Image Theft Or Not

When is one crossing the line?

[mahlon]

I can understand taking an image and using it commercially without permission in some way can be considered theft, but is that where a person crosses the line? Is just saving the image theft in itself? If so, have you ever browsed the temporary internet files with a thumbnail view? They get saved anyway without you knowing it for quicker loading later. That is not stealing so is intentional saving of images bad? Thanks for your input!

[Liane]

Having had my images and copy stolen and used by competitors, I can honestly say that I don't care what they do with my images, provided they do not use them on the internet.

Just downloading images for personal use is of little or no consequence. Downloading images for commercial use of any kind is theft IMHO.

[Syren_Song]

Just downloading images for personal use is of little or no consequence. Downloading images for commercial use of any kind is theft IMHO.

I don't think saving images for personal use (i.e. off the web on your own computer) is a major problem for most artists and/or designers. There are actually several concerns.

One major concern is when someone uses an artist's design without giving the artist credit of any kind. It doesn't matter in this case whether it's for a commercial or non-commercial website. Often artists will have some kind of copyright or use information posted on their website. If you ae taking any image and using it in any way that is in violation of the artist's posting, then you are stealing.

Another big concern is using an artist's work on a commercial website without permission. That's another copyright violation altogether and could result in legal action being taken.

Then there's "hotlinking". That's when a person links directly to someone else's graphics without even bothering to download the image. That's not just outright theft of the graphics, it's also outright theft of the artist's bandwidth.

No matter how you look at it, theft is theft. If you didn't pay for it and don't have permission to use it, then you don't have the right to use the graphic image in any way. Period.

Could one of the moderators move this thread to a more appropriate forum, please? I think there are enough artists who've had their work stolen that it's not really a Foo topic.

[mahlon]

So if someone saves a lot of images from the web but for personal viewing or collection, is that theft?

By the way, I have had my work taken and used for other ecommerce sites. Sorry if I offended anyone by putting this in foo.

[Syren_Song]

I don't know if taking images for a personal collection would be considered theft or not. I guess it depends on what they're used for and how. I know you've got to expect any images you put on the web will end up in somebody's cache. It's not unreasonable to expect that someone may grab an image to use on their desktop as well.

I think the most important thing is that the creator get credit for the image(s) if they're posted to another person's website. I also think it's very important that the artist get cash if the image is used for commercial purposes of any kind. Otherwise it's definitely a violation of the artist's copyright.

As for posting your thread in Foo, I personally wasn't offended. I just thought you might get a better response under a different forum heading. I also had "Site Graphics" in mind, but since it also involves copyrighting. this thread isn't a bad spot either. :)

[Syren_Song]

One more thought that might help.

If you take a book that you bought and paid for to a print or copy shop and ask them to make copies of the pages for you, they will likely tell you "no". They're worried about copyright infringement.

A long time ago, I tried to get Kinko's to copy an image from a book I owned to transfer paper so I could put the image on a t-shirt for myself. They wouldn't do it. Finally, I was able to convince them that there shouldn't be a problem, but they made me sign a waiver before they would make the copy.

Was I violating someone's copyright? Maybe. Ask the folks at Paramount. They'd probably say "yes" if it involved Star Trek. It really depends on who owns the image(s) and how much of a stickler they want to be for the letter of the law.

[mgream]

The reuse of an image is a violation of copyright unless it is allowed by license offered to you, or it meets the various exceptions, which are primarily for "fair use". This assumes that there are no issues with copyright subsisting in the image in the first place (various issues ...).

In the latter case, the courts have established that there is no hard and fast rule about this (at least from my UK perspective), as it will depend upon the facts of the case at hand, and will include consideration of how the reuse deprives the economic or moral rights of the author [such as income, or identification as creator, etc]. It wil also depend upon the explicit (or implied) license that's been extended to you (did you 'click' on a t&c of the website and agree to a licensing agreement for how you could use the images?, and have you now violated that explicit agreemnt).

If you download a whole set of images and store it locally for your own viewing pleasure, then that may not infringe. And even if it technically infringes, then what kind of remedy is the court supposed to apply (pecuniary [money]: how, there's no deprived income? etc)?

As for what's stored in a "cache", then you really have no control over that, and it's a technogical issue. My understanding is that as a result of WIPO WCT which ended up in US DMCA and EU Copyight Harmonisation Directive, that there are explicit provisions for "software" that state that it is not a violation of copyright to make transient and incidental copies where the sole purpose of those copies is to facilitate the end use of the software (i.e. a copy from disk into RAM, or through a cache). This same concept would apply to web cache or browser cache. In any case, the server side can always assert no caching.

Check with a lawyer. I'm still a student :-).

Matthew.