Making a SKY calendar

[Karen]

This is great stuff! .....wow... I am learning alot. I have been assigned alot of travel over the next week...so I will think more about the direction I want to go, when I get back. Sorry...my next week is crazy!!! I will keep checking in and thanks for those who have sent me pics! So lets keep this thread going... I just want to get all my 'ducks in a row' .

[twirp]

Originally Posted by solli4me

Valid question, but first, no one is inducing anyone to do anything or waive anything. I have an acknowledgment letter from Susan G. Komen for the proceeds that were sent to them by Kathy Gee in 2007. The acknowledgment letters and emails that SGK sends forth upon receiving a donation are sufficiently legal.

Charity is a great thing but the problem is you have people running non-profit charities making six figures a year off what people think is going to charity. If Kathy Gee is donating 100% of the profits to SGK fantastic,heck let the owners of this forum give a direct link to her calendars and they can claim on their taxes. however if she is pulling from the kitty than it should not be allowed on this forum unless she is a supporting vendor and disclaims her take. The problem for this forum is how will the owners really know? ggccg is correct on the fact people have sold stuff here without being supporting vendors and been allowed to do it which opens up a whole new can of worms.

[solli4me]

I agree, and as I said before, SGK is rated a four star charity by an independent agency.

Since you weren't involved on the Solstice side, I'll explain it to you. Our first foray into a benefit calendar was completely clean and above board. We (as a forum) have been fund raising for SGK from the sales of raffle tickets for products that our supporting vendors donated since our first National Meet in '06. We (as a forum entity) are learning as we go along, we do good work, and we're proud of it.

[firstpinkever]

Originally Posted by ggccg

[i][b]

An apology is a good start towards soothing ruffled feathers when you use someone's property without their permission. Unfortunately, some people don't have the grace to even offer an apology for their transgressions.

how childish can one person be? let iT go man. What are we, twelve? The person you are referring to is not even in this thread. WOW how immature can a person get. Are we a little touchy on this subject?

HERE IS A THOUGHT: DROP IT, GROW UP, AND MOVE ON

[Va_Sky]

Originally Posted by ggccg

I think Karen wants advice from somebody who knows what he/she is talking about when it comes to copyright issues. Some people think that it is perfectly fine to take a photo off the internet and use it any old way they choose. This (with a couple of specific exceptions) is not the case. Every creation carries an automatic copyright. You don't need to fill out any paperwork, pay any fees, or even place a copyright notice on the creation for it to be protected. Anyone who reproduces a copyrighted work without the permission of the copyright owner can be sued.

You are right to a point but you are not full correct with this post. This is from a lawyer and I quote "If you created the photo, you have a copyright automatically -- it doesn't matter whether or not you filed a copyright application. The infringer can't publish the photo without your permission.

But this might be a good time to register your photo with the U.S. Copyright Office. Registration will enhance the value of your copyright and will be required if you decide to file a lawsuit. So as you can see yes it is covered under Copyright Law at time of creation but if it is used and you decided to sue you are required to apply to have it registered before you can file a lawsuit and it may take nine months or more for the registration to go through and cost you $45. But I guess harassment and threats works too.

[Va_Sky]

Originally Posted by firstyellowintex

how childish can one person be? let iT go man. What are we, twelve? The person you are referring to is not even in this thread. WOW how immature can a person get. Are we a little touchy on this subject?

HERE IS A THOUGHT: DROP IT, GROW UP, AND MOVE ON

I fully Agree...

[Skip]

Originally Posted by ggccg

"If you are doing a charity thing, get permission from people you photograph, or that supply you photo's and go for it," is a good policy providing the people providing you with a photo are the owners or agents of the owners.

What I was objecting to was your much broader statement... the one I quoted:

•*Charity is a full out go

This is definitely not the case and I will continue trying to correct the record as long as people keep posting inaccurate and incorrect theories about what they think the law is.

An apology is a good start towards soothing ruffled feathers when you use someone's property without their permission. Unfortunately, some people don't have the grace to even offer an apology for their transgressions.

Well if it is an apology that you want I will sincerly tell you that your apology is in the works and is slowly being ground out from this one hand. It slowly butt surly will be there in a little bit. Can you hang on for just a while. We do not want you to go wanting in your time of need to have your all incombant apology...Here it comes oh HECK it went away. Let me just go and get it for you....Skip...

[jel]

Throws pigs' feet, collard greens with pepper vinegar, honey & butter biscuits, black eyed peas, fried catfish eggs, and a yoohoo in for good measure.

[xmicro_Redline]

Originally Posted by ggccg

"If you are doing a charity thing, get permission from people you photograph, or that supply you photo's and go for it," is a good policy providing the people providing you with a photo are the owners or agents of the owners.

