What comes after Dropbox?

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:


https://davidsontm.wordpress.com/201...copyright-infr
ingement-and-how-is-it-decided/

That guy has the job of arguing for or against one side or the other.

that guy is a lawyer who understands copyright law.

You have no idea of his mindset when he wrote that.

i don't need to. nor do you.

US Copyright law is a morass. See
https://www.copyright.gov/title17/title17.pdf
Please don't think you fully understand it.

i never claimed to *fully* understand it. however, i do understand
enough of it to know what is normally considered to be infringing and
what many of the exceptions are.

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:


If you put a photograph online and post a link to it in this (public)
forum, anyone can go to your link and download your photograph.

the issue is not downloading, but keeping a copy without permission.

How long do you need to keep it to infringe the copyright? 10mSec? No.
How about 10 sec? What about 10 minutes? If 10 minutes is OK, what
about 10 hours, or even 10 days? If an artist uploads an image for
viewing how long can it be retained before copyright is infringed?
What is the rule? How do you decide? How do I decide?

time is not a factor.

So you have offended even if the image is on the screen for no more
than the milliseconds it has taken you to react and shut the thing
down. Is that your argument?

an image on the screen is not considered to be a copy.

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:


But we were
discussing photographs. Please explain your point in terms of
photographs.

photos are copyrighted. if you make an illicit copy, you've broken the
law. very simple.

How have you affected the owner's rights by keeping a copy?

the mere fact you even ask that shows you don't understand the issues.

The mere fact that you have evaded the question shows that you haven't
a clue.

i have not evaded *anything*.

if you aren't authorized to make copies, you've infringed his copyright.

A authorised by existing case law, you are entitled to make copies
under certain circumstances.

if you're referring to fair use, no.

fair use is a *defense* for infringement. it is not authorization to
copy.

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:


again, as i said long ago, the owner gets to decide, not you.

The ultimate decision lies in the hands of a judge.

so what? that doesn't change anything.

yet another argument just to argue.

Yet another argument to show that you don't really know what you are
talking about.

i understand this *far* more than you do. that much is clear.

as i said, the owner gets to decide. obviously, if the owner permits
copying, he isn't going to sue anyone when they copy it and a judge
will never hear about it. duh.

But if the owner objects ....

then you may find yourself in a lawsuit. another duh.

it also doesn't mean a judge will ultimately decide. it could be
settled out of court, so you're wrong on that too.

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:


It is a defense only when there is an
accusation of non-permissible use.

if there's no accusation then there's no issue and fair use isn't
involved.

if there is an accusation, then a judge (not you) decides if fair use
applies. if he decides it does not apply, then you're liable for
infringement, and that can be expensive.

Its expensive or not according to how much you you have damaged the
creator of the copyrighted material.

it can be expensive to retain a lawyer and go to court, even if you
ultimately prevail.

We were originally discussing the keeping of an image on one's
personal computer. There was no suggestion of broadcasting the image
or using it for any commercial purposes. Just the keeping of an image
on one's personal computer.

it doesn't matter whether or not it's broadcast or if it's used for any
commercial purpose.

copying an image without permission is generally infringing. there are
exceptions, but as you mentioned in another post, copyright law is not
simple.

will you get caught? realistically, no, although the chances are not
zero.

that just means that you more than likely can get away with it, not
that it's legal.

will you get caught driving above the posted speed limit? probably not,
but that doesn't mean it's legal either. there have been cases where
someone has been cited for psl+1, which is within the tolerance of the
speedometer.

How do you damage the creator of an image which has been legitimately
uploaded to the Internet for viewing by keeping a copy of that image
on your own personal computer?

the answer should be obvious. viewing is not the same as keeping a copy.

The answer is that you don't damage the creator of the image by just
keeping a copy. You can only damage the creator of the image if you in
some way use your copy to interfere with the creator's rights.

nope. making an unauthorized copy is sufficient to be infringing.

some images are permitted to be copied. others are not. copying the
former is fine. copying the latter is not. realistically, you won't be
caught, but that doesn't mean it's legal (or ethical).

