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In reading about the picture credits and copywrite issues, I am wondering about schematics from companies websites like Z Stuff, and the like. Also pages out of manuals on procedures, reset code lists for engines, etc. I don't mean to complicate the issue, but are those subject to copywrite considerations when posted for information on products, etc? My guess is that it's ok to share. The sharing of this information is one of the incredible advantages of having a forum such as this.

Last edited by OGR CEO-PUBLISHER
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I was taught many years ago, in a college English class, in 1975, that you could use someone else's work as long as you did not try to claim someone else's work as your own. In CJACK's example above, where he wants to quote the Z stuff manual, he would have to introduce it by saying something like;" On page X of the Z stuff manual written by (the author's name) it says (insert the quoted information)". That used to be called "fair use". Now, obviously, laws can change in 44 years, but that used to be the way to attribute information to the proper source.

It is complicated, not surprised when you are dealing with the law and the lawyers who create them. There are some solid things you can assume, anything published before 1924 is public domain. For things published between 1924 and 1963, it is possible it is in the public domain because they in those years, you had the option to renew a copyright, if they didn't renew the copyright then the material would be public domain. For example, the post war Lionel manuals created before 1964 could be public domain now if they didn't renew the copyright on them. For works created after 1964 it likely is under copyright, it is user's life+70.

Then, too, there are copyrights where the holder doesn't bother to enforce it, there have been court cases where the copyright holder tried to sue for infringement and lost on those grounds(Xerox tried that  with Apple Computer, who took things like the mouse, hypertext and the graphical user interface from Xerox, but because Xerox didn't try to defend their copyright until many years after the fact, court ruled they had failed to defend it and de facto invalidated it).Copyright holders can also place their works in the public domain explicitly. 

Basically, what I would argue is unless you know specifically something is in the public domain, that you get permission for publishing it. While in practical reality someone who scans in the wiring diagram from an old lionel manual and posts it here may not cause any issues the folks running the forum could potentially get a nasty letter or phone call from someone, you just don't know, especially if you are scanning in something from a currently under copyright book (I suspect that if they are using for example schematics from a post war manual, they likely got permission to use them from the copyright holder). 

As far as fair use goes, there are pretty strict rules around that, it generally comes down to use in teaching , for the purposes of parody, criticism or commentary,plus it is also covered in legal proceedings/writings, where for example in a write up of a court case writings from a book were part of the evidence in the case. . Thus in a book review, the reviewer can use snippets of the book in the review, since it falls under criticism...and that is pretty much it. you could argue that a non profit generating thing, like this forum, is about education, but it likely would not pass muster (and given that OGRR would face the infringement, I doubt they have the time or resources to hire high priced attorneys to allow publishing a wiring diagram from an F3 from 1955). 

It is why it is much better to publish links to an outside website with the information, either they have gotten permission to have the material or if publishing it illegally, that is their concern

 

Last edited by bigkid
bigkid posted:
It is why it is much better to publish links to an outside website with the information, either they have gotten permission to have the material or if publishing it illegally, that is their concern

Easier said than done as many times the external links are not available.  I have collected a vast array of information over the years, much of it I would not be able to find an original source.

======================================================

You said:

The person who dies with the best toys dies a happy person

-------------------------------

Sadly, there is a corollary to that saying...

The person who dies with the best toys... I still dead!

The “Fair Use” doctrine does not apply here. Because OGR is a commercial, for profit entity and accepts advertising revenue in the form of the banner ads here, Fair Use is not applicable here.

This is not my opinion, this is the law, as explained to us by an attorney who had to deal with this in a lawsuit brought against OGR by a photographer whose photo was used here without permission. OGR settled out of court and it cost OGR several thousand dollars.

gunrunnerjohn posted:
bigkid posted:
It is why it is much better to publish links to an outside website with the information, either they have gotten permission to have the material or if publishing it illegally, that is their concern

Easier said than done as many times the external links are not available.  I have collected a vast array of information over the years, much of it I would not be able to find an original source.

======================================================

You said:

The person who dies with the best toys dies a happy person

-------------------------------

Sadly, there is a corollary to that saying...

The person who dies with the best toys... I still dead!

