Where do we draw the line ?

I fully agree with you, Neil, your work is yours and should not be copied, unless authorised.

As for cites, I think that they are natural and necessary - so if a few words show up here and there, mentioning where they came from, they will in fact just point the readers interest towards the original work and therefore do no harm (depending on the situation, of course).

 

I can live with short quotes like that on the Bay. At least they are trying to get the model number right and that can only help buyers and at least is is acknowledged.

Yes the same Thai page and if I don't get satifaction soon I may try to invoke some assistance from a Contact I have in Thailand. ::Neil:

 

So that page wasn't endorsed by you then. The nerve of some people!

 

No it wasn't. I have sold some copies of the PLC as PDF files but as far as I can recall only one went to Thailand and that was not a sale but an information exchange. That guy is not the Guy who posted the extracts and I doubt he has given out any copies either since he is a collector/researcher of some integrity. Still as soon as you sell any publication there is the potential for illegal copies. I suppose in the grand scheme of things this infringement is minor but I will still complain. ::Neil::

 

Well it can get worse:
I had a discussion with the owner/founder of a Thai lamp forum about MY avatar. I made my own avatar as an animated gif. By pure accident I came across it an this Thai forum. And I had to do a lot of talking to get it removed.

 

Uh! I hope that Karlskrona Lampfabrik will not come after me for using their Karlskronalykta as my avatar

 

A few thoughts on some parts of this discussion topic.

Copyright is a minefield and varies from country to country. Nobody understands copyright fully as it's a mess on a worldwide and local basis. Things that should have fallen out of copyright like old Disney films and Beatles materials have been subject to revised copyright extensions. Some films like some versions of the John Wayne 'McLintock!' have been to court and ruled to be in the public domain. I repeat the whole thing is too complex for most people to understand. Publishing a photo in a book is one thing, publishing it online is different.

In Australia and only from my recollection photos taken prior to 1955 are out of copyright full stop. After that they roughly go for the life of the photographer and about 50-70 years thereafter. So a photo I find taken by a professional photographer in 1925 can be freely used, modified and published.

I concur with Spiritburner regarding trade materials and advertisements or at least that is what I also remember in that by their very nature they are in the public domain.

I have received payments for one of my works by CAL, the agency here for collecting fees from educational organisations using copyrighted materials and accordingly I may be biased and declare that here.

However, I tell my students not to use photos from the net unless they are clearly in the public domain; most are not. Most images on Wikipedia have information attached declaring their copyright status and many can be utilised if quoted correctly.

I think also that quoting a small part of any commercial publication, properly attributed as part of research or a scholarly article is usually Okay.

When I send my photos to some German collectors I give them permission in writing to use them any way they like.

Bottom line is unless you take it to a court, it's tough trying to figure this all out. I err on the side of caution and mark any photos that are not mine so that I don't accidentally publish them.

 

Yes, if I use an image belonging to someone, I'll seek their prior permission and credit them alongside it. If I don't know who the someone is, I'll state that I don't hold copyright and offer to remove the image if the owner so desires. That seems fair to me and up to now, no-one has requested I remove an image, although it's probably amounted to no more than 3-4 occasions over the years....

 

Hello Matty, sharing information is in my opinion the main purpose of this website and i also do not claim to own any of the information which i post, it's for other members to enjoy and make use of.