Thursday 19 July 2012

Copyright

After five years of blogging, I received my first "takedown" notice from Google yesterday advising me that they had received a complaint and that under the Digital Millennium Copyright ACt, they were obliged to remove the offending post unless I could prove right of access to an image I had used.


I make an effort not to allow this minor hobby to get myself into any real trouble. Yes, I can vent some spleen if I want to but those are personal opinions as I am always conscious that I might need to justify an opinion or perhaps face an individual and that helps moderate behaviour every now and then. I get the occasional one-eyed comment from readers but by-and-large, it's only ever as good as I give, which is fine.


So, to the offending image and use of copyright. I checked the post in question and it was from January. I had used two images. One of the F A Cup and another an advertisement for Fullers beer. Typically I find these on the internet and whilst I am aware that the law of copyright protects other people's pictures, on the basis that I am not seeking to do any wilful damage or looking to profit from what I am doing, it's usually very small risk. In many cases it's simply a little more publicity and we know that's no harm.


So, who complained, the FA or Fullers?



6 comments:

  1. Wow. In my early days of blogging Charlton notified me that use of their photographs was illegal, so for years I nearly always used my own photos, but then as blogs and forums prolifigated it has become I thought impossible to police and if an image is publicly available and as you say, one is not looking to profit or damage then I thought fair game plus I always try to credit the photographer if I use someone's photo that is not easily grabbable on Google Images.

    Like you however I am cognisant of defamation and the thin line between speculation and lying.

    I would imagine that it is the FA that have complained, like they do with copyright of fixtures. Fullers meanwhile might just be happy with the free advert.

    CA

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  2. I would have thought that the replication of those images was actually benificial to the owners.

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  3. Congratulations Dave, welcome to the site-running world of pathetic complaints.

    Wait till you start receiving threatening lawyers letters, then you really know you've made it !

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  4. CA - I know it was the Old Farts!

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  5. AFKA - Hopefully I will leave the threatening letters to you experts!

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  6. You've got me worried now Dave. A couple of months ago I posted a photo of Prince Charles.....guess I can expect to hear from the F.A. anytime now then..........

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Go on, you know you want to....