I understand where you are coming from on that, and there are two (somewhat) conflicting things here:

1)Likely the kind of information you have, old wiring diagrams, old user manuals, etc, is of the type of information that it is likely, even presuming it is copyrighted, would not face challenges from the holder or their estate, bit different using a copyrighted song or material from a published book and a user manual created by someone working for let's say Lionel 60 years or more ago. As you point out, it also can be hard even to know who owns the copyright if it is like the material I have, copies of old documents and the like. 

2)The conflict is even though it is likely a lot of the material you have no one is going to get heated up about, there is always the possibility someone might then the OGRR folks will get the nastygrams. 

Probably the best way to work with this kind of stuff would be to instead of posting the material, an image of it, create your own content based on the knowledge that gave. So for example, if you have an exploded diagram of a certain motor from some source, you could create your own diagram and put that up, as long as you don't significantly copy the original image (I am not a lawyer, just have run into this before), or a wiring diagram for example. Knowledge is not copyrightable, if you learn how to put the oil pump in a 1970's alfa spyder from a workshop manual written in Italian published by them, creating your own diagram of how to do it (where you don't end up with it put in 180 degrees out, which causes some problems because the distributor is driven by a shaft on the oil pump and is keyed to go in only 1 way)and putting it on your website would be fine, since you own your own diagram (copying the original using tracing paper,scanning it and putting it up is not legal, however *lol* (showing my age)). 

 

 

Last edited by bigkid
Rich Melvin posted:

The “Fair Use” doctrine does not apply here. Because OGR is a commercial, for profit entity and accepts advertising revenue in the form of the banner ads here, Fair Use is not applicable here.

This is not my opinion, this is the law, as explained to us by an attorney who had to deal with this in a lawsuit brought against OGR by a photographer whose photo was used here without permission. OGR settled out of court and it cost OGR several thousand dollars.

That is simply wrong. The Supreme Court has held that nature of the use (commercial vs non-commercial) is only one factor to be considered when assessing whether a use is fair. The use of the photograph may not have been fair in your case, but commercial uses are not per se excluded from fair use.

Regarding manuals, diagrams, reset codes and the like, copyright protects only creative expression, not underlying facts. There must be some modicum of creativity in order for expression to be copyrightable.

Moreover, 17 U.S.C. 102(b) provides that "[i]n no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work." So copyright does not extend to ideas, systems, or facts in a work, and if there is insufficient creativity in the expression of those ideas then there is no copyrightable expression to start with.

To the extent there is copyrightable expression in a product schematic or manual, posting it could be fair use, since posting the information probably does not have an effect on the 'market' for the copyrightable expression - which is the most important factor in a fair use analysis.

As bigkid mentioned, older material that was published without a copyright notice automatically entered the public domain. That is no longer the case since the United States joined the Berne Convention, although older material that entered the public domain because it was published without a notice remains in the public domain.

bigkid posted:
Probably the best way to work with this kind of stuff would be to instead of posting the material, an image of it, create your own content based on the knowledge that gave. So for example, if you have an exploded diagram of a certain motor from some source, you could create your own diagram and put that up, as long as you don't significantly copy the original image (I am not a lawyer, just have run into this before), or a wiring diagram for example. Knowledge is not copyrightable, if you learn how to put the oil pump in a 1970's alfa spyder from a workshop manual written in Italian published by them, creating your own diagram of how to do it (where you don't end up with it put in 180 degrees out, which causes some problems because the distributor is driven by a shaft on the oil pump and is keyed to go in only 1 way)and putting it on your website would be fine, since you own your own diagram (copying the original using tracing paper,scanning it and putting it up is not legal, however *lol* (showing my age)).

