Copyright Law: Identifying Ways of Preventing Illegal Publishing of Photographs on the Internet - Essay Example

1. Introduction .... 2 2. Research Questions...................................................................... 3 3. Literature Review ..............................................................................................3 4. Anticipated Research Design and Methodology... 7 5. Results..............8 Bibliography .......10 Title of the paper: Study of infringement of Copyright law and identifying ways of preventing illegal publishing of photographs on the internet. Purpose/Intent of the Research: To find out the ways, if any, of protecting images from being copied illegally through the internet which is a major cause of concern for the photographers. 1. Introduction The title of the research is initially drafted as: Ways of prevention of illegal publishing of photographs on the internet. In particular, the research will aim at the infringement of the copyright law in the World Wide Web and finding out ways to protect the illegal publishing of pictures clicked by photographers on the internet. In this fast digital age where Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V are used extensively, the copyright laws of all the photographers are ignored who are attached to their photographs emotionally or consider them as potential source of income. This is mainly because internet these days is considered as "free", which to its users means that everything published on the internet is free for downloading, using and sharing. The internet is so vast that nobody can possibly keep a check or control on pictures or text being plagiarized or copied without permission from the owner. This report will identify the methods of preventing infringers from using, sharing or downloading images from the internet without the permission of the photographers. It also discusses in detail the proposal of the research including the objective of the research; the problems faced by photographers and their concerns; ways of preventing the infringement on copyright; and later the methodology to be used in the research is stated. This has a great relevance in the present scenario since the World Wide Web is threatened by excessive illegal use of photographs, write-ups, designs etc by uncountable number of users. The exclusivity of such works of creativity is at stake due to people who steal it for their own vested interest, depriving the owner from his rights of selling his original work. Though it's practically impossible to find out or keep a tab on sharing or usage of such works without permission, the research will definitely focus on aspects that may not be the perfect solution for the problem but a remedy atleast to bring down the practice, if not curb it completely. 2. Research Questions The research questions for this study will be: a) Do photographers have a copyright on their pictures b) How can photographers protect their rights c) What are the different types of infringements d) What are the various method of protecting images from being copied illegally 3. Literature Review 'The obvious problem arises when people say 'if something is on the net, then it must be free'. You can download photographs very easily'. Patricia L. Baade (1996-1997) In the modern world, with the advances of the technology, the infringement of copyright law is taking place not only in the real life but in the World Wide Web as well. In comparison with the real life, where infringing materials can be destroyed and their authors punished, the internet cannot be shut down. Therefore, it is often used for illegal purposes. The materials infringed can be of various characters: be it musical files, films, sound recording or photographs. This research paper will focus on one type of the works, namely works of photographers. A lot of research has been done on this subject in the past since there is a great concern among the photographers that with the development of Internet and other technology it would be very hard to control the ways their works are being published. Anybody and everybody in the present scenario feels free to download and use anything that is on the World Wide Web. In the earlier researches, researches have found out that the legislation of most of the countries is not able to protect the works of photographers from illegal publishing online, the main reason being that the legislation is too old and does not incorporate the new technological issues. The study will, therefore, elaborate the copyright law on infringement in different countries and the loopholes attached with it. The different types of infringements will be discussed in the paper. For instance, Primary infringement stands for 'the copying of a work, making available to the public and adaptation of it' and secondary infringement involves 'dealings with infringing copies through acts of importation, sale, or other distribution' (Christie et al, 2008). Moreover, another fact which may be considered is that the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 considers various types of material as the objects of potential infringement. But it doesn't consider the rights of photographers on their works. This is mainly due to the fact that the legislation of most of the countries concerning copyright law is old enough to have the illegal publishing of photos on the Internet examined in there. Moreover, the legal acts of some countries do not include the section about photography as an entertainment product at all. The question whether all kinds of photography (documentary, commercial or artistic) qualify for copyright protection was asked by Baade (1997). The author brings the example from Time, Inc. v. Bernard Geis (1968), a case during which the history of decisions on that case was traced. In Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony (1884) there was no decision made, whether an 'ordinary photograph of a real life object could constitutionally be a proper subject of copyright'. A photograph, though 'drawn from life' and not 'composed' could be copyrighted, stated the decision on the case of Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co. (1903). A proof of that was given in the case of Jewelers Circular Publishing Co. v. Keystone Publishing Co., when it was said that: 'No photograph, however simple, can be unaffected by the personal influence of the author, and no two will be absolutely alike photographs are protected without regards to the degree of personality which enters into them'. (Baade, 1997) Once it is proven that a work of photography is a subject of copyright, it is worth looking at the rights of the authors to protect their rights for