The editors of Granite Grok claim to have been attacked by “copyright trolls”: individuals who believe they alone have the power and authority to file a lawsuit when any copyrighted materials – specifically any images – appear anywhere on any of the Granit Grok pages.
This is plainly ridiculous.
Let me start by saying that I am not a lawyer. But I learned a lot about copyrights when helping my mother republish her copyrighted book “The Culture Spot” which she rewrote from the original “Culture Without Pain”, which was originally published with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
I learned how to file for a copyright with the US Copyright Office, what the legal requirements and limitations of copyrights are, what the benefits might be, how to defend the ownership of your own works and many other related issues.
So my first questions to the editors would be: Can the “copyright trolls” (hereinafter “complainants”) show locus standi (standing) in an appropriate civil court? Have the complainants shown actual intent to pursue a copyright infringement action by providing a copy of the action filed with the court (and not just a threat to file suit)?
Can the complainants provide documentary proof that they are representing the actual copyright owner(s)? Can the complainants show to a court how the use of an anonymously sourced image from the internet causes specific and immediate harm to the copyright owner(s) of the image(s), and that the action of the complainants is specifically intended to provide a remedy for that harm?
And lastly: can they find a judge who won’t toss this case out of court after looking at 17 USC? More on that in a moment.
My guess is that the answer to the last question is: probably not.
One other question while we’re on the issue of “standing” and lawsuits: Were the copyrights on each and every image noted by the complainants clearly marked with a visible © copyright mark and was each image properly registered with the US Copyright Office?
Again, probably not.
There’s more here. If the complainants are only suing Granite Grok but not suing any other organization for the use of the same images, then why did they choose Granite Grok – a “small potatoes” operation – and not another organization with far deeper pockets? What makes Granite Grok a more attractive target for a “copyright infringement” lawsuit than, say… Facebook, where copyrighted images appear without a visible © copyright mark all the time?
More to that point: How many times have people copied and reposted Dilbert cartoons from either Scott Adam’s web page or some other publication without paying a fee to Scott Adams, even though the original cartoon was marked on its face by Scott Adams with the © copyright mark?
Now to the definition of “fair use” as found in 17 USC Section 107 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107)
“The fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”
Granite Grok fits precisely and exactly within the limitations described as “criticism, comment, news reporting”. Heck, Granite Grok is criticism and comment with some news reporting sprinkled in for good measure. That’s its appeal.
It seems that the complainants are threatening the editors of Granite Grok with an action that, according to the law, seems to be specifically allowed under Title 17.
But what about images that don’t come from the ‘net? Who owns them?
I have posted several articles on my disagreement with several political and financial issues caused by the Nashua Board of Aldermen, the Nashua Board of Education, and Mayor Donchess. I have occasionally accompanied those articles with a picture of downtown Nashua that shows how traffic is partly blocked by outside dining and jersey barriers.
That picture came from the camera on my phone. It is supposed to be mine. I chose the camera angle, I used my own equipment to take the image, and I didn’t ask anyone’s permission to take the image.
(To the Granite Grok editors: you have my full permission to use that image anytime you wish.)
But is that image mine? Do I hold exclusive rights to it?
And here we arrive at the top of the slippery slope with regard to digital images. Is the photo I took with my own Android camera owned by Android? I transferred that image from my phone into my Google photos account – does Google now own the photo? If I transfer the images from my phone onto my Windows 10 system, does Microsoft own the photo? And if I put the photo onto Dropbox, does Dropbox now own it?
BTW: the answer to all those questions is “partly, yes.” Look at the “terms of use” – and prepare to be both shocked and deeply disappointed. They will all claim “we won’t use the image without your permission,” but I’d be willing to bet that you’ll find one of those images in an unexpected place if you look long and hard enough.
In fact, a recent news article specifically spoke about Amazon finally encrypting Ring doorbell videos so “the content won’t be accessible to the company” (https://www.macrumors.com/2021/07/14/ring-doorbell-videos-encryption-no-homekit/) That begs the question “did the company have access to those videos? If so, what were they being used for?”
If you don’t own your own works, then who owns them? And who controls them?
Finally, there’s the “privacy” issue. If the complainants are claiming that you are violating the privacy of a copyright owner by reusing an image that appeared elsewhere on the ‘net, then the first question to ask is: why didn’t the copyright owner remove that image from the ‘net to prevent it from being copied and reused? If the image is privately owned, shouldn’t the owner be protecting their own privacy?
Some folks will be deeply disappointed when they find out that Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and the other “services” have a legal claim on any uploaded content stored on their servers: pictures of their children, homes, videos of birthday parties, and other image data that could present a temptation to those who should never have access to those images.
Did you know that you cannot permanently remove your content from their servers, or that any copies of those images downloaded from those servers to phones, tablets, computers, and other electronic devices are out of the control of both you and those companies?
How many of us clearly mark our images with the © copyright mark and then register the image with the US Copyright Office?
Let’s not even start talking about “smart TVs” with cameras on them, or tablets/phones with front and rear-facing cameras. Or cars with backup cameras and/or DVR front/rear cameras. Does anyone really think that all of those images are copyrighted?
Perhaps those who authored 17 USC understood that there needed to be exceptions to permit the “fair use” of extracts from copyrighted works. It’s interesting that they included “phonorecords” – which is the basis for fair reuse of both audio and video extracts. And it is the “fair use doctrine” that allows (for example) CNN to replay content from MSNBC — for “news reporting” (see 17 USC Section 107, above).
