[Air-L] blog photo copyrights

Peter Timusk ptimusk at sympatico.ca
Sat Nov 5 13:36:52 PDT 2011


The copyright laws in Canada are such that as soon as you publish something
you own the copyright. Not even publish simply write down. As such the
photo's on my blog are copyright. I would need to give you permission to use
them especially if in another published work rather than just linking to
them. Just because you *can* download a photo or link to it does not mean
you *should* do this.


Peter Timusk
at571 at ncf.ca
ptimusk at sympatico.ca
web: www.crystalcomputing.net
blogs www.cyborgcitizen.org

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Annette Markham
Sent: November-05-11 3:40 PM
To: joana ro
Cc: AOIR
Subject: Re: [Air-L] blog photo copyrights

Hi Johanna,

Your question actually raises some other issues about ownership of content.
Aside from intellectual property,  there's the consideration of whether or
not the bloggers consider their blog to be private or public space.  While
some authors of public blogs consider these to be freely available for
reproduction and analysis by researchers, other authors consider their blogs
to be private spaces.  Even when users  acknowledge their information as
public, they might have concerns about how their information is used (see
boyd and Marwick's recent discussion of this in a study of youth facebook
users ("social privacy in networked
publics<http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/05/09/how-teens-under
stand-privacy.html>,"
--a working paper on danah boyd's website), or from a more conceptual
perspective, Nissenbaum's 2010 book on Privacy and Contextual Integrity.)

You may have already gone through this stage, but one ethical consideration
would be to ask yourself if there's a chance the content or photos would be
considered 'sensitive' materials.  What potential harm might occur if
personally identifiable information is disclosed in your book?  Is any
possible harm (present or future) balanced in some way by the social and
scholarly benefits of your reproducing and publishing the content of these
blogs?

Taking a conservative stance and assuming that at some point, the bloggers
might feel compromised or harmed, one might ask: is there a way to make the
point without using personal (copyrighted, protected, private) pictures?
Could other images (your own or stock) be used instead, as a representative
sample of what is actually out there?  This avenue might also help solve
some logistic issues of getting permission if the bloggers don't respond to
your requests.

As far as getting permissions, I'd add that it's always a good idea to keep
a careful record of the permission process (for any future reference and
potential problems that might arise). I don't know about German laws, but if
there are no formal procedures, you might have a look at some of the
excellent models and recommendations from various universities. I tend to
use Columbia University's copyright advisory office when I need advice on
developing systematic procedures for seeking permissions:
http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/permissions/requesting-permission/


Good luck,

annette
*****************************************************
Annette N. Markham, Ph.D.
Visiting Scholar, Department of Communication University of Arizona, Tucson

amarkham at gmail.com
http://markham.internetinquiry.org/

Co-Editor, International Journal of Internet Research Ethics
http://www.ijire.net <http://www.ijire.net>


On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 3:26 AM, joana ro <joanaro at googlemail.com> wrote:

> Dear Anders, dear Heather,
>
> thanks for the advice! Yes, the book is being published in Germany. 
> The publisher doesn't seem to be very internet-savy unfortunately.
>
> Did you guys simply ask for permission or ask, whether they wanted 
> money right from the start?
>
> Thanks,
> Johanna
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 11:18 AM, Anders Fagerjord < 
> anders.fagerjord at media.uio.no> wrote:
>
> >
> > Den 3. nov.. 2011 kl. 10.07 skrev joana ro:
> >
> >
> >  I am in the process of publishing a book about blogs and would like 
> > to
> use
> >> not just screenshots, but also individual photos taken from the blog.
> >> These
> >> photos were more often than not, taken by the bloggers themselves 
> >> and might be considered theirs in copyright terms (although there 
> >> is nothing to indicate this in the text itself).
> >>
> >> What are your experiences with publishing this sort of material? 
> >> How did you proceed? Did you ask the bloggers for permission? Any
tipps?
> >>
> >
> > The need for permission will depend on intellectual property law and 
> > photography law in the country you publish. Is this a German
publication?
> >
> > Under Norwegian law, you would in most cases need to ask the 
> > photographer and any identifiable persons in each image for their 
> > permission, although there are exceptions.
> >
> > I have contacted a few Web site owners earlier, and both response 
> > times and whether they want (large) pay varies a lot.
> >
> > good luck!
> >
> > --anders
> >
> > --
> > Anders Fagerjord, dr.art.
> > Associate professor, Head of Studies
> >
> > Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo P.O. Box 
> > 1093 Blindern
> > N-0317 OSLO
> > Norway
> >
> > http://www.media.uio.no   http://fagerjord.no
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the 
> Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change 
> options or unsubscribe at:
> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/
>
_______________________________________________
The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of
Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or
unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
http://www.aoir.org/




More information about the Air-L mailing list