Copyright complaint from Corbis

email | Feb 3, 2004 | Corbis

[Behind Liberal Lines]

Corbis, as noted by other Freepers, is owned by Bill "Microsoft" Gates.

According to OpenSecrets.org, Gates is a big time Democrat Donor (his generosity being rewarded with, as I recall, the Clinton-Gore anti-trust suits).

It would serve the geek bastard right if Kerry got in and broke up microsoft.

[tet68]

Your response sounds credible to me, You answered every point raised, case closed.

Eagles Up!

[XHogPilot]

I'll be right back folks, I headed over to DU....

[farmfriend]

bttt

[foreverfree]

bump

[joesbucks]

It's no different than the Bill Clinton parody songs Rush Limbaugh plays on his show.

Except that Rush has permission or a contract to use Shanklin's songs.

[MizSterious]

I think I'd heard somewhere that Corbis was pretty hard-nosed about their copyrighted pictures. Hope this is the end of it.

[MJY1288]

The altered picture I saw did not have the "Corbis" logo on it, and I have seen the unaltered pic without their logo on it as well.

[ambrose]

ping.

[ClintonBeGone]

Except that Rush has permission or a contract to use Shanklin's songs.

You're missing my point. The question isn't whether Rush has permission from Shanklin, its whether Shanklin has or NEEDS permission from the creators of the songs he uses in his parodies.

[billorites]

"Meet the owner of Corbis - "

Didn't I used to get high with him?

[Physicist]

You're missing the point. Rush doesn't get sued by the writers of the original songs upon which the Shanklin parodies are based.

[CedarDave]

Don't forget to leave a hyperlink there!!

[P-Marlowe]

I believe that altering a picture for parody or satire is an exeption to the copyright laws and is permissible under the "Fair Use" doctrine. Perhaps one of our intellectual property law freeper attorneys can confirm this.

[GeronL]

I guess we should have expected this when Corbis and the photographer threatened to sue the maker of the parody.

Whoever has that parody should go post it on every leftwing site they can find =o)

Just kidding. Please do not violate any copyrights.

[WayneM]

or her?

[BipolarBob]

How the heck we don't know it was a Corbis employee that posted that just to drum up trouble?

[joesbucks]

The point is corbis is claiming the ownership to the intellectual property that the photo was derived from. It would be like taking a copyrighted picture of President Bush from the NYT and using it. It would likely result in hot water again for FR if such were used. He's public domain. A copyrighted photo of him isn't.

[Alouette]

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”

[Humidston]

I wonder if FR is the ONLY site they're probing. If not, maybe a few enterprising FReepers might scout out OTHER offending sites that may be posting their image and report those as well.

Oh yeah, and I wonder if they're going after Fox News and Bill Mahr (sp?) who also displayed that photo on national television within the past 24-48 hours??

Heck, if all these people want to gang up on FR, they'd better start leaning equally on ALL other reported venues as well!