Well, that's not going to happen for most cases.  If I were to stop and type a detailed description and/or draw a diagram for every answer I gave, I'd simply forget about answering.  The time it would take would be prohibitive.  If it comes to that, I'll just keep the knowledge to myself.

gunrunnerjohn posted:
bigkid posted:
Probably the best way to work with this kind of stuff would be to instead of posting the material, an image of it, create your own content based on the knowledge that gave. So for example, if you have an exploded diagram of a certain motor from some source, you could create your own diagram and put that up, as long as you don't significantly copy the original image (I am not a lawyer, just have run into this before), or a wiring diagram for example. Knowledge is not copyrightable, if you learn how to put the oil pump in a 1970's alfa spyder from a workshop manual written in Italian published by them, creating your own diagram of how to do it (where you don't end up with it put in 180 degrees out, which causes some problems because the distributor is driven by a shaft on the oil pump and is keyed to go in only 1 way)and putting it on your website would be fine, since you own your own diagram (copying the original using tracing paper,scanning it and putting it up is not legal, however *lol* (showing my age)).

Well, that's not going to happen for most cases.  If I were to stop and type a detailed description and/or draw a diagram for every answer I gave, I'd simply forget about answering.  The time it would take would be prohibitive.  If it comes to that, I'll just keep the knowledge to myself.

The knowledge itself isn't a problem, it is technically if a diagram or photo that could be considered copyrightable. 

I defer to @Professor Chaos on whether something like a schematic or diagram is creative enough to be copyrightable, he obviously understands the law behind this better than I do. I have to say that to me things like posting an old schematic and the like shouldn't be copyright violation, since it to me doesn't deprive the copyright owner of any revenue, if I write a repair manual on how to fix post war trains, the creativity is in how I present the information, my own insights on how to do a repair, putting into my own words how something works...in the end the real problem with copywrite law from anything I know is that it is not straightforward or common sense, that it is subject to interpretation and some people simply love to stir things up, threaten to sue, in the hopes they can get something out of it. 

I can't make heads or tails of all of this legal mumbo-jumbo, but, it looks like the lawyers and money grabbers are winning. Hence, can the demise of "Help" here on the OGR Forum be far behind?

Over the years, the amount of help in the form of education, be it through photos, drawings or schematics has been monumental! If someone has needed help, another was there to help find an answer. I would hate to see all of this come to an end!

Big Jim posted:

I can't make heads or tails of all of this legal mumbo-jumbo, but, it looks like the lawyers and money grabbers are winning. Hence, can the demise of "Help" here on the OGR Forum be far behind?

Over the years, the amount of help in the form of education, be it through photos, drawings or schematics has been monumental! If someone has needed help, another was there to help find an answer. I would hate to see all of this come to an end!

The conclusion of the "legal mumbo-jumbo" is that schematics, product illustrations, reset codes, etc. are probably not even copyrightable in the first place, and even if they were posting them here might very well be fair use.

I have ask, if you aren't following the legal talk, why do you jump straight into hysterical and alarmist lawyer-bashing?

Last edited by Professor Chaos
bigkid posted:

I defer to @Professor Chaos on whether something like a schematic or diagram is creative enough to be copyrightable, he obviously understands the law behind this better than I do. I have to say that to me things like posting an old schematic and the like shouldn't be copyright violation, since it to me doesn't deprive the copyright owner of any revenue, if I write a repair manual on how to fix post war trains, the creativity is in how I present the information, my own insights on how to do a repair, putting into my own words how something works...in the end the real problem with copywrite law from anything I know is that it is not straightforward or common sense, that it is subject to interpretation and some people simply love to stir things up, threaten to sue, in the hopes they can get something out of it. 

The distinction is between the facts & ideas contained in the work, and the author's creative expression of those facts and ideas. The expression is potentially copyrightable, but the underlying facts or ideas are not. But if there is no other way to express the facts or ideas, the expression is said to 'merge' with the ideas such that there is no copyrightable expression left.

For a repair manual, the ideas on how to carry out a repair (for example, "replace the bearings") are not copyrightable, no matter how inventive they are. Such things are protectable, if at all, only under patent law.

The way you present the information and the words you choose to express it would be potentially copyrightable expression, so if I copy the whole text of your book I'm going to be liable for infringement. 

Big Jim posted:

I can't make heads or tails of all of this legal mumbo-jumbo, but, it looks like the lawyers and money grabbers are winning. Hence, can the demise of "Help" here on the OGR Forum be far behind?

Over the years, the amount of help in the form of education, be it through photos, drawings or schematics has been monumental! If someone has needed help, another was there to help find an answer. I would hate to see all of this come to an end!