What I was objecting to was your much broader statement... the one I quoted:

•*Charity is a full out go

This is definitely not the case and I will continue trying to correct the record as long as people keep posting inaccurate and incorrect theories about what they think the law is.

An apology is a good start towards soothing ruffled feathers when you use someone's property without their permission. Unfortunately, some people don't have the grace to even offer an apology for their transgressions.

Let's say you ask a group of people for photo's of their cars and their permission to use them in a book you are doing for charity. Someone sends you a photo's, as if they are theirs but it is really someone else's photo.
At that point, that is a fraudulent move on the part of the sender! And if the trail of the photo was trackable, the court would not hold the book maker (who got permisssion from the "owner") responsible.

At that point you would expect the person who received the photo to be responsible?? I think that person retracting the photo for you IS the apology. If they gave you a hard time and decided to use it and was later proved wrong, then they should apologize.

Life is too short to create such BS aggravation. Sh!t happens, let it go and move on. When you allow anger over petty crap to fester, with the intention of making others hurt, it will come back to you. Karma is a bitch.
That is my opinion of the situation, and nobody has to like or agree with it, I am not a lawyer. It would be nice to END THE DRAMA.

[Jeff Donald]

Originally Posted by xmicro_Redline

Let's say you ask a group of people for photo's of their cars and their permission to use them in a book you are doing for charity. Someone sends you a photo's, as if they are theirs but it is really someone else's photo.
At that point, that is a fraudulent move on the part of the sender! And if the trail of the photo was trackable, the court would not hold the book maker (who got permisssion from the "owner") responsible.

This is incorrect. I'll quote from my post above. "Copyright liability can't be disclaimed. For example, copyright, trademark and patent infringement are considered "strict liability." This means that, as long as you've done it, it doesn't matter whether you thought you weren't infringing, were indemnified against infringement by someone else, or contracted to have another party become liable, rather than you, in the event of infringement. In other words, if someone says it's OK to use a photo, and that someone doesn't own the photo, you are still liable for the copyright violation."

The burden of proof falls on the publisher/owner of the project. That is one reason that major publishers will only use photos from known sources. They also own insurance to protect themselves as well.

Digital files contain what is called EXIF data which can contain owner/contact information, copyright dates, camera info even GPS data. Some companies offer additional protection, for a fee, that makes images traceable on the web. It's not as difficult to trace images as you may think.

[Jeff Donald]

Originally Posted by Va_Sky

You are right to a point but you are not full correct with this post. This is from a lawyer and I quote "If you created the photo, you have a copyright automatically -- it doesn't matter whether or not you filed a copyright application. The infringer can't publish the photo without your permission.

But this might be a good time to register your photo with the U.S. Copyright Office. Registration will enhance the value of your copyright and will be required if you decide to file a lawsuit. So as you can see yes it is covered under Copyright Law at time of creation but if it is used and you decided to sue you are required to apply to have it registered before you can file a lawsuit and it may take nine months or more for the registration to go through and cost you $45. But I guess harassment and threats works too.

Registration of the photos can be done after the violation. Photos can be registered in bulk. I typically register several thousand at a time for the $45 fee. It typically takes only several weeks to a month for the registration.

[xmicro_Redline]

Originally Posted by Jeff Donald

This is incorrect. I'll quote from my post above. "Copyright liability can't be disclaimed. For example, copyright, trademark and patent infringement are considered "strict liability." This means that, as long as you've done it, it doesn't matter whether you thought you weren't infringing, were indemnified against infringement by someone else, or contracted to have another party become liable, rather than you, in the event of infringement. In other words, if someone says it's OK to use a photo, and that someone doesn't own the photo, you are still liable for the copyright violation."

The burden of proof falls on the publisher/owner of the project. That is one reason that major publishers will only use photos from known sources. They also own insurance to protect themselves as well.

Digital files contain what is called EXIF data which can contain owner/contact information, copyright dates, camera info even GPS data. Some companies offer additional protection, for a fee, that makes images traceable on the web. It's not as difficult to trace images as you may think.

If that is the case then the publisher can turn around and sue the person that claimed it was their photo's and gave you written permission. You cannot just get set-up like that and not have a legal retribution!

But again, I will state, it has to be worth the money and time to pay lawyers and file a suit.

[Jeff Donald]

You would have to sue in Civil court to get any money and the burden of proof is on the plaintiff (publisher of the photo). You'd have to prove he knowingly tried to defraud the publisher and then if there was no compensation (publisher was "given" photo) it would be tough. You may have a difficult time getting a lawyer to take that civil case. In the 20 years I was involved in the media business I never heard of that happening.

[ggccg]

Originally Posted by firstyellowintex

how childish can one person be? let iT go man. What are we, twelve? The person you are referring to is not even in this thread. WOW how immature can a person get. Are we a little touchy on this subject?

