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Post by AeroCooper on May 27, 2014 21:22:41 GMT -5
I'm fully behind AeroNewsDaily and any help I can give. But I'm pretty sure they have already decided its not worth the struggle and expense to fight them. Sure they could come out on top, but then again, it comes down to who can afford the better lawyer sometimes.
As for Fair Use, it all sounds great until you get to this part:
For me, the answer is no. Whether we are right or wrong, its not worth it to me, at least until I've researched it to my full satisfaction.
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Air-Roo
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Post by Air-Roo on May 27, 2014 21:35:21 GMT -5
Hi 4bits fwangurr and all, Did you know that Getty has only actually filed seven copyright lawsuits in the past five years, out of thousands and thousands of extortion letters they've sent out? ? Yeah, no kidding, they wouldn't be able to win in court. THIS IS SO MUCH BULLSHIT, I don't even know where to begin!!!! It's so sad that this sort of behavior is, technically, legal. Recently, Getty have made their images free for all to use with a simple embed code like "youtube." They say it's fine for us to use their images freely, no royalty fee at all, just a simple embed code! NO, WE AEROSMITH FANS BOYCOTT GETTY. It really ticks me off that big companies who can afford good lawyers can feel free to trample fair use laws and free speech. A lot of people with avoid speaking freely to protect their finances from these predators and that's really unconscionable.
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Post by 4bits4licks76 on May 27, 2014 21:44:53 GMT -5
Coop- I personally don't care either way, but do you have any thoughts as to why AF1 would not be concerned? I think they would be a big target and would have popped up on somebody's radar and would be perceived as having deep pockets. AF1 most certainly had attorneys review the practices and potential liability of the forum as any legit lawsuit would probably seek damages from the band as well.
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Post by AeroCooper on May 27, 2014 21:51:27 GMT -5
Some things I have read suggest that they avoid people who can afford to fight back (such as AF1) and/or people who are seen favorably in the public eye (again, Aerosmith is probably seen as somewhat favorable by the majority). They like to go after the small potatoes (like forum owners) because they might easily give in and pay a fine to avoid a lawsuit. They also like to sue lawyers because 'no one likes lawyers anyway', so they (Getty) won't look bad by going after them.
That's what I read, but yes, it sounds like a contradiction to me too. Lawyers are obviously very well equipped to fight back.
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Air-Roo
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Post by Air-Roo on May 27, 2014 21:55:44 GMT -5
^^^^ I think because Getty Images is not going after those who have deep pockets. Aerosmith would be liable to say "fine, whatever, let's take it to court," which isn't what Getty wants. Since the law isn't actually on Getty's side, Getty would most likely lose the lawsuit if it went all the way to court. They've only filed a handful of actual copyright lawsuits in the last several years because I'm sure Getty knows that it would be very difficult for them to win a lawsuit in court. Really and truly, the law is not on Getty's side here.
Getty purposely goes after small website owners like AeroNewsDaily because they know that they DON'T have deep pockets, are likely to be intimidated, are unlikely to have the resources to hire a lawyer and take it all the way to court. Small website owners are likely to pay up to avoid going to court -- and that way, Getty gets their money. If website owners like AeroNewsDaily actually met Getty in court, Getty would probably lose and go home empty-handed. Getty doesn't want to go to court!!! This is basically a money-making scheme. What they're doing is extorting money from those who lack the resources to fight back. Going after small-potatoes makes them look terrible. It makes them look like a bunch of predatory bullies. If they're "trying to look good," it isn't working. I hate seeing the powerful take advantage of the powerless.
It's really disgusting. What a bunch of nasty extortionists. I'm never giving Getty Images another dime ever again.
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Post by 4bits4licks76 on May 27, 2014 22:19:22 GMT -5
AF1's attorneys would have advised their client to not let members post images if there was a remote possibility of financial liability. Good lawyers always look for all potential liability, no matter how remote or unlikely. They (attorneys) would be negligent in their representation and legal guidance if they failed to see such a huge area of liability & not inform their client of such. I doubt they pointed it out to Af1 and Af1 just decided to ignore their advice. It just doesn't work that way.
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Air-Roo
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Post by Air-Roo on May 27, 2014 22:37:03 GMT -5
I don't think there's really any liability. Posting images on a discussion forum *****is totally legal**** Aerosmith would win easily if anyone had tried to sue them for the images on the AF1 forum. Nobody who can afford legal advisors is going to be targeted by this.
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Post by AeroCooper on May 28, 2014 7:36:29 GMT -5
In the case of AF1, and I'm totally guessing here, I would think the fact that the images are of Aerosmith would tip the scales even more in favor of AF1. If someone takes a picture of me, I would hope that I have at least some right to repost that image. That's probably 100% wrong in the lawyers' eyes, but it makes sense to me.
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Post by bartman2001 on May 28, 2014 8:21:52 GMT -5
As for Fair Use, it all sounds great until you get to this part: Yeah people who thing fair use means I can post and use anyone's copywrited material are barking up the worng tree. Assuming you are owed anyone's work is never a good idea. Parties that put copywrited material out there are going to have a far better idea of what "Fair Use" does or does not protect than parties that assume I can use anything I want. Intersting post from both 4bits4licks and Coop on why AF1 was never targeted.
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Post by Zen on May 28, 2014 21:45:40 GMT -5
I know this issue is done and dusted now but I did contact a lawyer who had a look and then gave some advice, unfortunately of not much help to Coop as this guy is in Oz.