their works against the infringers, who are using the works of the authors illegally. The recent case of Alt vs. Morello of 1985 on copyright infringement on photographs is examined by Baade (1997). The plaintiff accused the defendant (both being commercial photographers) of copying his photograph. The defendant, on his part showed the differences between the works. The differences were not big enough, and the court, after comparing the two works, has come to a decision that the defendant has substantially copied the work of the plaintiff and the infringement of copyright took place. There are a number of stock photo companies on the internet and significantly, a good number of people have been fined for copying and using the photographs from the web without buying them. Earlier researches are also a proof of it. Despite such fines and checks, the illegal usage of images, designs and text goes unabated. The key copyright concept was researched by Clark (2007) in his article about illegal downloads. He believes it to be the World Intellectual Property Organization Treaties. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) - specialized agency of the United Nations was created in 1967 (WIPO, 2010a). As the official website of the organization states, it 'is dedicated to developing a balanced and accessible international intellectual property (IP) system, which rewards creativity, stimulates innovation and contributes to economic development while safeguarding the public interest' (WIPO, 2010a). 184 countries are members of the WIPO, including the United States, the EU countries and United Kingdom. In case with United Kingdom it has ratified WIPO Copyright Treaty on 14, 2009 and it will come into force on December. March 14, 2010. (WIPO, 2010b) Clark (2007) notes that, before the WIPO Treaty, the online distribution of copyright material was hard to control and judge, since no such term existed in any national legislation. National legislation prohibited unauthorized reproduction, publication, distribution and broadcasting of copyright works, but in the era of digital technologies, it was hard for some jurisdictions to state that the replications material in electronic format were infringing acts. That is why most of the countries joined WIPO, which grants additional protection to the authors. What makes it more difficult for the photographers to control the use of their works is the development of the technologies and computer photo-editing, which makes it much easier to make beautiful pictures. It is not even necessary to take those pictures in real life. A person can simply take a photo of one object and then make a background, change colours, add sunshine to the photo. Moreover, he can even combine elements from various photos, without even taking one. The elements he is combining will be taken from somebody's photo. What if that person learns that his photograph, which he may have sold, thinking that it will be used as a whole, was split, altered and used to create a new photograph This is the question that Gastineau (1997) puts. Here the question that arises is whether the copyright law is fully capable of protecting the interests of photographers. This report has looked at the illegal publishing of photos on the internet and the problems that authors of those photos often have to deal with. The illegal publishing of material on the Internet is a huge problem not only for the photograph industry. Many authors have researched the situation with other media products, illegally published on the Web. Those products are music files, films, sound recordings and many others. Out of these products the most vulnerable to infringement are the music files, they are the easiest to find and easiest to download (similar to photos).That is the reason why those two products will be compared in terms of illegal publishing for the sake of this report. It may be a photo on GettyImages, a song on MySpace or a note on Facebook, but once it is copyright protected, no one has the right to copy, upload, distribute or reproduce it. The only exception happens when the author grants such right to the users (commonly in exchange for the mentioning the name and website of the author by the users). (Mcconchie, 2009) Clark (2007) has researched the system of online file-sharing and come to the conclusion that the essence of Internet - free distribution of material - is used in criminal purposes nowadays. Unfortunately, many existing copyright laws in different countries are too old to incorporate the new technological issues connected with online infringement. The only solution is to update the legal systems in all the countries and to upgrade them with new terminology. One more suggestion he brings out is connected with the file-sharers and the penalties for their illegal sharing. Since it is impossible to identify each and every file-sharer and it is quite hard to obtain the name and address of the person who shares files on rare occasions, the suggestion is to try and bring the serial file-sharers to courts, since it is easier to trace them but which is, however, an 'expensive, time-consuming, and potentially legally complex' process. (Clark, 2007) Steve Seidenberg (2007) interviewed Norm Zada, the founder of Perfect 10, the quarterly men's magazine, which was closed in 2007 due to copyright infringement. Zada decided to fight those companies who helped selling unauthorized copies of Perfect 10's photos and not those who were directly responsible for that selling. The main idea behind that was that it is impossible to trace the infringers all over the world. That is why he sued such companies which make the infringement possible - the engine firms and credit card companies. The web searching companies such as Google and Amazon are helping infringers to find the infringement items and Visa and MasterCard are allowing the infringers to open the accounts, which makes it possible to then process the credit cards and electronic cheques. Zada believes that if the child pornography, illegal drug sales and online gambling is prohibited by banking system, so the sales of stolen movies, songs and photos should be. So far, his case was not satisfied, but the main conclusion that can be formulated from this story is that it is very hard to prevent illegal publishing of the copyright material on the Web, due to uncountable amount of infringers all over the world, but it would be great to stop the encouragement of infringement by the above mentioned companies unless the movie studios, music companies, magazines and newspapers are destroyed. 