It certainly appears to be where we're headed.  If everything is copyrighted, and we can't post any copyrighted material, we'll be left with pretty limited resources for pointing people in the right direction!

Link bar

At the top of every “OGR Forum Thread” you will see these share buttons that can be used by OGR Members & non-members. What does this mean, if I post one of my copyrighted images on the OGR Forum a person who I do not know can take one of my copyrighted images and share it on Facebook - Twitter - Pinterest - Linked in - Reddit. The OGR Publishing Inc., is allowing these folks to use my copyrighted images. Not good……

Gary

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trainroomgary posted:

Link bar

At the top of every “OGR Forum Thread” you will see these share buttons that can be used by OGR Members & non-members. What does this mean, if I post one of my copyrighted images on the OGR Forum a person who I do not know can take one of my copyrighted images and share it on Facebook - Twitter - Pinterest - Linked in - Reddit. The OGR Publishing Inc., is allowing these folks to use my copyrighted images. Not good……

Gary

It’s much easier than that.  For kicks I clicked on the “permalink” link under your post and then pasted it to my FB page.   The test worked, it shows just the individual post on FB, not the entire thread. 

I'm not sure I get this one, if someone was trying to protect their copyrighted images, why would they post them on a public forum? Copying an image from someone's website, book etc. without the owner's consent would definitely surely be a violation here. However, when some one posts one of their photos or written material in a public forum doesn't that put it into the public domain? I would say that if you want to protect your copyrighted images, you probably should not be posting them in any public places, including public forums commercial or otherwise.

Also, as far as schematics and things from product manuals or repair documents by the manufacturer for our train items, would it not be to the manufacturer's best interests to allow folks to help others with their products? If it's proprietary information I can see where they would not want that posted anywhere, but they wouldn't be putting that in their user manuals either. 

I am not a lawyer or legal expert, nor do I know much about copyright laws, but to me this just seems like common sense. Of course laws do not always seem to follow the path of common sense. 

I disagree.  I post my photos all the time, but it frosts me that TCA Western chooses to use them in an article without attribution.  It doesn't frost me enough to take action, but not everyone is as lazy as I am.

I think OGR should remove the "reply with quote" button - even repeating a posted photo on the same thread could be viewed as copyright infringement.

The world will not come to an end if we quit stealing and re-posting others' images.  Opinion.

I recently received some schematics in an email that I posted in a thread here. I thought nothing of it because other schematics of a larger version of the product are readily available on their website with buttons to view and download as well as buttons to share on Facebook, Twitter, etc. I then got a notice from OGR that one of my posts in that thread contained a photo that “may” be copyrighted. There was no indication of which post or which photo (pretty lame if you ask me), so I had no choice but to delete anything that was not specifically mine. I even considered deleting the entire thread. To this day I have no idea if what I deleted resolved the problem, though I’m pretty sure I know who it was. And nothing I posted had any kind of copyright notice or marking nor did the email and I mentioned who sent it to me. I have no problem deleting them, but I’m very disappointed with the company because they have my address and could have easily contacted me directly. With photos, PDF files, etc., all over the internet, it would really be sad if we couldn’t post those here.

Professor Chaos posted:
Big Jim posted:

I can't make heads or tails of all of this legal mumbo-jumbo, but, it looks like the lawyers and money grabbers are winning. Hence, can the demise of "Help" here on the OGR Forum be far behind?

Over the years, the amount of help in the form of education, be it through photos, drawings or schematics has been monumental! If someone has needed help, another was there to help find an answer. I would hate to see all of this come to an end!

The conclusion of the "legal mumbo-jumbo" is that schematics, product illustrations, reset codes, etc. are probably not even copyrightable in the first place, and even if they were posting them here might very well be fair use.

I have ask, if you aren't following the legal talk, why do you jump straight into hysterical and alarmist lawyer-bashing?

Did I say that I "wasn't following the legal talk"! No, I said that I can't make heads or tails of it! Two entirely different things. As for there being any lawyer bashing, if so, that only applies to the ones abetting the money grabbers. 

Why did I jump in? Because I sense an end to the ability to educate those who seek the knowledge of railroading, real & model, to those who want to learn!

