[Publib] Copyright question

[Carol Bean]

FWIW, there are places on the Web that do allow free use of their pictures, such as www.morguefile.com, which has only these restrictions:

Subscriber may not: (a) sell, license, sublicense, rent, transfer or distribute any Photo on a standalone basis, (b) use any Photo in any manner which may be considered offensive, indecent or objectionable, or to defame, libel or discriminate, (c) download all or a substantial portion of the morgueFile database containing the Photos without morgueFile's prior written consent, or (d) compete against morgueFile either directly or indirectly using the Photos.

Carol Bean
Computer Center Manager
North County Regional Library
561-626-6133
beanc at pbclibrary.org



Message: 22
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:30:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Judith Turner <turnermalibmba at yahoo.com>
Subject: 
To: Publib at webjunction.org
Message-ID: <887766.88335.qm at web62205.mail.re1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Last week Gerry Brent posted a question about the advisability of using a Halloween image found on the Internet and I took a stab at answering that. 

This evening I ran across a link to a series of pieces regarding the recent controversy over ancestry.com's use of information posted free of charge by various genealogy bloggers.  That case seems relevant to questions regarding the use of material on the Internet in general. 

The items were written by Craig Manson who teaches Law and Public Policy at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, and is a member of the California Bar Association.

Here's the link:  http://geneablogie.blogspot.com/search/label/Copyright

There was a followup post that mentioned making a case for fair use but
I'd say that's not possible in the case Gerry's described - using the image to
promote Halloween events at the library. 

The fact that a library isn't going to make money from its event is not enough to qualify as fair use.  If someone at the library staff were to print out the image and hang it on an office wall for personal reasons, that would likely qualify as fair use, but putting it someplace public would not.  Fair use is really about the purpose for which the material is being used, not so much who is using or why it is being used.

Judy Turner
Whitefish Bay, WI