[Air-l] Permissions for web images that no longer exist

[Dan L Burk]

Interesting suggestion, but unclear what the point may be.  Copyright
liability is strict in the U.S. and other jurisditions with which I am
familiar; for liability to attach it doesn't really matter whether you
engaged in good faith efforts to find the copyright holder or not.  

In the U.S., once you've lost an infringement suit, I suppose that the
paper trail might allow you to avoid an increased damage award for willful
infringement under the 504(c)(2) statutory damages provision.  But at the
same time it suggests that you knew or should have known the material was
protected by copyright, so that you coudn't raise the 504(c) "innocent
infringer" defense to get lowered damages.  In fact, it may be that the
paper trail *demonstrates* that the infringement was willful.  So this
practice appears to cut both ways, not necessarily to your advantage.

DLB

P.S. Disclaimer again.


On 27 Apr 2005, Gilbert B. Rodman wrote:
> If the publisher wants you to get permissions, but you've got not ready 
> access to the permission holders (or even any sense who those might be), 
> there's always the sort of notice/disclaimer that reads something like: 
> "every effort has been made to secure permission for use of copyrighted 
> materials.  in the event of a copyright query, please contact the 
> publishers."  Your publisher may not want to do that, but it's a common 
> enough practice that it's worth asking about.  If nothing else, it helps
to 
> demonstrate that you did, in fact, engage in good faith efforts to locate

> relevant copyright holder -- especially if you keep a paper/e-mail trail
of 
> those efforts.
> 
> cheers
> gil
> 
> 
> At 4/27/2005 @ 01:03 AM, you wrote:
> >Hi all,
> >
> >I've run up against a problem that has my publisher stumped as well. If 
> >you're publishing a book or journal article and want to use pictures
from 
> >a Web site, and you have the pictures but the site is no longer in 
> >existence, do you need permission? How would you handle this?
> >
> >And also, what is the site still exists, but all emails to the authors
of 
> >the site bounce?
> >
> >Any help or pointers of where to look would be greatly appreciated.
> >thanks!
> >Mia
> >
> >Mia Consalvo, Ph.D.
> >Kohei Miura Visiting Professor
> >Department of Communication, College of Humanities
> >Chubu University
> >Japan
> >
> >Permanent address:
> >Ohio University
> >School of Telecommunications
> >Athens, Ohio 45701
> >USA
> >
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Dan L. Burk
Visiting Professor
Cornell Law School
Myron Taylor Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853 USA

Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly Professor
University of Minnesota Law School
229 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA
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