Last edited by Big Jim
rtr12 posted:

I'm not sure I get this one, if someone was trying to protect their copyrighted images, why would they post them on a public forum? Copying an image from someone's website, book etc. without the owner's consent would definitely surely be a violation here. However, when some one posts one of their photos or written material in a public forum doesn't that put it into the public domain? I would say that if you want to protect your copyrighted images, you probably should not be posting them in any public places, including public forums commercial or otherwise.

Also, as far as schematics and things from product manuals or repair documents by the manufacturer for our train items, would it not be to the manufacturer's best interests to allow folks to help others with their products? If it's proprietary information I can see where they would not want that posted anywhere, but they wouldn't be putting that in their user manuals either. 

I am not a lawyer or legal expert, nor do I know much about copyright laws, but to me this just seems like common sense. Of course laws do not always seem to follow the path of common sense. 

Though it might seem like common sense, posting your work on a public forum does not put it in the public domain. No more than publishing your book, or putting your art on display puts it in the public domain. Copyright gives the author the exclusive right to reproduce, display, or distribute his or her work, and the author does not relinquish those rights just by posting a copy of the work in a public forum.

The author's posting might give rise to an express or implied license for others to use the photo in certain ways (e.g., quote in a reply), but that's hard to say, and in any case would not be the same as putting it into the public domain.

Last edited by Professor Chaos

Copyright made easy -----> all original designs, photos, manuals, songs, works of art, etc. ..... are protected for 50 or 70 years plus life of author.

No registration required. If you do register with US Copyright Office the statutory penalties  for infringement  increase dramatically.

ideas and information like geography, scientific theories, mathematical concepts not copyrightable except in the unique manner by which they are presented.

Last edited by AlanRail

For the knowledge of all, the pics I posted on another topic about the Lionel Ale.  I took the pictures I posted of the Mc Keen streetcar while visiting the Carson City Railroad Museum in 2012.  Clear enough about there being no copyright infringement?  Suppose this should be a "note" whenever we do post our own pics, of whatever, so to avoid any uneasiness.

Jesse

Bought Greenberg's Repair and Operating Manual in the later1990s if memory serves correct it has many pictures and has helped to order parts from the parts numbers listed and to fix my engines etc.

After reading this thread then looking at the first few pages in my book i noticed  a few pages in and on the page next to its table of contents.

Copyright c 1990  by Greenberg Publishing Co.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any forms or by any means, including electronic, photocopying or recording, or by any information storage system, without written permission of this publisher, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles and reviews.

There are several # numbers on same page .

Question

Has anyone ever tried to make contact for permission to see if it would be ok to take a picture for example of e-unit wiring or smoke unit etc from your bought book and what was the reply .

Thanks in advance.

 

Last edited by Dieseler

OK....let me chime in here as this discussion, for the most part, has been a good one.  Some of you, especially BIGKID, PROFESSOR CHAOS, and ALANRAIL got it right....and most definitely have an understanding if not expert knowledge of copyright law.  Some of the responses above not so much...  Please don't take that as me being critical of you since it takes a lot of effort and time to become familiar with the current state of copyright.  AND....yes, much of it doesn't make common sense.  I can tell you that we involved through our legal department 5 expert copyright attorneys and the conclusion was that if we wanted to go to trial through Federal Court asking for a jury trial, OGR had a very good chance of winning...ultimately likely having to give up profile information on the folks that posted the photos in question.  Here was the main problem:  sometimes when one allocates the resources to win...ends up costing them more than losing.  This is where we found ourselves.  We could invest months of time and financial resources which ultimately would cost us more than just settling the issue.  So...our legal council advised us to take the negotiated "price". 

The disappointing thing for OGR was we informed privately the two individuals of what was going on from the beginning and I pledged to them that if I could, I would protect them...have their backs.  But, I did let them know that if we were legally forced to surrender their contact info, we would have no choice otherwise we would be in contempt of court.  Well...we ended up at least at this point in time not having to do that...and so I contacted them again to let them know how all of this ended up.  I also asked them to consider their role in how this affected OGR financially in effect asking for some sort of compensation...I didn't ask for complete compensation...just what they thought was fair.  The response from one was to talk to his attorney (yeah, right...more fees for us!) and the other wanted to know if we would be able to assure him that this would not be hanging over his head if one of his pictures didn't get taken down...sort of a guarantee on our part which with the shear numbers of pictures on this forum, would be nearly impossible.  Neither offered even a few dollars much less the thousands it cost us to basically defend them....  Both are now ex-members. 

