[Clipart] Karen's Whimsey

[chovynz]

Yes this has come up before on the list, but not to the extent that
I'm opening it up (or not that I'm aware of). The reasons I brought it
up again was, 1) I was considering grabbing some clipart from there to
put on our website, 2) I'm unaware of OCAL's policy in regards to this
type of "conbobulation", and as a member of OCAL, I want to avoid
bringing their reputation into question, 3)It's getting into heavy
copyright legalise. So, If I need to avoid Karen's Whimsey, in order
to provide actual, free, no strings
attached-without-any-possibilty-of-"legal-eyes"-against-OCAL,
-or-upset-ness with-a "colleague-PD-website", I will.

Or if OCAL is fine with "taking" clipart from a colleague PD website,
without regards to her feelings/supposed legality about it then I'm
also ok with that.

The difficult thing here that we will need to do our own work anyway.
If we say "Yes you can use KW's Clipart", from having had a look at
KW, we'll need to download her supplied scans, convert them to svg
(which in some cases will mean hand drawn), convert a second time to
png, upload both to OCAL. In that sense we wont be mining at all and
would be subitting our own work, NOT the work that Karen has already
done. So to my mind, before we can "take" anything from her site, this
is why it needs clearing up.

What is OCAL's policy with taking KW's clipart (which she scanned from
PD images), as a base, to make our own svg (which would also be PD)?



On 3/24/09, Schrijver <eric at authoritism.net> wrote:
> I noticed this too, a while ago.
>
> I think it’s a bit silly that people impose these sort of restrictions
> with quasi-legalities
> While they could just state something like, I took a lot of effort,
> please consider a donation if you use them commercially, or something.
>
> With regards to the restrictions, they do hold legally, but only when
> you find the files on her site.
> Then she indeed still is the owner.
> But since they are faithful reproductions of work which in itself is
> out of copyright, she can assert no other rights than owning them.
>
> So theoretically she could do whatever she wants to limit people’s
> access to the files, even charge them.
> But because the files are digital, at the moment they are transferred
> to another computer, Karen does not own them any more— the new owner
> can do whatever he likes with them. Like uploading it to wikipedia,
> OCAL, whatever.
>
> I don’t know how this is in the US, but in the EU she would still have
> her database rights however, meaning that you can’t just go and clone
> the collection.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right
> I personally think that is a pretty smart legal tool: it promotes the
> flow of information while preventing the data harvesting institutions
> fear to happen.
>
> These thinks work exactly the same, legally, with musea, libraries
> etc., and anyone providing access to public domain materials.
>
> Not a lot of people know about the implications of copyright law here,
> because it is in the interest of for example cultural institutions to
> make people believe that they are in somehow paying the authors by
> paying money to the institutions. But paying for o.o.c. pictures has
> nothing to do with royalties, only with ownership.
>
> In Holland this even goes so far as that instutitions say (c)
> Copyright ThisThat Museum,
> while they in fact have no copyright at all.
> But they can do that because the English word copyright is not a legal
> term in Dutch (that is: ‘Auteursrecht’, right of the author)
>
> I wish I could link to the stuff I have been reading about this, but
> it is all in Dutch.
>
> Have discussions about this already come up on this mailing list?
>
> Eric
>
> Op 24 mrt 2009, om 09:46 heeft Greg Bulmash het volgende geschreven:
>
>> If I understand it correctly, she's saying that she owns the scans she
>> made and that you have to respect her ownership of the scans, not the
>> art.  If you want to redistribute the art, you have to hunt down the
>> sources yourself and do your own scans.
>>
>> If I'm not misinformed, she's within her legal rights to impose that
>> restriction and it's not incompatible with PD because it relates to
>> the
>> scans themselves, not the PD artworks.
>>
>> - Greg
>>
>>
>> Nicu Buculei wrote:
>>> chovynz wrote:
>>>> I'd like some thoughts and advice on grabbing some clipart from her
>>>> site. Is it one we should avoid? Or is it worthwhile grabbing those
>>>> public domain things from her site? Do we want to ask permission for
>>>> some of them? I know we don't need to, but is it ethical to ask? I
>>>> don't
>>>> know about this one, as it's not clear who would be "in the
>>>> right". Do
>>>> we for simplicity's sake just leave her alone? Or do we risk
>>>> getting a
>>>> name of "thieves" by taking things, that she legally has no hold
>>>> over
>>>> anyway.
>>>
>>> How about exchanging a few emails with her to make sure she has a
>>> correct understanding of PD? She may remove those claims about
>>> restrictions or she may change the license.
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> clipart mailing list
>> clipart at lists.freedesktop.org
>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/clipart
>
> _______________________________________________
> clipart mailing list
> clipart at lists.freedesktop.org
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/clipart
>


-- 
Cheers
Chovynz