Also what people just mentioned about there image, unless you sign a specific contract for your image to be used then the photographer never owns the image and the person whose likeness it is can ask for it to be removed and in cases where it ends up in a magazine or on tv without their permission they can sue for damages. Aerosmith will always own there own images no matter who takes them except in the case of an ad for another product they are being paid to endorse.
One of my godsons is lawyer but his specialty is criminal law so he put me onto one of the guys at his firm that handles this type of issue. He finally got back to me this morning. First he wanted to state that while Australia, England, Canada and the US do have similar laws they do vary and in the US they actually go state by state, so there is no blanket law that covers the whole country. He also said and I quote "Getty Images are a pain in the arse".
I had saved a couple of pages from aeronewsdaily that had articles I liked so I sent those to him and also gave him a link to this site which he said was literally disappearing before his eyes. I now understand why, you were deleting threads and photo's as he was looking. He said there was one huge difference he could see, aeronewsdaily had advertising on the pages I sent and also no forum where the articles could be discussed. Your site was free to enter so no fees to read or participate and also no ads, so no revenue from advertising coming in. In effect a totally free site that was run by users as anyone could post anything and not just the owners or administrators, so that in effect takes away your liability, except for what you yourself posted, but they would come after the registered owner first if they wanted to file a suit. He said non-profit sites don't get sued here unless it is a criminal matter because in civil suits they can only go after revenue earned by the site.
He went on to mention some of what aaeerroo said about the fair use laws, in the case of this site they would come under fair use/review and critique. He couldn't see where anyone claimed authorship of the original articles other than the original author whose name was left intact in alot of cases and also in most cases a link was supplied as to where the original article was sourced from. He said 2 grey area's are the original authors could sue and also the person in a photo or a photographer if images were used in the article BUT they would be skating on thin ice because it was all used to review and then critique the contents of the article, which is allowed by law.
The thread that had old photo's was another grey area, he said posters and photo's from old magazines would be hard to sue over because once you buy the magazine you can do what you want with it as long as you don't try and pass any of it off as your own composition or photography, he said putting an old photo there and then being sued would be akin to someone trying to sue you for taking a poster out of a magazine and putting it on your bedroom wall.
Bottom line was he really didn't think anyone had anything to worry about if it was under Australian law and you need someone to tell you exactly what the laws are in the state you live in. I told him where you live and he doesn't have any contacts there that he could check with, he said it appears if you lived in Conneticut? or a couple of other states you would be fine.
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Post by VoodooMedicineMan on May 29, 2014 22:35:33 GMT -5
My friend helps run an unofficial message board for a NFL team with a group of guys. The NFL is about as predatory as they come with their copyrights. I think the site has received some warnings in the past, but with a couple fairly strict rules, they haven't received any serious threats in the sites 12-15 years of existence.
I know their biggest concern is with violating any copyrighted material in branding the site. Team names can be mentioned, and there are pictures of guys in uniform on the main page, but other than that the NFL Shield or any team logo can't be displayed anywhere on the home page. They were advised at one point not to even have fonts or color schemes that were too similar to what the NFL holds trademarks for.
For articles posted, they limit the quoted parts to 2-3 paragraphs (not sure of the exact criteria), but full articles absolutely are not allowed, and any quotes must provide a link to the source.
At one point, users compiled highlight videos of each game and uploaded to the site. They were told not to do that any more and they complied.
I don't believe they ever ran into issues of users posting images in discussion threads. That's looked at much differently than using images to brand the site. Anyhow, they have plenty of images embedded in the messages. I think in most cases because images in threads aren't really hosted on the site, but rather just link to the source. So if they copyright holder gets the host (external site) to remove the image, it would no longer display on the site.
I'll try to get some more info from him the next time I talk to him, and double check that I'm remembering everything correctly.
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Post by tomass on May 29, 2014 22:46:47 GMT -5
This site is fucking bad ass, with or without pics.. I just need to figure out a good way to shrink the pics of my bike and tats
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sakutak
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Post by sakutak on May 31, 2014 10:36:26 GMT -5
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oldaero
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Post by oldaero on Jun 1, 2014 5:07:13 GMT -5
I'm old, so I have a bad memory, but.... ifn I remember correctly, many pics that were on the old pages had a "watermark" of "Getty pictures" or something like that on them...
Pictures of me, pictures of you, pictures of anyone that are taken with your own camera are free to post.
Some "professional" (and those quotation marks I used are facetious) photographers feel that sharing of their pics mean that they should be paid for them.... it's all relative.. remember way back (musta been 20 years ago)... all those music file sharing sites?? Do you remember their names?? OMG!!! you pirated their music!!!! and you were about to be sued!!
The easy way to get by all this is to only post pictures you tool yourself... I know the post that caused the main problem... it was something about posting pics of old Aerosmith.... I promise... my pic of Old Aero is not copyrighted.... and, you can post any pic as long as it has a watermark on it...
Look, Coop has done an amazing job bringing this forum together..... Look at how many friends from the past have come back....
So, let's keep it new, and up-to-date....
We don't ask about old days.... we don't ask about old pictures... AF1 screwed us (my opinion)... anyways....
We got Coops AF2... (my only suggestion is to rename AF2 so you have no affiliation to AF1)
Love to all... Dan
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Post by AeroCooper on Jun 1, 2014 6:21:56 GMT -5
Thanks Dan, good post.
Just one thing though:
According to sakutak, the pic that got her in trouble was a watermarked image.
Sak had a good post here yesterday but deleted it. Not sure why but I respect her decision to do so. The only point I will mention is that she clarified that it was not Getty, but another image company. So as much as Getty bothers me, they are not the only ones playing the game out there.
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