Who Was Jack The Ripper ? (H Division, 2019)

[Guest]

Obviously there is some disagreement over whether images 100 years old are out of copyright and whether only the (expired) copyright holder retains reproduction rights or if those rights can transfer to someone else after the copyright has expired. The fact that someone may have been paid 7 years ago for an image that is out of copyright doesn’t mean that that payment was required by law or ethics.

Where there should be no legal or ethical disagreement is that when someone sits down at their keyboard and copies verbatim a sizable portion of someone else’s words, whether it be from a book or a wiki entry, and claims they are their own words and publishes them in a book as the author of those words it is plagiarism, pure and simple.

JM

[Rob Clack]

I admit to being unsure on this....Lots of grey areas

I agree.

[Nathen Amin]

For what it's worth, my understanding of image copyright (having encountered such things in my own work and something I am this very morning battling with as I deal with image permissions myself) is that the copyright elapses 70 years after the death of the original copyright owner (in most cases the person who took the picture). Once this elapses, there is no copyright and there is no such thing as reproduction rights. It is, quite literally, a free-for-all. Ownership of the original copy is irrelevant.


A key phrase from the following link https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreute...ge=true&bhcp=1) states

"Owning or possessing a physical copy of an image does not mean that you can use the image as you wish, as it does not make you the owner of copyright in the image."

It is, admittedly, a murky topic but the above I am led to believe is the case. What I do know definitively to be the case is any picture taken ON a property (e.g. inside a National Trust house or inside a Church) needs permission from the owner of the property, which almost every author these days seems to flaunt in ignorance. A key thing for me is to always take a picture from a public right of way (e.g. road) to get around this. Of course, in reality I am not sure of how many instances the NT or English Heritage or a private citizen has launched a civil suit to address the matter but you never know.

The only real way to keep a 19th century (for example) image out of the work of others is to never ever publish it anywhere as it is not in copyright as per the above link.

[Rob Clack]

So basically I can post a copy of Philips Dutfields Yard photo all over the Internet and I won't get any comebacks.

[Guest]

Same goes for a photo of Charles Cross, taken off of a television screen and cropped into a head shot. Huh.

JM

[Steve Stanley]

So basically I can post a copy of Philips Dutfields Yard photo all over the Internet and I won't get any comebacks.

IF the original had been published,yes....But by doing cleaning-up work or similar, you could be said to have changed the image and in that state it is your property? I think......

[Rob Clack]

IF the original had been published,yes....But by doing cleaning-up work or similar, you could be said to have changed the image and in that state it is your property? I think......

Yes, you can claim new copyright on it.

[Steve Stanley]

None of which relates to copying chunks of text from recent works without acknowledgement

[Guest]

None of which relates to copying chunks of text from recent works without acknowledgement

Bingo.

JM

[Rob Clack]

I was talking about photographs.

The ones used in CSI were altered from the originals by me before posting.

I have an unaltered copy of the Dutfields Yard photograph.

[Paul]

IF the original had been published,yes....But by doing cleaning-up work or similar, you could be said to have changed the image and in that state it is your property? I think......

Phillip's Dutfields Yard photograph had not been published prior to his purchase of it, of course, so he owned the original and could charge a reproduction fee. Once somebody had reproduced it, would that have made it fair game for anyone to copy the copy, just tweak it a little, then claim ownership and charge a reproduction fee?

[Nathen Amin]

Phillip's Dutfields Yard photograph had not been published prior to his purchase of it, of course, so he owned the original and could charge a reproduction fee. Once somebody had reproduced it, would that have made it fair game for anyone to copy the copy, just tweak it a little, then claim ownership and charge a reproduction fee?

Cook used Phillip's image without permission and I understand that the copyright lawyer engaged by Cook made the whole thing an absolute nightmare, so I guess everything is very far from straightforward, even if it was a family photo.

Hi Paul; as I suggested, think its a very murky subject area, even the retouching to create a 'new' picture. I mean, how much retouching will be required to make the new image sufficiently different from the original. I'd be surprised if just subtle recolouring and perhaps a bit of sharpening is enough, but I guess it would need to be tried on a case by case basis in a courtroom which obviously isn't practical and why so many people continue down this path. I think the gist is that claiming definitively that one has copyright or doesn't have copyright is really not a simple matter and only one that could be settled on an individual basis.


One could argue they have retouched a picture, but how much is sufficiently? This may be down to a judge's interpretation.



