ValiantFans.com Board - Since 2004

Vault-Keeper · Post by **Vault-Keeper** » Fri May 14, 2004 1:19 pm

message deleted

lobo · Post by **lobo** » Fri May 14, 2004 6:34 pm

I imagine everyone wants a copy to read, I sure would.
Is interest real heavy in that respect? Are you planning on making or scanning copies for distribution? Are people starting to wave some silly money under your nose in hopes of currying your favor??

x-omatic · Post by **x-omatic** » Sat May 15, 2004 1:07 am

Just remember that the material does have a copywrite. Making copies to sell would infringe on those rights. Just like making a copy of a comic book and selling it. I have a copy and was bombarded with emails about selling copies. In the end I decided it would not only be wrong to do, but also not fair to those that paid for orginal copies. I do still think it would be nice to have it scaned for viewing on Gregs site.

Vault-Keeper · Post by **Vault-Keeper** » Sat May 15, 2004 7:04 pm

message deleted

justin · Post by **justin** » Sun May 16, 2004 7:45 am

Steve and I were in the bidding war, had I won it, I would have taken paypals from everyone who wanted it and made them copies. Why not share this baby with all who want a copy.

-A

x-omatic · Post by **x-omatic** » Sun May 16, 2004 11:41 am

architect wrote:Steve and I were in the bidding war, had I won it, I would have taken paypals from everyone who wanted it and made them copies. Why not share this baby with all who want a copy.

-A

Because it is not legal.

cjv · Post by **cjv** » Sun May 16, 2004 12:18 pm

It's not legal to make money off of copying it - does that mean it is completely illegal to copy it at all? (I am not too much up on copyright law). Does it change at all given that the company is now defunct?

Chris

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Sun May 16, 2004 12:32 pm

cjv wrote:does that mean it is completely illegal to copy it at all?

Not completely. There are some acceptable situations. One obvious being having the permission of the copyright holder.

Good links:
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
http://web.mit.edu/copyright/faq.html

Does it change at all given that the company is now defunct?

Seldom.

Chris

/Magnus

lobo · Post by **lobo** » Sun May 16, 2004 12:56 pm

Yea, if Steve is so inclined, scan the book into CD-Rs and charge a small 'premium' for the cost of the CD and shipping.

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Sun May 16, 2004 1:18 pm

Knightt_333 wrote:Hell folks, look at your avatars. We are using copyrighted material everytime we log onto this site. I dont think anyone gave us permission to use 'em.

Very good point.

/Magnus

x-omatic · Post by **x-omatic** » Sun May 16, 2004 1:23 pm

magnusr wrote:
Knightt_333 wrote:Hell folks, look at your avatars. We are using copyrighted material everytime we log onto this site. I dont think anyone gave us permission to use 'em.
Very good point.

/Magnus

We are not buying or selling the avatar. We are simple using it on this site. It would be a different story if you were making copies of the artwork and selling them.

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Sun May 16, 2004 1:44 pm

cjv wrote:does that mean it is completely illegal to copy it at all?

I looked a bit closer at some good sites. As we've said here it is not completely illegal to copy stuff, but there is a major confusion on what is permissable. Four criteria can be used when "guessing" if someone is within "fair use" or not. The single most important of these is the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. It is obvious that one cannot make copies for own profit, nor make excessive amounts of copies, but this effect is even more important. I dare say that there is no potential market for avatars, and probably not for Continuity Bibles either. So, at least it is not clearly the case that copying is forbidden. It is not obvious either that it is legal, but it is not obviously illegal. The amount of the work copied is also a factor (speaking against copying the complete bible) and how artistic compared to factual the work is, is another factor (speaking against copying the "created" parts of the bible, but speaking for copying the parts that are compilations from other comics).

In short, there are no easy answers. And this was just addressing the strict legality of things. Knight and others have shown the practicalities involved as well.

/Magnus

greg · Post by **greg** » Sun May 16, 2004 1:48 pm

From my understanding of the copyright laws...

It is always legal to use a "small fraction" of a body of work as a reference,
as long as the appropriate credits are given ("fair use" clause).

Think back to quoting a passage in a book when you were
writing papers in school...

For the sake of "reference", the cover of each book is only a portion
of the "entire contents of the book" and should be allowable as a legal reference
to the whole book... especially when properly credited to the owner.

If we consider the cover of a comic book as a "page",
and we assume most comics have at least 21 pages, then the cover is
less than 5% of the book... which seems appropriate "fair use" for reference.

Avatars represent even less than 5% of any book...
and are scaled-down significantly vs. their real-world sources.

Above all, none of the "fair uses" of Valiant copyrighted works on this site
are "for profit"...
"For profit" is always illegal regardless of the size/amount of the violation,
where "not for profit" MIGHT be ok as fair use, depending on size/amount.

greg · Post by **greg** » Sun May 16, 2004 1:50 pm

It looks like magnusr and I were typing at the same time...
Great minds think alike, huh?

magnusr · Post by **magnusr** » Sun May 16, 2004 2:31 pm

greg wrote:It looks like magnusr and I were typing at the same time...
Great minds think alike, huh?

but you expressed it better!

Magnus