Is there a collection of vintage kilt photos?

[HootinHoller]

While we have no control over a members photobucket account it is unfortunate that sometimes photo do disappear.

We also must be mindful of copyright. If a photo is lifted from somewhere under copyright, and the owner complains, we must remove offending photos. It does happen on occasion but gratefully our members are pretty good folks so it happens seldom.

Which is why there needs to be reliable storage for them. With some planning, I can donate some space on my server, let me know.

As to copyright issues, since the purpose of collection is the education of our members and the public, I think at least in the US, fair use doctrine should apply.

[Steve Ashton]

Fair use doctrine is fine but it is not law. What I am referring to is a Copyright upholdable in court.

Let me play devils advocate here for a moment. And please understand my only concern here is to protect this forum.

Say a member lifts a photo from a commercial site who are in the business of selling photos. This company has a Copyright notice posted to there site and make it very visible and plain that the photos on the site are the property of the company.
This site has posted samples photos of some of the items they have for sale.
A member here saves one, or a few, of these photos to his hard drive, transfers them to his photobucket account and then uploads them into a post here.

If you read the Copyright notice at the bottom of every single page of this forum you will see this -

Copyright 2012 by Steve Ashton
Do not reproduce or re-transmit anything on www.XMarkstheScot.com without the express, written permission of the Original Author or the forum owner, Steve Ashton.

I, and by default, ever member of this forum are now liable for Copyright violation. At least under Canadian Law which is where I currently live and where this site is operated.

If I do not remove the posted photo when asked this site could be shut down. I'm not saying that it will happen, I am saying that it could, and that it has happened before to other sites.

Does anyone remember Napster?

No, I'm sorry, I must operate under the law and must protect this site for its members. Far use does not apply in the case of theft of Copyright material.

We all rail at the top of our lungs when a Pakistani site steals photos from our favorite vendors and uses them on their own sites. We scream and cry for tougher laws, something to protect those who sell us our stuff.

But we seem to feel it is right to lift a photo of a guy in a kilt taken in WWI just because it is found on the web.

Well, we can have it one way or the other, we can't have both.

In the past five years I have had to remove about a dozen photos from posts on this forum after receiving valid complaints from the rightful owners of the images. Luckily no one has gotten nasty and no one has filed a suit in court over the photos being stolen from them.

My policy is, and must remain, that if I receive a verifiable complaint over a photo or link, that a member posts here, I must remove the photo or link.

I sincerely hope that I am never forced to take stronger action. But it could happen. And I warn our members that it could happen over something as innocent looking as re-posting something someone found in their local paper. Believe it or not there is more than one case in the American law libraries over something just like this.

I cannot control what anyone downloads to their personal hard drive or their personal Photobucket account. All I can do is insure that this site is not taken to court over what that person posts here.

I have asked this out of courtesy before and I ask it again out of simple courtesy. Let us take the moral high ground here. If you post something here, give due credit where credit is due. A simple - "Photo by permission of www.billyjoejimbob's_post_card_emporium.com". Or "From my personal photo collection". Now everyone is playing fair, the site is protected and almost everyone will be happy.

I am not even going to go into the Google Unnatural Link Penalties. That is a whole 'nuther can of worms.

[OC Richard]

But it can happen that someone can have an original 19th century photo and claim to be 'the rightful owner' of the image while somebody else (like me) can have in my hands the same original image. A person would go into a studio (in 1870 or whenever) and have more than one print made, so there are multiple 'original' images.

The ultimate absurdity is when someone claims to be 'the rightful owner' of an image which was reproduced thousands of times, on vintage postcards.

[Bareknees1]

the House of Labhran site has a collection of photos entitled "Vintage Highland Gentleman Photo Album". It's on their site under the tab "Highland Wear" at the bottom. I'm sure vintage X Markers are well familiar with this, it's a great place to drool over vintage sporrans, sgians, etc. Happy viewing. (Some day I'll get slick enough to tack the URL on...old dog problems with new tricks)

[HootinHoller]

I hope I didn't come across as trying to tell you what to do. I certainly don't want to be rude in asking some questions or offering some resources.

I completely understand that you must act as you see best for the forum as you understand the law and other contractual obligations. There are many pitfalls and cans of worms to be avoided. I'm coming from more a wouldn't it be nice if we could figure out a way to do this point of view.

I also am very ignorant of Canadian law, but in the US the fairness doctrine is actually codified, as explained here: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

I don't think that a collection would be anywhere near the issue that were involved with Napster, but Napster did change a lot of the contract obligations between service providers and site owners. There's another side of the coin in the Righthaven cases, which were abusing copyright by buying rights and then making claims as a business model. Last I heard is they were soundly spanked by the US courts, but it took a few years and big legal eagles to do it.

Again, I very much appreciate your forum and hope you can tolerate some wishful thinking on my part from time to time.

[Steve Ashton]

Yes, Title 107 of US Code does deal with Fair Use but only in very general terms.

"Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair.

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work"

As X Marks is not a classroom where images are often used as part of a lecture or examples I doubt we could legitimately use the first factor as a defense if a claim of Copyright violation were lodged.

Hoot, I'm not trying to be difficult and I do appreciate your comments and also your offer.
I was simply trying to give our members a little insight into the complexities of this issue.

I don't really like bothering our members with some of the behind the scenes stuff. Most of it is boring and much is trivial. Copyright is a very complex legal issue and the web has thrown some major Sabot into the machinery.
I would like avoid becoming the next legal test case.

[McMurdo]

When I started the Vintage Kilt Thread I never even thought about copyright law. I do however understand and agree with the decision to close the thread. Protecting the forum is of course paramount.

[MacKenzie]

I don't really like bothering our members with some of the behind the scenes stuff. Most of it is boring and much is trivial.

To the contrary, members of forums like this need to see matters like this aired. It serves to enlighten and inform.