RE: filmscanners: Importance of Copyright on Images

["Laurie Solomon" <laurie@advancenet.net>]

While I generally agree with you on several points in your response to
Harvey, I have to say that screen resolutions right now are way beyond 800 X
600.  I am able to get screen resolutions as high as 1600 x 1200 using some
video cards and a little higher using other video cards.

However, all this discussion about a future which none of us are able to
accurrately foresee or predict does not respond to the points in question
which are concerned with what is happening in the hear and now.  The search
engine people are not concerned with structuring their cautions based on
future possibilities but on current realities; so I doubt if  they would
find such rationalizations very pursuasive when it comes to what they will
or will not include in their search engines.

Moreover, since the search engines merely furnish a low resolution thumbnail
representation of images on other web sites with links to thoe site they are
on, I would think that if a cautionary advisory is to be uesed and is
effective at protecting the images on the sites being linked to that
cautionary advisory should be on the site itself with the image that is
being linked to more than on the serach engine.  Of course, this switches
responsibility back onto the image owner to protect his own images on his
site rather than making the search engine responsible for this task.

As for Harvey's comments concerning fair use and editorial use in connection
with copyright, he does not make it clear if his legal action against TV
news shows or any other media outlet were in Federal or state courts, based
on copyrigth infringement or other state laws concerning appropriation of
images.  If the legal action was brought in state courts it was not for
copyright violation since that can oly be brought in federalcourt in that
the law is a federal statute.  If it was brought in the state courts then
the action was based on state laws which are not technically copyright laws
and the caution that the images are copyrighted would not apply as a caution
aginst the sorts of actions that were being brought in the state courts and
would vary from state to state.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Anthony Atkielski
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 5:07 AM
To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
Subject: Re: filmscanners: Importance of Copyright on Images


Harvey writes:

> ... but eventually, our screen resolution will be
> the same as paper reproduction.

I don't expect that ever to occur, as there is very little need for it, and
it
is technically difficult.  It has taken many years just for the average
screen
size to advance from 640x480 to 800x600, and matching print use would
require
resolutions of at least 3600x2700 or beyond.  That is not likely to be
achieved
with CRT technology, and it may also be very difficult with flat-panel
technology, at least for the foreseeable future.

> It might only take a year or 2, or longer ...

If it happens at all, it will take far longer than two years.  Current
screen
resolutions are barely above what they were thirty years ago.  The average
resolution of 800x600 today is not even twice that of text-only CRTs from
the
1960s.

Part of this is related to the fact that print resolutions are often well
beyond
what people can actually see, and so there is no good reason to try to
duplicate
them in display systems.

> For example, who could have predicted, 10 years ago
> that 20 gig hard drives would be the norm ...

And who would have predicted, when solid-state replaced vacuum tubes nearly
half
a century ago, that people would still be using huge vacuum tubes (i.e.,
CRTs)
in 2001?

> ... or that modems would be performing at the
> speeds that they do ...

Modems are only about 10 times faster than they were thirty years ago.  The
inability to make them work _really_ fast is what will cause their demise in
the
future, as other methods of communication become available.

> I think that the same will, finally, be true of the
> image search engines as well.

I think that there is a very strong possibility that the Internet and like
technologies will eventually bring about the abandon of copyright as it now
exists.  It will be a long, hard fight, led mostly by giant multinationals
who
are the real beneficiaries of copyright (as opposed to individual artists,
who
often sign away their rights, anyway), but it will not be successful in the
long
run.

> Beyond all of the above:
> We don't like it when our images are appropriated.

Life is tough.

> It is frustrating to think that we can *only* post
> thumbnail sized images on our website, or need to
> disfigure them with our copyright or watermark,
> (for fear of theft)...There must be a better way.

I don't do either of these.  I provide good-sized images with no watermarks
or
disfigurement.  I figure that some people will steal the images, but
hopefully
enough people will pay for them so that I can still derive revenue from
them.
If I can cover my costs and turn a reasonable profit, I'm happy, and the
loss of
potential income beyond that is not an issue for me, as I have moral qualms
about such extreme uses of copyright, anyway.

> We collected $10,000 from a tv 'news' show for
> lifting our images from the NY Times, using them
> out of context and without our consent or permission.

How much would you have charged them if they had asked to license the images
for
that use?