So...now you may understand why OGR is taking the stance we are right now.  The popups, emails, and featured topic posts we are putting up are the only ways we can best get to get to as many members as possible about posting photos on this forum.  We will do this intensely for a short while so try to be patient....and when your patience wears thin and you feel compelled to email me with a nasty note about all of this, expect a response equal to your email.  I have very little tolerance right now about this topic...it is what it is and now it is time for everyone to work together to make this come to a positive conclusion.  Protect yourself and do the right thing...go back to previous posts where you posted photos and make sure if you are in doubt as to their copyright to delete them and if possible replace them with a link to where they came from.  Don't dwell on how this is causing an inconvenience for any one individual...rather think of the future of all forums like OGR and the information as well as the education members share with one another for the good of everyone and the hobby.  We just have to be more careful and thoughtful on how we share it.  

Last edited by OGR CEO-PUBLISHER

What a mess.

And the fallout has the potential to be significant.

My own personal stash of proto-photos I've taken over the years simply cannot support illustrating modeling ideas/etc. To say nothing of illustrating layout techniques and such. I mean, it's ludicrous to think that I've had the opportunity to try all of the techniques I've observed, so I don't have personal photos I can share about the technique(s) in question.

SO, at this point, I'm watching from the sidelines.

Andre

It is generally easy enough to get permission.  A very long time ago we wanted to print a line drawing of a steam model in OGR to point out various appurtenances. It was a Bob Hundman drawing - the guy who published Mainline Modeler.  A polite letter got an affirmative response, and we printed.  I bet that letter is still in the OGR files.

I am not sure I understand the angst.  But even after all this discussion folks are still reproducing photos from other publications.  

What I get out of all this is:

1. The designs I and others create in software and post here are copyrighted and can’t be posted elsewhere without our permission. Guess we all need to add notices to our posts. 😱

2. If a photo isn’t yours, don’t post it, post a link to it instead and make people follow the link, even though that’s a PITA.

3. If you inadvertently post a photo and are asked to remove it, do so and move on.

4. If you don’t like the rules, find another forum (where the rules are probably the same).

Okay, so I just wrote a response to a post, using a "quote" that included a photo. I instantly got a notification of this copy write issue.

In order to be in compliance, do I have to contact the person who posted the picture and get their permission to quote them? What if, as in this case, the photo was taken from a third-party source, like a catalog, etc.?

This is getting confusing... 

Mark in Oregon

Alan

ONLY 3 of us got it right. That's the real issue for OGRR. You or someone will need to carefully monitor postings.

As to the issue of a schematic or manual the idea of a schematic or the idea of a manual is not copyrightable.

However, the unique and original presentation of a schematic or manual is copyrighted UNLESS it states it is not copyrighted and that you may copy freely.Obviously, the author or owner of the copyright is allowing publication of the work.

However, if you see a © next to the work it is copyrighted, although that is not necessary. You dont know if the work has be registered with the US Copyright Office and using without permission will be very costly in statutory penalties that the owner of the registered copyright could pursue.

 DON'T EVER copy something from Disney. Everything they have from Mickey to Movies are registered 

Last edited by AlanRail

Laast thing...

Now we could all sign or accept that anything original posted HERE is not copyrighted and may be used and copied FREELY.  All forumites ( and new forumites ) could agree that in consideration for being allowed to post or read posts they agree to waive all copyrights to original material posted here and agree that all of their postings are original or are used with permission of the owner(s).

 

I'd agree.

 

Strummer posted:

Okay, so I just wrote a response to a post, using a "quote" that included a photo. I instantly got a notification of this copy write issue.

In order to be in compliance, do I have to contact the person who posted the picture and get their permission to quote them?  

Mark in Oregon

Just delete the picture(s) from the quote before posting it.

Lew

Last edited by geysergazer
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