Marina Amaral is a fantastic photo colouriser who recently released this fabulous work where she coloured in a number of historic pictures from history (think fully coloured pictures of Hitler etc). I would guess she has used out of copyright pictures (i.e. 70 years) and recoloured them in herself, which having heard her speak is a laborious process. She definitely would have copyright on those, surely, as they are just so radically different from the originals.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-Time-History-World-1850-1960/dp/1786692686

I guess I can only reiterate it's quite a murky subject and claiming one has copyright is not as crystal clear as it seems. I think text is much more clearer hence why I'm thankful I'm an author not a photographer, though I do need to get more use out of my DSLR!

[Anna Morris]

I have not caught up with copyright law in this day of the internet. It used to be said that a 10% change to a work made it new property.

I figure with the internet, copyrights are practically useless. Even if your stuff was stolen, how are you going to sue someone in Russia or Asia? For most of us it probably wouldn't be worth it.

I own a couple copyrights on some of my inconsequential work, for what it's worth. I believe in copyright protection but have an idea there is little protection in the electronic age. I think the point of action and collection would be if someone took your work and made a lot of money, then you could sue for a piece of the action.

Then there is the story of Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys band tweaking one of Charles Manson's songs and making money from it. Cause for murder? Perhaps in part. It looks to me like Wilson made more than a 10% change to Manson's unprotected work.

My opinions in these matters are why I asked How for my own page here for my Voynich Manuscript work. I want SOME protection for my work so that I can detail and claim my contributions to the subject. I do not want someone to take my system, which I believe works, copyright it and write a book that would bar me from using what I created. I also wrote and published several articles about my work with the VM. Those articles are not particularly good but they have a copyright from the site where they appeared.

I do not believe I can fully solve the VM and I am glad to share and work with others just like we do here at the Forum. It will take an international effort to fully solve this mystery. In the end I do not want to be shut out of literally thousands of hours of my creative work and research. I do not think I mind someone else profiting and I do not want or need fame, but the VM could be very important for the next step in my life.

[Rob Clack]

When I challenged a few libraries about the use of images clearly out of copyright, they came back and claimed I would be paying for reproduction rights because I am using their copies.

From my own point of view if I take the trouble to track down images which sometimes isn't cheap then I wouldn't be best pleased if people think it is okay to download a copy of the internet and use for free.

But perhaps it's just me.

[Kattrup]

For what it's worth, my understanding of image copyright (having encountered such things in my own work and something I am this very morning battling with as I deal with image permissions myself) is that the copyright elapses 70 years after the death of the original copyright owner (in most cases the person who took the picture). Once this elapses, there is no copyright and there is no such thing as reproduction rights. It is, quite literally, a free-for-all. Ownership of the original copy is irrelevant.


A key phrase from the following link https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreute...ge=true&bhcp=1) states

"Owning or possessing a physical copy of an image does not mean that you can use the image as you wish, as it does not make you the owner of copyright in the image."

It is, admittedly, a murky topic but the above I am led to believe is the case. What I do know definitively to be the case is any picture taken ON a property (e.g. inside a National Trust house or inside a Church) needs permission from the owner of the property, which almost every author these days seems to flaunt in ignorance. A key thing for me is to always take a picture from a public right of way (e.g. road) to get around this. Of course, in reality I am not sure of how many instances the NT or English Heritage or a private citizen has launched a civil suit to address the matter but you never know.

The only real way to keep a 19th century (for example) image out of the work of others is to never ever publish it anywhere as it is not in copyright as per the above link.

This is exactly right and in this discussion relevant.

Copyright expires 70 years after creator’s death. So any image or photo that fits that criterion is free for all to use.

What one must remember about reproductions of such images is that the reproduction itself may be a copyrighted work. For instance, the Dutfield Yard’s photograph. The original photo is no longer copyrighted, and may be freely copied by all. However, the published version of the photo has been altered. The photo plus enhancements are thus a new copyrighted work, which will not expire until 70 years after creator’s death.

When is a reproduction copyrightable? When the new reproduction has an individual creative effort involved. This is where the gray area enters. But certainly there is NO creative effort involved in scanning an image in a modern day flatbed scanner and publishing the result. Photoshopping it after scanning would, though.

Likewise, museum reproductions of e.g. paintings are difficult to do well (because paintings are shiny) and therefore copyrightable by the photographer/museum.

Note that copyright payments are different from access fees, that is, someone charging you a fee simply to allow you to scan or photograph their physical copy.
In many (most) cases, museums, archives and private collectors do not hold the copyright to images or works in their collections and therefore cannot charge fees or enforce copyright. But since they control access to their collections, they can invent various fees for users simply to access the work in question.

All in all, images like Lechmere photo or Dutfield Yard is not copyrighted, so if you own or have access to an original, they can be freely copied. The published versions, however, may be copyrighted.