HERE IS A THOUGHT: DROP IT, GROW UP, AND MOVE ON

Huh? I am just responding in general to copyright issues. I haven't mentioned anyone by name. Is there somebody here with a guilty conscience that thinks I'm talking about them?

[ihawk95]

OK, I'm finding most of this discussion ignorant really.

It's this simple...Karen probably isn't going to put pictures of random cars on her calendar right? She's going to use pictures of either owners with their cars or owners' cars. Now if she just snags them off the internet, then there is a problem.

If she asks for pictures from people and they freely give them to her or if asks their permission to use the picture...and this thing isn't being mass produced for say 10,000 people...then there isn't a problem. How difficult is this?

If she makes a calendar for her own benefit, then very few people will want it. Who cares? In the grand scheme of things...if she does it for her own benefit, she's not going to make any real money off of it, what...$50 to $100? Maybe. People won't be very interested in it. Now if she makes a calendar and tells people she's giving any proceeds to a charity, that sparks some interest in people. They feel good about themselves because they feel like they are making a contribution for a good cause while purchasing a calendar they have an interest in.

You all are taking something that is a really good thing and ruining it. People will lose interest in the entire idea real quick and this type of discussion will turn people away from purchasing any calendars no matter what the subject matter is. Is that really what you want?

[ggccg]

Originally Posted by Skip

Well if it is an apology that you want I will sincerly tell you that your apology is in the works and is slowly being ground out from this one hand. It slowly butt surly will be there in a little bit. Can you hang on for just a while. We do not want you to go wanting in your time of need to have your all incombant apology...Here it comes oh HECK it went away. Let me just go and get it for you....Skip...

Your prejudices lead you to read too much into what I wrote. I didn't ask for an apology nor do I expect one to ever be offered. The point was (in the context of the post I was replying to regarding people suing) that when people who are in the wrong are belligerent when they should be conciliatory, things that ought to be easily settled get out of hand and end up in litigation.

[Jeff Donald]

Originally Posted by ihawk95

If she asks for pictures from people and they freely give them to her or if asks their permission to use the picture...and this thing isn't being mass produced for say 10,000 people...then there isn't a problem.

The number of copies sold or released is inconsequential in regards to any damages sought. The only real impact is, the more copies of a calendar you sell or release the greater the chances the actual owner of an illegally used image will discover the crime.

It is safest to require a signed release of all images published in the calendar. Also, compensate the owner, even if it is only $1.

[Jeff Donald]

Originally Posted by ggccg

Your prejudices lead you to read too much into what I wrote. I didn't ask for an apology nor do I expect one to ever be offered. The point was (in the context of the post I was replying to regarding people suing) that when people who are in the wrong are belligerent when they should be conciliatory, things that ought to be easily settled get out of hand and end up in litigation.

In my experience this is true. When I caught a T-shirt printer using one of my images and was met with a belligerent attitude, I turned him over to my IP attorney. It cost him about $75,000 to settle out of court. I talked to him on the phone after the settlement and he said he steals photos all the time. He said it's cheaper to steal the images and risk getting caught, than to pay people for their images.

I took a much more lenient stance the three times I caught non-profits using my photos (all were for Calendars). I settled with them paying my standard usage rates for calendars with limited distributions and limited rights. If they had contacted me first and I believed in their cause, I would have granted permission to use my photos for a $1.

[ihawk95]

Originally Posted by Jeff Donald

The number of copies sold or released is inconsequential in regards to any damages sought. The only real impact is, the more copies of a calendar you sell or release the greater the chances the actual owner of an illegally used image will discover the crime.

It is safest to require a signed release of all images published in the calendar. Also, compensate the owner, even if it is only $1.

I'm not talking about the owner having an issue regarding the numbers produced...I'm talking about GM having an issue. GM didn't have a problem with the previous Sol gals calendar. Hell...there was a featured article on it! I'm referring to the talk about the emblem having to be taking off if it is mass produced. Now that, I don't know for sure about.

Obviously the people in the calendar didn't have a problem with being in the calendar either! The intent of the use was made clear, permission was granted by the owner of the pictures by giving them to the calendar creator to use...life was good. My understanding is the owners of the pics weren't compensated. I certainly wouldn't want to take $1 away from charity if my pic was used!! If I give you my pic for that purpose...then use it...for free!!! Cause I GAVE it to you!!!! I didn't SELL it to you.

Now I totally agree regarding the copywriting and unauthorized usage of pics discussion if you're going after a random image on the internet and just using it without any permission. But that wasn't the case. My guess is Karen isn't looking to do that either. Too much is being made out of this!!! All Karen needs to do is get permission from the owner of the pic, possibly GM, state she has a calendar for sale and if it's for charity, and she's good to go! Granted if she's profitting from it, the forum might want her to be a supporting vendor, but she'll find that out real quick.