Inadvertently breaching copyright

[Rred]

Most of the major nations are signatories to the "Berne Convention", an international agreement about how copyrights shall be handled. The US was actually a notable holdout for many years. India IS a signatory, so an Indian web site would be governed by the Berne Convention, although the site owners might say "Right, who's going to come to Bangalore to file charges against us?"

Whether the DCMA is or isn't good or valid law, is still under discussion. It represents a rather poor attempt to extend copyright laws IN THE US into the electronic age. And that's problematic, since every time you VIEW a web site, youir computer is actually executing code that creates a literal NEW COPY of the author's work. And there's only a presumption that you have permission to make that copy.

But there's also a lot of confusion about copyrights. The Chairman is right and wrong to say thie forum has "copyrights" to the things published here. As a *publisher* rather than a creator, they have no copyrights except "compilation copyrights", unless the author has knowingly granted/transferred more. They also are protected, as a publisher, from violations that members may commit. Except, if the forum actively changes anything...they can lose the protected "publisher" status.

If it wasn't complicated enough, DCMA is still bouncing through the courts, mainly because it was ramrodded through by the music industry and the software industry and it really isn't polished or considered law.

 

[Lorenzoid]

FOIA has nothing to do with that.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Correct. The FOIA covers government publications, not auto manufacturers' repair manuals.

 

[Clark Fletcher]

Yes, FOIA applies to government documents. However, most folks believe that FOIA ONLY applies to government documents. That is incorrect. The way that FOIA applies to auto manufacturers' repair manuals is that, the manufacturers under FOIA laws have to make the same information available to the general public that they make available to their service technicians. This allows individuals the option of working on and repairing their own vehicles as opposed to being forced to take it to the dealership for repairs. This was, at one time, only true in the US because of FOIA laws. In countries outside the US, auto manufacturers could (and did) refuse to sell copies of factory service manuals to customers. In the US, a dealership cannot refuse to sell you a copy of the factory service manuals if you request them and are willing to pay what the dealership has to pay the manufacturer for the manuals. And, it is entirely because of FOIA laws. I didn't make that up. Got it from a Service Manager at a dealership. And, it's also how I have two copies of factory service manuals. I went to the dealership and ordered them. And, those same manuals could not be purchased by individuals living in the country where the cars were manufactured because the manufacturer would not allow the dealerships to sell them to customers. So, in this specific case, the extent of the copyright protection for the manufacturer was that individuals could not reproduce the material and turn around and sell it for a profit.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Clark, I believe there may be a law requiring manufacturers to sell service manuals to dealers, but it has nothing to do with FOIA. FOIA applies only to the government. The manufacturer having to accept the dealer's payment of the cost of the manual may be sort of analogous to the government having to accept someone's payment of the cost of a FOIA production, but that's all. I think whoever explained this to you was just making an analogy to help explain it.

 

[Clark Fletcher]

Clark, I believe there may be a law requiring manufacturers to sell service manuals to dealers, but it has nothing to do with FOIA. FOIA applies only to the government. The manufacturer having to accept the dealer's payment of the cost of the manual may be sort of analogous to the government having to accept someone's payment of the cost of a FOIA production, but that's all. I think whoever explained this to you was just making an analogy to help explain it.

Perhaps so. If that really is the case, then I owe you folks an apology for those misleading comments. And, thank you for pointing out my error.

 

[The Chairman]

I have, for over 20 years run a web site that has a series of repair procedures for a particular model of car.

Oh dude, please give us the URL. As long as it's not about Fiats, I probably want to read it.

 

[The Chairman]

unless the author has knowingly granted/transferred more.

It's a part of the ToS. Why? Mostly because if case anyone gets their panties in a wad and wants us to delete all of the content they've provided. This would cause huge gaping holes in conversations as well as put an undue burden on us to seek out every post they've made as well as posts they've been quoted in and delete them all. Since, by our ToS everyone posting here has agreed to, we retain copyright to everything a user posts, we can delete or retain their content at our discretion. This is moot if the original author comes forth as their copyright becomes forfeit and we would then remove the contested content from our site.

 

[seaseadee]

You should also know that ScubaBoard retains copyright for everything posted by users on our site. We can delete, modify and repost that content as we see fit. You also retain copyright, which allows you to repost your content anywhere you desire.

Yo Pete, you're going to have to 'splain this to me. How can we both have copyright on the same material?

 

[The Chairman]

Yo Pete, you're going to have to 'splain this to me. How can we both have copyright on the same material?

It's not hard... when a photographer sells an image, unless he grants exclusive copyright for that image, then both he and the buyer own the rights to that image. In the contract, the photographer can specify the number of times the image can be used, how long and so on. You and I have a contract in the SB ToS. When you post, you grant me copyright to the original content you've published. Sure, we give you 24 hours to edit that post, but then you lose the ability to edit that content. Should you want it edited or deleted, you have to request staff to do that for you. Foregoing any mitigating circumstances, we are not compelled to honor your request. In reality, we honor most requests that do not negatively impact discussions.