In article , Tony Cooper
wrote:

https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-definitions.html
What is copyright infringement?
As a general matter, copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted
work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or
made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright
owner.


Nowhere in that paragraph does it deal with possession, or retaining
("keeping") a file. Something must done in violation of the copyright
law with that photograph by someone other than the owner, without
permission by the owner, for there to be any type of copyright
infringement.

and that something includes making a copy.

Your statement that "the *moment* you keep a copy, you've broken the
law" is flat-out wrong.

nope. it's exactly correct.

You are hopelessly ignorant of the copyright laws.

that would be you.

i know you won't benefit, but maybe others will learn something from
these:

I'll snip what you've posted because I'm already familiar with all of
it.

based on what you've said so far, not as familiar as you think.

Your position - which I have disagreed with - it that it is copyright
infringement to keep a photo that the owner has not expressly given
you permission to keep.

disagreeing and discussing it is welcomed.

My position is that you can keep it, but you may be in violation of
the copyright if you use it in certain ways. For example, selling it.
However, you may keep it without violating the copyright.

your position is not supported by copyright law.

making a copy without permission is normally considered to be
infringing. there are exceptions, but in general, if you copy something
that's copyrighted without permission, it's infringing.

if you copy a cd that your neighbor bought, it's clearly copyright
infringement, even if it's for your own use. you don't need to make
stacks of cds and sell them on the street corner to be liable.

Your position seems to be based on the word "reproduced".

my position is based on my understanding of copyright law, having been
dealing with it as a software developer and working with ip lawyers for
several decades.

To obtain
and keep the image you must reproduce it. However, if simply
reproducing an image or other copyrighted item without permission of
the owner is the infringement, then almost all of us are routinely in
violation of the law.

only if almost all of us are routinely visiting web sites and copying
their contents. just visiting a web site is not infringing, even though
there is technically a 'copy' in your computer's memory.

A scanned family photograph not taken by the person scanning it would
be a result of copyright infringement. Making a copy of a newspaper
obituary with a photograph you didn't take would be an infringement.
Downloading an image of a family member sent to someone else, but
forwarded to you, would be an infringement.

as would saving a photo from a web site (assuming no permission is
given to copy it).

If simply reproducing copyrighted material was illegal, then scanners
and copying machines would the equivalent of burglar's tools. A
camera or a camera phone used to photograph a page from a book
containing a recipe or a DIY fix would be used in the commission of an
illegal act.

if you copy a page of a book with a copier, scanner or camera, it is
almost certainly infringing.

copiers, scanners and cameras have significant non-infringing use, so
they're not banned, but that doesn't mean all use is non-infringing.

You couldn't photograph a building without breaking the
law because the architect owns the design copyright. (Although some
construction contracts require the architect to assign the design
copyright to the owner of the building.)

in some cases you can't photograph it without permission, but in
general, if something is in public view, it's allowed.

an interesting situation is photographing people with tattoos. the
photographer has copyright of the photo, but the tattoo artist has
copyright of the tattoo art, which itself might be infringing if the
tattoo is a copy of someone else's work.

it isn't always simple.

The law is not set up to prohibit reproduction of copyrighted
material. It is not the keeping of the reproduction, but what you do
with it that constitutes the infringement.

not true. just copying can be infringing.

On Sat, 1 Apr 2017 13:31:48 -0400, Ron C wrote:

On 3/31/2017 5:04 PM, Eric Stevens wrote:
On Fri, 31 Mar 2017 13:25:43 +0200, android wrote:

On 2017-03-30 00:53:02 +0200, Eric Stevens said:

What I get is the image for viewing in the Dropbox supplied viewer app
(which runs in my Internet viewer of choice - in this case Firefox).
I'm not sure that I can just download an image file.

Oki...