4. Anticipated Research Design and Methodology Qualitative research will be used in this paper. The research will focus on the aspect of the copyright law and its infringement in detail, while presenting the facts pertaining to different situations faced by the photographers, during the time research is being conducted. The primary source of data used in the research will be the interviews conducted on different respondents in different parts of the world. Atleast 500 photographers would be interviewed, directly or telephonically, to clearly bring out the picture of the percentage of photographs being published, used or shared illegally on the internet. These interviews will also point out the various situations faced by photographers to protect their images from being used without their permission. Letters and emails will also be sent to the photographers to know their real stories. This will add to the interest of the readers since the questionnaire will deal with not only the problems photographers have encountered so far but also the remedies they have adopted to have some sort of control, if at all, on the illegal usage of their photographs so that they maintain exclusivity of their pictures. Apart from this, secondary sources such as books, articles and reports will be used to compile the research paper. Books and articles will be obtained either by hard copy or electronically. Various databases will also be used to find the electronic journals. The reports to be used in the research paper will be taken from the official websites of the companies, organizations, funds and universities. Most importantly, case studies will be cited where the comments of photographers, who have either called the infringers to the court or slapped huge fines on them, will be quoted. The few limitations will be that since many photographers will be confronted, the research could turn expensive. Apart from this, it will not be known that how many of the photographers would reply back to the emails and letters sent to them till the time research is being conducted. 5. Results The survey, based on the questions put across to respondents, the case studies and the quotes from the photographers themselves are likely to bring forth different ways they have devised to avoid other people taking credit of their images and refraining them from making proper commercial use of it. It is difficult to prevent publishing of images illegally and policing each and every user, therefore, one should be ready to "go to war". Besides these, some of the proven methods of protecting the photos from stealing, once published online will also be listed. For instance, a few of them are cited below: Shrink wrapping - Usually means that a person is putting a transparent image over the picture. Once somebody downloads it, he or she will get a picture of nothing Right click disable - A common tool which is used by many websites. This option disables the right click menu, which contains the 'Save image as' option. One drawback with this option is that the websites which are visited by the users are stored in the computer's temporary internet files. This means that if a person knows these details and is an advanced user of computer, it will not be a problem for him to get this image from there. Watermarking - This option was put the last, since it is worth talking about it more vastly. This method can be called one of the most effective and the easiest for use and in comparison with the first two methods, this one is the hardest to go around. The effectiveness of the method mainly means that the watermark on a photo makes it absolutely unappealing for the users: watermarked photos are not beautiful to be printed or reproduced. The easiness means that many image editing programs already have the option of watermarking. If the user don't have such a program, it is available online usually for free or for little fee. Bibliography Baade, Patricia L. (1996-1997) Photographer's Rights: Case for Sufficient Originality Test in Copyright Law, John Marshall Law Review, No. 30, p. 149-195 Carr, M. (2009a) Protect Your Photos [Online] Available from: http://cameras.about.com/cs/printing/a/protectimages.htm [Accessed 11 January 2010] Carr, M. (2009b) How to Watermark Your Photos [Online] Available from: http://cameras.about.com/od/printing/ss/watermark.htm [Accessed 11 January 2010] Christie, A., Gare, S. (2008) Intellectual Property. 9 Ed. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 630 p. Clark, B. (2007) Illegal downloads: sharing out online liability: sharing files, sharing risks, Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice, Vol. 2, Iss. 6, p. 402-418 EU News (2004) EU forks out 50 million to clean Internet. Network, Vol. 2004, Iss.3, p. 3 Gastineau, John (1997) Bent Fish - Issues of Ownership and Infringement in Digitally Processed Images, Copyright Law Symposium, 40, p. 383 - 429 Hecker, J. (2003) Comment: Contracting and the Rights of Photographers, Case Western Reserve law review, Vol. 53, Iss. 3, p:659 - 664 Mcconchie, S. (2009) Seven Ways You're Breaking the Law Online [Online] Available from: http://kiwicommons.com/2009/10/seven-ways-you-may-be-breaking-the-law [Accessed 11 January 2010] Owen, M. (2007) Photographers don't deserve special treatment. University of Auckland Business Review, Vol. 9, Iss.1, p. 42-46 Saxby, S. (1997) Policies for Cyberspace. Illegal Content on the Internet. Network Security, vol. 1997, Iss, 4, p. 16-19 Seidenberg, S. (2007) Perfect solution. Adult Media mogul challenges online copyright infringers. Inside Counsel, October Issue, p. 26-27 Spring, T. (2009) Have Data Stored Online Protect it! PC World, Vol. 27, Iss. 8, p. 12-13 Sweeting, P. (2001) Study: Rapid upswing in illegal movie downloads, Video Business, Vol. 21, Iss. 11, p. 1-2 WIPO (2010a) What is WIPO [Online] Available from: http://www.wipo.int/about-wipo/en/what_is_wipo.html [Accessed 11 January 2010] WIPO (2010b) Contracting Parties [Online] Available from: http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ShowResults.jsplang=en&treaty_id=16 [Accessed 11 January 2010] WIPO (2010c) WIPO Copyright Treaty [Online] Available from: http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/trtdocs_wo033.html#P78_9739 [Accessed 11 January 2010] Note: Dear Anna, I have changed the whole paper according to the requirement of your lecturer and the guidelines provided by him. Have included the research questions, increased the literature review mentioning the works of previous researchers to about 1650 words and gained a focus on the methodology. I think it should be fine now. The only thing that you are required to do is change the bibliography according to the day and time you have used the internet to add quotes. Wish you all the best. Thanks and Regards. Bhawna Grover Read More