Some questions on copyright

[mart]

Not sure where to post this, but I wanted someone who knows about these things to see it.

I have a question about what material is appropriate for posting and what is not.

When you become a member of most sites, you undertake not to distribute the material over the internet, and so most of the clips we see are the free and preview clips. But there are the occasional long clips in the Splits section that circulate and seem to be unaffected if they are not from one of the forbidden producers.

I've noticed a lot of FP stuff- in fact this seems to be the most popular site for posts on this forum. They get quite a lot of exposure, everyone seems to know about them, so maybe they don't mind if material got by members is circulated here for free.

I imagine the same must apply to stuff once it has been archived at Extremetickling. Is it so that material from paysites that are not specifically out of bounds is basically available for posting on request?

That is my one question.

The other concerns the material from dead sites - for example Ticklespot.com, which circulates in the form of fairly low-quality clips, but must somehow still be available in personal collections. Is it ligitimate to enter into trade with this sort of material, and if not, who owns the copyright and is still able to distribute it?

So much for now. I will ask in more detail as it applies.

 

[His Divine Shadow]

No paysite material is allowed unless the poster is the owner of that paysite. Only those who pay for a membership to that site may view it. As to material from dead websites.....I'm not sure about that one. Full-size videos are more than likely not permitted, and any former paysite material is likely not permitted.

 

[mart]

Thanks for the answer. But why, then, is there so much circulating, for example from Foot Paradise? Do they not see it, or maybe not mind. And on whom is the onus of pointing out that some clip is in circulation that violates copyright.

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to point fingers at anyone - in fact it is as a result of seeing one or other of these clips that I tried to find the site that produced it and became a member, so the circulation can also be of benenfit to the site.

The reason I am asking this is that I on occasion have had a clip that has been requested somewhere and would have liked to help, but it would have been a clip that I have by virtue of my site membership. On the one hand I obviously do not want to incriminate myself, but on the other, I want to know what the ethics on a forum like this are based on.

 

[MistressValerie1]

Hi, Eric,

Although I can't give official legal advice, I can quote from a scholarly article about the main exemption from copyright law, the doctrine called "fair use," which allows reasonable amounts of copyrighted material to be reproduced without specific permission in order to foster discussion, debate, and commentary.

With one important exception, you should assume that every work is protected by copyright unless you can establish that it is not. As mentioned above, you can't rely on the presence or absence of a copyright notice (©) to make this determination, because a notice is not required for works published after March 1, 1989. And even for works published before 1989, the absence of a copyright notice may not affect the validity of the copyright -- for example, if the author made diligent attempts to correct the situation.

The exception is for materials put to work under the "fair use rule." This rule recognizes that society can often benefit from the unauthorized use of copyrighted materials when the purpose of the use serves the ends of scholarship, education or an informed public. For example, scholars must be free to quote from their research resources in order to comment on the material. To strike a balance between the needs of a public to be well-informed and the rights of copyright owners to profit from their creativity, Congress passed a law authorizing the use of copyrighted materials in certain circumstances deemed to be "fair" -- even if the copyright owner doesn't give permission.

Often, it's difficult to know whether a court will consider a proposed use to be fair. The fair use statute requires the courts to consider the following questions in deciding this issue:

- Is it a competitive use? (In other words, if the use potentially affects the sales of the copied material, it's usually not fair.)
- How much material was taken compared to the entire work of which the material was a part? (The more someone takes, the less likely it is that the use is fair.)
- How was the material used? Is it a transformative use? (If the material was used to help create something new it is more likely to be considered a fair use that if it is merely copied verbatim into another work. Criticism, comment, news reporting, research, scholarship and non-profit educational uses are most likely to be judged fair uses. Uses motivated primarily by a desire for a commercial gain are less likely to be fair use).

As a general rule, if you are using a small portion of somebody else's work in a non-competitive way and the purpose for your use is to benefit the public, you're on pretty safe ground. On the other hand, if you take large portions of someone else's expression for your own purely commercial reasons, the rule usually won't apply.

From http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter0/0-b.html#3

 

[mart]

Thanks to both of you. I am a little clearer now, but still not clear about the ethics involved in trading clips and so on.
As regards posting, it seems that what the law is saying is that, as long as I have nothing personal to gain, nor do I impair the producing company's chances of profiting further from their work, it will be viewed leniently, and that I must use my own judgment. But that does not yet tell me about what the producers feel about this kind of distribution of their work.
A company like Feetonline clearly asks that people report incidents of their material being made avialable on other sites on the internet. But do they mean this forum, or is this a kind of free for all, useful for advertising and exchange unless the producer deliberately states otherwise?

 

[MistressValerie1]

In an ambiguous case, it's best to get permission from the producer before posting their material, though most producers don't object to small, reasonable quantities of their content being posted non-commercially, especially if the originating site is credited.

Technically, it's illegal to trade full-length movies in electronic form, but you can usually trade smaller or sample clips, as well as physical media like a video tape or DVD. If the trading is social (among a small number of friends) it is more likely to be treated as "fair use" than if people are uploading full movies or entire music collections to share widely among strangers. (Note that Canadian courts recently declared nearly all file-sharing to be legal, regardless of the amount of material involved.)

Unfortunately, the law is still evolving and being reinterpreted all the time, but for now, most free forums like this have had no problems hosting reasonable quantities of paysite material as long as the producer does not specifically object.

Best regards,

 

[mart]

Thanks very much. I feel less bad about the whole thing now. Its just that you undertake not to distribute something when you buy a clip or a membership, and I wanted to be clear what I was getting into.