Inadvertently breaching copyright

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Here's a Wikipedia explanation of the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. As The Chairman pointed out, the gist of it is that SB is protected against liability by taking down the material upon notice from the copyright owner.
That's an excellent article. BTW, every now and then an author requests us to remove all of their material. That's fine, as long as they identify and provide links to each and every piece of copyrighted material they want us to remove. We are not required, nor will we try to do a search for "all" of any author's works.
 
That's an excellent article. BTW, every now and then an author requests us to remove all of their material. That's fine, as long as they identify and provide links to each and every piece of copyrighted material they want us to remove. We are not required, nor will we try to do a search for "all" of any author's works.
As a learner on SCUBABOARD, I appreciate all those posters sharing "Nuggets of Knowledge". But as I tell my kids, once the Internet gets ahold of your "Nuggets", it doesn't let go so easily.
 
No. A link alone is OK. Even an inline-linked image or video is OK, and the previous board software just showed the image you linked to without downloading it to SB's server. Other forums like e.g. Wetpixel still just show linked images from their original location. Go to one of the image threads, like this one, right-click on the image and check its address. It's not hosted on Wetpixel, it's hosted where the owner put it.

But if you paste that link into the image function here on SB with the current board software, either you, SB, or both (I really don't know whose responsibility it really is) are breaching copyright because of what happens in the background here. Do the same right-click thing on an image in a thread here on SB, and you'll find that the image is hosted here. Because, as I said, the board software downloads the image and displays the downloaded copy.

If it's your own image, you aren't doing anything wrong, because you as the copyright owner are uploading the file to SB's server, which grants SB the right to show the image. Even if you don't know that you're doing just that.

I just saw this thread, and thought I'd give the real answer as to why ScubaBoard downloads the images and hosts them locally, and why on Wetpixel it doesn't matter (at the moment*).

It is simply because of the SSL on ScubaBoard

upload_2017-8-23_9-41-35.png


Vs

upload_2017-8-23_9-42-8.png


The sources of the images on the page must also be secure for the SSL to show the "green lock" - (all images and content MUST come from a secure source for this feature). This is probably the same reason that other sites do similar things. Hosting the image vs posting the image online makes no difference with the image copyright, if the attribution is left off, that is the responsibility of the poster. As with any image, if you post it online, you should not expect the same privacy and/or protection if you don't post it online. If you are concerned about your personal images, then you should watermark your photos, or add photo credit as an overlay. ScubaBoard does not alter the images in any way to crop or remove any markings by the original poster. ScubaBoard does not profit from these images, nor is ScubaBoard reusing these images for commercial purposes.

While I'm not the owner of ScubaBoard, and have no horse in this race, I'm would have to assume that the ownership would remove any image if petitioned by the original owner of said image to remove it from the site (but I can't say this with certainty).


* I say at the moment, because currently Chrome only shows the "not secure" warning on a page where there is a login, but in October of this year, Chrome will display "not secure" on any page with a FORM input field (like this post entry box). So maybe in a few months, Wetpixel will have to cross the bridge of https vs http protocols.
 
I'm would have to assume that the ownership would remove any image if petitioned by the original owner of said image to remove it from the site
This is our policy. This has always been our policy. The key is Original Owner. Not a friend. Not someone wanting to make a stink. Not a site who happens to have the same graphic on it. It has to be the person who owns the original copyright.

That being said, if the Original Owner posts it here, then we actually own copyrights to it as well as per our ToS. In this case, we probably would still take the image down.
 
The technical explanation is fine, I guess. My OP was, however, not concerned with the technology, but the law.

I guess the copyright laws where I live are somewhat different from the copyright laws where SB is located, but IP law in different (industrialized) countries is pretty well aligned across borders. There's a fundamental difference between inline-linking and rehosting: In the former case, the IP owner retains full control of whether or not their IP should be published or not, while in the latter case they're at the mercy of whoever rehosts it. Where I come from, that's the reason why inline-linking is considered not to be a breach of copyright, while rehosting is. If I rehost a picture or other IP, I'm publishing it. And publication rights belong to the copyright owner. The only time I'm allowed to republish another person's IP is if I can claim fair use.

