Kim,
that's all very interesting, however my interest is less in the legal
position.
Do you know of any BBC feeds that link to images?
btw it is possible to provide acknowledgements for instance to
reuters ap etc in the feed, and yahoo do, specifically in the alt
text for the images.
cheers
Jonathan Chetwynd
On 23 Jul 2007, at 11:02, Kim Plowright wrote:
this request is not limited to news feeds, so where are the BBC feeds
for images that they do have copyright for?
Which feeds in particular, with images?
You'll find that a lot of images used on the site are not BBC
copyright, and therefore the BBC doesn't have the rights to
redistribute them; hence the not being in RSS feeds. This isn't
exclusive to news, which has deals with AP etc, it applies to any area
of the site - movies is one example that springs to mind.
Now, my understanding is that the BBC generally doesn't pursue minor
infringement of BBC copyright (such as occasional reuse of BBC owned
images on fan websites, for instance), as it has better things to be
doing with its time. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the owners
of the images that the BBC has licensed will feel the same way.
Remember the weather feeds? It's those underlying rights that will
cause problems.
I've no idea why you appear so aggressive.
Because I am/was exceptionally tired and very hungover.
No one is suggesting that
the images are not copyright.
Quotes:
the quality of images used as links is unlikely to present a "rights"
issue.
in fact fair use probably covers this in any case.
No, but you suggest that because they're small/of poor quality there
won't be a rights issue with using them, which is a nonsense.
Bearing in mind I am not a lawyer:
'Fair Use' is only a legal concept in US law. iirc; they're
'Exceptions' in UK law, sometimes referred to in the copyright act as
Fair Dealing, when talking about reviewing or reporting current
affairs.
Here's the law in question:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_1.htm
Excerpt from
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_4.htm
- -
Criticism, review and news reporting.
30.—(1) Fair dealing with a work for the purpose of criticism or
review, of that or another work or of a performance of a work, does
not infringe any copyright in the work provided that it is accompanied
by a sufficient acknowledgement.
(2) Fair dealing with a work (other than a photograph) for the
purpose of reporting current events does not infringe any copyright in
the work provided that (subject to subsection (3)) it is accompanied
by a sufficient acknowledgement.
(3) No acknowledgement is required in connection with the
reporting of current events by means of a sound recording, film,
broadcast or cable programme.
- -
So
- you can reuse stuff with acknowledgement - sufficient is later
defined as 'title of work plus name of author'
- 30(2) appears to specifically rule out photographs from being exempt
for Criticism, review or news reporting.
- There may be arguments to be made around 'reporting of current
events' - but RSS may not fall under the means listed in 30(3) - it
would reference 'electronic means' if so.
- To successfully argue for exception under that clause 30(3), you'd
need to get a good working legal definition of 'reporting of current
events'.
evidently Yahoo is ahead on this issue as it already includes links
to images in at least one news feed.
Clearly in this case it seems unlikely they could claim that they did
not intend the links to be used...
There will be a sound reason that they provide links to images, not
actual images; consider the difference between the image appearing on
a page republishing the feed, and a link to the image in its original
context appearing on the page republishing the feed.
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