Warbird Information Exchange

It's only decent to offer a copy or print when you have had direct contact with the owner and especially when you have received special access to get your shot. That goes for any kind of photo.

I'm surprised to hear owners saying that they would appreciate offers of photos from photographers they have never met, taken at an airshow etc. Considering that literally thousands of photos are likely taken of every warbird at every airshow, I would think they get more offers than they want. I must remember to start making more offers.

As far as requesting a release before publishing a photo of someone's plane, I wouldn't do it. It may seem like a nice courtesy, but if they turned out to be a jerk and said no, I'd just go ahead and publish anyway. It would be awkward, and my request might be misinterpreted as an admission that they have a right to say no.

August

Mark makes some great points. A pal of mine handles international copyright law and he said two things are true of anyone online:
1. Nobody understands copyright law and how it applies online.
2. Everyone thinks they understand it.
I've had him 'put the fear of God' into a few people using my drawings of WW2 subjects over the years, and many of them used the 'fair use' argument for no reason at all to support their claim.
I always laugh at people who suggest every photo someone takes of an airplane (or anything else for that matter) at a show look up the owner and offer a copy of it.
I've been to oodles of shows and often don't have the first idea who owns said airplane (or whatever), especially if it's in the air at the time. I used to go looking as I've gotten some really good shots now and then. Most of the time, even if you encounter someone to ask, you get, "Uh, beats me who owns that" as a response...

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

For me, I'm not a photographer by any means but I like to take pics of the planes when I can. I usually upload these to photobucket and I post some of them, mainly technical discussion on that type of airplane for example. When I find pics online that I can see as valuable to me (for research purposes mainly, never for profit) and I can right click and save it, I save them.
Example, Mark Allen M has all those pic threads which I really love. A recent one had RAAF liberators, I found several pics of those pics to really useful to me as it showed that the inside of the waist area was not painted. Those got saved. I build model airplanes of WWII aircraft because I cant afford to build/restore the real A/C that I love. So these pics come pretty handy for refference material. I'll ocassionally post pics WWII era A/C to ask questions about a color/marking, modification etc.

Basicly the way I see it, I'm not using any pics for profit and all were found online, should fall under public domain?

Mark Allen M, if you by chance have ETO B-17 pics, especially anything showing interior, I'd love to see them!

The short answer is "no". The more detailed answer is:

Whether it was found online or someplace else has no bearing on anything.

If you're using them only privately, that has no bearing on public domain. It is one of the factors in fair use, but it is not necessarily decisive. Suppose you walk into a bookstore and start using your camera phone to copy pictures from books and magazines for your personal use. The store, the author and the publisher will have a problem with that. You are depriving them of sales by taking something you're supposed to buy. The legal analysis is exactly the same if you find the same book or magazine in a library, a friend's home, or on the internet where someone else posted them after scanning the book. It's just harder for them to catch you there.

If the item you're copying is not currently available for sale anywhere, it doesn't make it any less copyright infringement, but it may mean nobody cares much. But then again, they might. Copyright includes the right to prevent copies from being distributed, and some people value that right.

August

In another regurgitated nutshell virtually every image is copyrighted to somebody. The moment you take a picture with a camera, draw an illustration or create any other kind of intellectual property, you own the copyright to it. This includes an overwhelming majority of the images you’ll find on the internet, as well as all royalty free and Creative Commons images.

Public domain images don’t have copyrights. This is for a number of reasons, but most often because the copyright expired.

Fair use images are copyrighted. Fair use is a legal concept that allows for copyrighted pictures and intellectual property to be used as if they were part of the public domain.

And another link to another regurgitated explanation ...

http://patentpending.blogs.com/patent_p ... a_cop.html

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“Knowing what’s right, doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.”

and around we go..................

Laughing at the wrong person could be a mistake!

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Don't touch my junk!!

Only if they didn't deserve it...

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

I won't labor the details of copyright law here, but the history of it is both fascinating and ironic, if you get curious enough to look it up. Sadly, it is both poorly understood, maladapted to modern technology and largely ignored by the public at large.

In my own experience, I have found the letter of the law and the practice of the law to be two very different things. The letter of the law has been labored to death here. The practice, however, is what really happens when the rubber meets the information highway. In real life, I have observed that:

1) Most people will not resell your stuff without permission.
2) They will not hesitate to give it away, however. If you don't want it circulating on the web, don't post it.
3) If you DO want it circulating on the web, you won't be able to give it away.
4) Victory goes to the one who can afford the most lawyers.
5) The general public confuses copyright and the right to publicity all the time. Copyright is international law. The right to publicity (the ability to control the use of your own image or name) is state law, and it varies from state to state. It does not exist at all in many states.
6) You cannot copyright an idea, but you can sued for anything.The likelihood of your getting in trouble for some sort of IP infringement is directly proportional to how much money you are making.
7) The estates of famous creators guard their IP far more jealously than the creators themselves ever would have. That's because the motive of creators is to share their creations with the world, and the motive of their heirs is to wring every last cent from them.
The same can be said for organizations like stock houses, record labels and rights organizations like the RIAA or MPAA. They are far more concerned about controlling distribution than the people who actually labored to create what they are selling. They gleefully rip off content creators themselves.
9) Watermark your photos/art/movies. It won't stop someone from swiping it, but it will at least serve as an ad if they do. (Some particularly lame people will delete or crop your watermark. You can make life harder for them by overlapping a complex and irregular background object with your watermark.)
10) A good rule of thumb that is far easier to remember than the vagaries of IP law is simply this: "Don't be a dick". If you want to use someone's artwork/photo/song/whatever...just ask them first. Likewise, if you want to take a picture of someone, ask them first. (Yes, in a public place, you can take their picture, anyway, but would it hurt to ask? You might even get a better picture, or make a friend.) If you DO use something, give them visible credit. It's called civility and it is a wonderful alternative to litigation.

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What is red, furry and on your six?

I agree fully with everything in the previous except:
I have had this happen plenty of times. My all-time favorite was the guy who used my drawings in a T-shirt design! Worse still, when I contacted him to stop, his response basically challenged me to come say that in person. Imagine his surprise when I did exactly that (never assume that someone lives too far away), with my attorney friend standing right behind me. He turned over a box of t-shirts with my artwork on them (which I burned the next day), when told that his option was to cease and desist or he'd have to lawyer up. I made it a point to have his actions monitored by some friends who knew the guy, and he knew that people were looking out for me. Funnier still, the guy had the gall to later ask for permission to use my artwork for the very same reason, and wanted the right to do so for free! My response was decidedly in the negative, of course.

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)