyway. If I'm poor and the software is not available via warez channels, I won't buy it anyway. If I'm lazy and the software is not available via warez channels, I won't buy it anyway.

The end result is zero loss. There's no way you are going to get anyone in these three categories to buy your software whether or not it can be found via warez channels, so fighting infringement is just wasted energy.

So you value the software enough to want to use it, which means that absent any other way, you'd pony up some amount of money for it -- but you also know a way to just take it without paying, so you do that instead. (Because, let's face it, if the choices are "free" or "not free," and we're not constrained by morality or the law, everyone's going to choose free.) Ok, you're going to do it regardless -- but nothing you described above makes it right or legal.

But you're too poor? Not really -- you just don't want to pay for something you want. But if you really are too poor, there are ways to make money to buy the things you want.

You're too cheap? Zero sympathy -- taking what isn't yours simply because you don't want to pay for it is repulsive.

You're too lazy? ... (really, does it take more time to learn how to take things than it does to buy them?)

Nor can you justify it with the self-serving claim that you otherwise wouldn't have bought it, so "no harm, no foul."

First, in many cases it's false -- you often would have found the money to pay for it, but didn't have to.

Second, from the creator's point of view they would often rather you not have the software if you aren't going to pay for it. You're not entitled to their creation -- it's their choice whether they sell it to you at any given price point or to give it away. Taking away that choice is wrong, even if you could (and you can't) construct an argument in which they didn't suffer economic harm.

Yup, and written with explicit purpose to promote the progress of useful arts and sciences, not to pad your pocket book. Go read it.

Copyright wasn't even conceived with the idea that you should have a right to make money creating art, it was conceived with the idea that the money aspect was merely an incentive to promote progress. Progress first, money second.

Centuries of experience told the founders that letting inventors and artists "pad their pocket books" (also known as making a living) was the only way to encourage progress, because no one would bother to invent anything if their neighbor was going to reap all the rewards. You're not seriously disagreeing with that -- in fact, you're right: progress first, money second. Inventors have to know that their progress will lead to money, or they'll never do it.

In any event, I don't think I'll be able to convince you that taking things that don't belong to you is wrong if you don't already believe that it is...so back to the grind. :lol:
 
the internets won't let me watch it - and I am in Britain too!
Oooh, the irony :lol:

Sure I do -- for some reason you've drawn a distinction between things you can touch and things you can't, and have decided to value only the former. The law (and the rest of society) values ideas the same way that it values the paper on which they're written.
No, it doesn't. That's why "copyright infringement" and "theft" are defined separately in law. That's why "copyright infringement" can sometimes be a civil dispute and why "theft" is always a criminal matter.



So what do you want to retire on?
An RRSP (401K in the US), like honest people.

Centuries of experience told the founders that letting inventors and artists "pad their pocket books" (also known as making a living) was the only way to encourage progress, because no one would bother to invent anything if their neighbor was going to reap all the rewards. You're not seriously disagreeing with that -- in fact, you're right: progress first, money second. Inventors have to know that their progress will lead to money, or they'll never do it.
History proves you wrong: copyright has only existed for the last few hundred years and people still invented things and created plenty of art before the era of copyright.

How do we know that people were motivated to create art without copyright? Because they created art.

In any event, I don't think I'll be able to convince you that taking things that don't belong to you is wrong if you don't already believe that it is...so back to the grind.
Oh, no, stealing is certainly wrong. Copying isn't stealing.
 
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Copying isn't stealing.

I think your going to be on your own with this one!

I just can't see how you can't see that it is stealing in a form. Granted you still have the original, but in today's society it is possible to distribute copies of that original for financial (and other) gain. Thus we have copywrite to protect that content for yourself and thus allow only the original creator to (potentially) benefit from the creation.

I guess its only since we can recreate good or perfectly identical copies of things with little effort that we have to start protecting against it.
 
History proves you wrong: copyright has only existed for the last few hundred years and people still invented things and created plenty of art before the era of copyright.

450-500 years, but "last few hundred" is close enough. Copyright's origins date from roughly the time it became possible to copy and steal written works (shortly after the invention of the printing press and the mercantile trade). Before that, people knew they would enjoy the fruits of their labors because, well, there wasn't any way for others to take them.

No, it doesn't. That's why "copyright infringement" and "theft" are defined separately in law. That's why "copyright infringement" can sometimes be a civil dispute and why "theft" is always a criminal matter.

You're wrong on both counts. "Taking a thing without authorization" has a different name in civil and criminal matters (conversion versus theft), and slightly different elements, but it's both a civil and criminal wrong. You can be prosecuted OR sued (or both). Same is true with copyright infringement. The law has penalties for either, both civil and criminal. So you're really just arguing a difference based on the name of the most applicable law -- if that's what you have, it's not much.

Oh, no, stealing is certainly wrong. Copying isn't stealing.

Nope. With authorization, copying isn't stealing.

Unauthorized copying without compensating the owner of the work, on the other hand... You don't want to call those actions "stealing" because you engage in them as well and don't want to be considered a thief -- and I won't call you one -- but regardless of what you call it, it's far short of moral and definitely illegal. :er:

If you're comfortable with that, then you are -- many people break the law or commit torts, and most of them sleep at night. But if your point is to say that copyright infringers should be safe from lawsuits or prosecution, or are in any way morally justified in taking other peoples' intellectual property...then you're simply wrong.
 
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I think your going to be on your own with this one!

I just can't see how you can't see that it is stealing in a form. Granted you still have the original, but in today's society it is possible to distribute copies of that original for financial (and other) gain. Thus we have copywrite to protect that content for yourself and thus allow only the original creator to (potentially) benefit from the creation.

I guess its only since we can recreate good or perfectly identical copies of things with little effort that we have to start protecting against it.

Copying isn't stealing. Copying and using beyond the limitations of 'fair use' is unauthorized use, an infringement.

Read the definitions I posted earlier. Then, go to the link I posted earlier and read about your rights.

Say the OP has asked the "infringer" to remove the photo from their site (discontinue use). The "infringer says, "No. I like it just fine." What are you goining to do?

Hint: There are several options, but none of them have the word(s) steal or theft in them.
 
like I said (somewhere up there) I think we are dealing with terms under a legal and a general understanding.
from the legal point of view there are differences in all the meanings - even (probably) between theft and stealing. However for the layman these terms (and the situation you are describing) are all lumped under a singular viewpoint
oh and those copywrite laws ain't my laws (though they are most likley very similar) ;)
 
like I said (somewhere up there) I think we are dealing with terms under a legal and a general understanding.
from the legal point of view there are differences in all the meanings - even (probably) between theft and stealing. However for the layman these terms (and the situation you are describing) are all lumped under a singular viewpoint
oh and those copywrite laws ain't my laws (though they are most likley very similar) ;)

So what are you going to do in the stated scenario--according to your laws?

The "infringer says, "No. I like it just fine." What are you goining to do?
 
Contact a lawyer (a specialist in image copywrite cases preferably) and speak to them about it of course - probably post here to and vent/get advice - as well as a few other photography sites and see what the best advice given is from people = though I will still contact the proper lawyer.
 

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