As with any image, if you post it online, you should not expect the same privacy and/or protection if you don't post it online. If you are concerned about your personal images, then you should watermark your photos, or add photo credit as an overlay.
That's just disingenuous. Just because others don't care about respecting IP, I shouldn't care either?

Anyway, what other people do or don't do isn't my business. Personally, I try my best to post URLs to other peoples' images these days. That's my choice.
 
@Storker, the US has the Safe Harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to protect website operators against claims arising from not only posted links but also posted content. Complying with the "takedown notice" from the copyright owner is the key to avoiding liability.
 
It's only a violation if the owner complains. The problem is rectified when they ask us to

No.

(Reaching into the analogy bag)

That's like saying "A SCUBA instructor who takes an OW diver-in-training down to 180' for their final check-out dive is only violating their agency's training standards if the student complains".

In either case, the violation exists whether someone complains or not.

Persons who post images on the internet have a plethora of options to deter people from copying their copyright. Not using one of those options tells us that you really don't mind someone sharing your image. Most of us really don't care that someone uses our pictures elsewhere. A few do, and they

Absolutely not.

That's equivalent to saying "not locking your van tells people that you really don't mind someone sharing your gear".

Oh, to confuse matters a bit, which "law" and "copyright" are you referencing? The location where SB is registered as a business? The location of the person who committed the initial violation by causing the image to be uploaded to SB, or the location of the copyright holder? IANAL, but from my understanding, there are international conventions on copyright, but different jurisdictions still have their own laws.
 
Here's a Wikipedia explanation of the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. As The Chairman pointed out, the gist of it is that SB is protected against liability by taking down the material upon notice from the copyright owner.

I am not a lawyer, but my understanding of the DMCA is that it provides safe harbor protection for Online Service Providers, ie. companies that provide content generated by others. Frequently, the providers are described as functioning as common carriers, where they have no responsibility for generating or filtering the content, in the absence of a complaint (internal or DMCA 'take-down' notice).

I'm curious whether the active moderation here actually exposes Scubaboard to liability for copyright infringement, under the theory that SB is not merely an Online Service Provider, but is a content provider, in that authorized agents of SB (unpaid volunteers) not only respond to user-generated reports of problematic content (which, I believe is unquestionably within the role of an OSB), but also pro-actively monitor particular discussion threads & users and apply moderation prior to reports. I wonder if a moderator's observation of copyrighted material, particularly in a thread where they are deleting or modifying other posts, means that they (and by extension Scubaboard) are responsible for removing the copyrighted material in advance of any takedown notice.

Hmmm....got to chat with some lawyer friends about this.
 
I'm curious whether the active moderation here actually exposes Scubaboard to liability for copyright infringement,
This is precisely why we only respond to Original Copyright Owners. We do not actively attempt to enforce copyright, but we'll gladly remove any material when approached by the original owners of the copyright.
 
I don't mind others using my photos for non-commercial sites as long as they either ask permission and or credit me. I've found my photos on some sites and had them removed. Some sites like alchetron.com claim to be user generated and have thousands of photos up without permission. It took several threatening emails and filing with Google to get photos of mine taken down. The owners of that site are in India and somehow feel they are not required to follow copyright laws.

I've also found several sites that were selling downloadable version of my book. The only authorized site to get it is Amazon, yet some of these people even argued with me that they are authorized to sell it. I had Google remove their sites from the Google search pages but some of those sites are owned by one person who simply opens another website.

There was an aquarium store in Oregon that was using photos from me and several people I know without permission. They even cropped out the watermark on some photos. They received several cease and desist letters. It took months but they finally removed the photos from their website. Six months later they were out of business.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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