Jul 09
24
The Quagmire of Copyright.
even if it is breaching copyright…..
#11 posted by webmonkees,
July 22, 2009 5:22 AM
Dear Sirs at Speed Camera Cash Cow Inc:
On May 20th, 2009,
I produced a exclusive series of artistically inspired portraits of my vehicle.
I have initiated a copyright on said photography, and any derivative works,
such as your photo taken 6/15/08,
are in violation of my copyright.
I have a agreement with other owners of the same make and
model vehicle for sharing of this copyright. As a designated representative of
this group, I must insist that you cease and desist in continuing to photograph
our unique and protected design.
We expect compliance with this notice, in that all
photographs of Honda A300 MiniMax are in violation of a protected creative work
and no further publication be permitted in any form.
Any future violation of these terms will be considered
infringement and will be met with legal action.
Yours sincerely etc., William Knickers.
Which was a comment on an article
on the boingboing website:
“It has been brought to our attention that the photographs from the Gatso camera, produced for your recent court case, have been published on TheNewspaper.com website,” Sussex Police Solicitor Alexandra Karrouze wrote to Barker in a June 28 letter. “The content of these photographs are the property of Sussex Police and publication of them is a breach of copyright. They should be removed from the website forthwith. If they are not removed further action may be contemplated.”
Sussex Police did not send any copyright notice to TheNewspaper, nor did Karrouze respond to requests for clarification and comment. The agency became particularly upset with Barker in May after he threatened legal action against the Sussex Speed Camera Partnership for insisting that he had been speeding even after his court acquittal. The agency had no choice but to issue a swift apology.“The partnership accept that such an assertion should not have been made and have apologized unreservedly to Mr Barker for this error,” the partnership said in a statement.
Barker believes that the local council and police do not want motorists to know that a time-distance calculation can be performed on the images to check the vehicle's speed against the radar reading. A difference of more than ten percent between the two figures renders the machine's speed estimate “unreliable” under UK guidelines.
UK Council Considers Speed Camera Photos Copyrighted
Followed by another BoingBoing readers comment:
airshowfan, July 22, 2009 6:54 AM
If you push the button that triggers the picture being taken, you own the copyright. So don't the drivers own the copyright?
I'm not entirely serious, of course; In the case where the bulk of
the work is setting up the equipment, just pushing the button doesn't
make someone the owner. Still…
And isn't there some legal principle in the US about work produced
by the federal government being in the public domain? Whatever drives
that principle should be enough to keep police in the UK from making
copyright claims on their “work”, I would guess. That is, if the Law
made sense…
Yes, Copyright in Government produced documentation does vest with the people.
It is worth reading the entire article with comments to learn about “alignment and calibration” errors with speed cameras. Never can tell when such information might come in handy. Here is the article link again.
From the Tongue in Cheek Department