Saved to Dropbox from my Xperia phone and opended from the Finder on
the right. Saved from from Dropbox via Firefox to the Desktop on the
left:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/w9lm48gy3ho4ni1/nodbvsdb.png

To my eye, there is a visible difference: the image on the right is
darker and appears to have a different gamma.

IMHO that's an optical illusion. I did two experiments.
I put the left one on the right and vice versa.

I also overlaid of the two and looked at the difference.
About all I noticed was a very slight edge sharpening.

Don't take my word, do the experiment.

I did much the same thing as you. I opened the file in Photoshop. I
copied the background layer and then moved it so that the right image
on the copy was over the left image of the background. I then cropped
it so tha what was left was one image square. I then tried the
blending mode variously as difference and subtract. Here is the result
as a PSD file.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/357t9ql6di...bvsdb.psd?dl=0

(Two my amazement Dropbox handled this!)

The alignment of the layers is not perfect but I could find no
position in which the image went entirely black, or even nearly
entirely black. In my opinion the two images are different.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On Sun, 02 Apr 2017 11:34:49 +1200, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Sat, 1 Apr 2017 13:31:48 -0400, Ron C wrote:

On 3/31/2017 5:04 PM, Eric Stevens wrote:
On Fri, 31 Mar 2017 13:25:43 +0200, android wrote:

On 2017-03-30 00:53:02 +0200, Eric Stevens said:

What I get is the image for viewing in the Dropbox supplied viewer app
(which runs in my Internet viewer of choice - in this case Firefox).
I'm not sure that I can just download an image file.

Oki...

Saved to Dropbox from my Xperia phone and opended from the Finder on
the right. Saved from from Dropbox via Firefox to the Desktop on the
left:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/w9lm48gy3ho4ni1/nodbvsdb.png

To my eye, there is a visible difference: the image on the right is
darker and appears to have a different gamma.

IMHO that's an optical illusion. I did two experiments.
I put the left one on the right and vice versa.

I also overlaid of the two and looked at the difference.
About all I noticed was a very slight edge sharpening.

Don't take my word, do the experiment.

I did much the same thing as you. I opened the file in Photoshop. I
copied the background layer and then moved it so that the right image
on the copy was over the left image of the background. I then cropped
it so tha what was left was one image square. I then tried the
blending mode variously as difference and subtract. Here is the result
as a PSD file.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/357t9ql6di...bvsdb.psd?dl=0

(Two my amazement Dropbox handled this!)

The alignment of the layers is not perfect but I could find no
position in which the image went entirely black, or even nearly
entirely black. In my opinion the two images are different.

I agree with this, and your original comments.

On Sat, 01 Apr 2017 18:17:12 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:


again, as i said long ago, the owner gets to decide, not you.

The ultimate decision lies in the hands of a judge.

so what? that doesn't change anything.

yet another argument just to argue.

Yet another argument to show that you don't really know what you are
talking about.

i understand this *far* more than you do. that much is clear.

as i said, the owner gets to decide. obviously, if the owner permits
copying, he isn't going to sue anyone when they copy it and a judge
will never hear about it. duh.

But if the owner objects ....

then you may find yourself in a lawsuit. another duh.

it also doesn't mean a judge will ultimately decide. it could be
settled out of court, so you're wrong on that too.

A settlement out of court does not have the authority of a judicial
ruling.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On Sat, 01 Apr 2017 18:17:11 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:


If you put a photograph online and post a link to it in this (public)
forum, anyone can go to your link and download your photograph.

the issue is not downloading, but keeping a copy without permission.

How long do you need to keep it to infringe the copyright? 10mSec? No.
How about 10 sec? What about 10 minutes? If 10 minutes is OK, what
about 10 hours, or even 10 days? If an artist uploads an image for
viewing how long can it be retained before copyright is infringed?
What is the rule? How do you decide? How do I decide?

time is not a factor.

So you have offended even if the image is on the screen for no more
than the milliseconds it has taken you to react and shut the thing
down. Is that your argument?

an image on the screen is not considered to be a copy.

Why not? It is a copy in fact.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens