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Copyright Infringement of my copyright notice!

Robert Edwards

New member
Hi,

Weird one this. What do you do when someone infringes your copyright on your copyright notice? I Googled my disclaimer:

www.damsimple.com/legal.html

It clearly states:

"you must not: distribute the text, photographs or graphics to others without the express written permission of Robert Edwards; "mirror" or include this information on your own server or documents without permission"

Now my disclaimer is a hodge-podge from various sources, all used with permission. However this bloke decided to simply use it as is without permission:

www.christianwalsh.com/copyright.htm

I've emailed him and received no reply. Maybe I should inform one his clients who are a legal firm that their webmaster is a lax when it it comes to the law. If he'd only asked.
 

Don Lashier

New member
IANAL but I believe copyright notices and license agreements, among other things, are not copyrightable. This is why everyone and their brother just copied IBM's software license back in the early days.

- DL
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
There's one pretty well know Adobe photographer that charges for a copy of his and sounds pretty threatening to those who do not heed!

Asher
 

Daniel Harrison

pro member
I don't think it will hurt your buisness, and It doesn't sound like writing copyright notices is your bread and butter, so I would not get to upset about it, Funny story though
 

Dierk Haasis

pro member
Don Lashier said:
IANAL but I believe copyright notices and license agreements, among other things, are not copyrightable.

Depends.

- If it is public domain - i.e. by having been used fre of licence for years and decades without a possible copyright holder claiming his rights - you can use it.
- If it is standard legalese without any creative input you may use it.
- If somebody comes up with his own text, which clearly shows creative input, you can copyright it.

For instance the relatively simple general terms of trade I put up for my galleries are falling under the third option - particularly if you compare them to the usual hard to read drivel copied through the eons.
 

Don Lashier

New member
I believe my information was from the standard copyright reference for software developers years ago (before the internet) published by Nolo Press, but I can't find it right now to verify. In any case it's probably a grey area and could probably be interpreted either way (as Dierk points out) depending on how "creative" you are in the wording.

- DL
 
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