Proposal to Update Copyright Policies

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Bill The Lurker

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The current policies on TPF for the use of copyright material are, in my opinion obviously, deeply flawed. They present the appearance of a pastiche of social norms, passed down through generations of moderators with vague and somewhat capricous changes applied, as well as fairly vague and capricious enforcement.

I propose that TPF update the policies to a) comply with actual law (which they currently do not) and b) to be clearer and easier for forum users to comply with.

The rationale for this is that TPF is a forum aimed at the newbie, the newcomer to photography and perhaps also a newbie to the world of copyright and intellectual property. It therefore behooves TPF to be an example, not of the social norms of the internet at large, but of what is actually proper behavior, legally and ethically.

My suggestion is to permit embedding postings ONLY of work the user has a clear right to, either because:

1) the user holds the copyright
2) has verifiable permission from the copyright holder
3) the work is not subject to copyright

This is irrespective of the nature of the copyrightable work. It is frankly absurd to allow memes but not un-memed photographs. While it is "standard behavior" on the internet, there is no ethical or legal basis for allowing this. It's just fun. And this should extend to illustrations, videos, text, and all other copyrightable works.

Again, the point is to show that TPF respects intellectual property rights across the board, as an example to people who may not know what the ethical and legal positions actually are.

This makes TPF compliant with legal and ethical positions by eliminating large uses of copyrighted material that are currently posted freely, as well as making compliance by new users easier by clarifying that all intellectual property is respected. Grey areas are removed.

A Reasonable Exception to the above, commonly applied in other forums:

Permit a restricted ("known safe" as it were) Fair Use for photographs specifically. Permit people to embed unmodified work they do not hold the copyright to, specifically for the purposes of criticism and/or education. Write a few lines of guidelines to ensure that people know what this means, and specifically reserve the right (still) to delete images that are not being used in what the moderators deem complies with those guidelines.

Work other than photographs may not be posted under this exception.

(Although it might be reasonable to allow photography-related text or videos? Not sure.)

This not only makes the forum more useful in general, it introduces the newbie to the ideas of Fair Use, and the idea that Fair Use, while real, is quite limited in scope.

I feel that these changes would tend to make the forum more useful, more friendly, and more aligned with the stated goals of supporting and educating the new photographer.
 
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My suggestion is to permit embedding postings ONLY of work the user has a clear right to, either because:

1) the user holds the copyright
2) has verifiable permission from the copyright holder
3) the work is not subject to copyright
.............

Isn't this the way it currently is?
 
Thank you for your thoughts. We can pass them along to the site owners.
 
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