[Clipart] Copyrighted cliparts

[J. Alves]

These lawyer things can be crazy, Oleg,  no matter how absurd they
might seem to normal people like us.

An example I remember from a few years ago. This young guy in his
teens was publishing software, and his name is Michael Rowe. So he
registered the domain www.mikerowesoft.com

Now, guess what? Microsoft sued him or something, because mikerowesoft
sounds the same as microsoft. They reached a settlement of some type,
but the point is: yes, it is absurd, but the less likely to happen,
the better.

I found a couple of URLs about that example case:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/19/microsoft_lawyers_threaten_mike_rowe/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/26/mike_rowe_goes_soft_hands/

There's much more of that around, if one looks.

Now, what someone else said in an email earlier might be the best
solution. A disclaimer exempting the site from responsibility. You
know, like "while we do our best to eliminate trademarked/copyrighted
images from OCAL, the uploader is liable for any infringement, etc."
or something like that that satisfies American law (since that's where
the site is located). Of course a lawyer has to be consulted about
this to make sure it's done right.

J

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 12:33 PM, Oleg Koptev <koptev.oleg at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2010/6/1 J. Alves <alvesjmp at gmail.com>
>>
>> > but only for printed
>> > goods such as bumper stickers, posters and stuff like this...also only
>> > if
>> > used commercially. Shouldn't be a problem on a clipart.
>>
>> Well, I suspect it could be a problem, because OCAL stuff is public
>> domain -- which means users are allowed to do *anything* with it,
>> including printed goods and commercial use.
>>
>> The question to me is if "Just do it!" would really be a problem. If a
>> commercial entity used this clipart, it is quite possible that they'd
>> be hearing from Nike's legal dept. Regular folks using this for
>> personal stuff probably are too low profile to even be noticed.
>>
>> J
>>
>
> But what 'anything' could I do with that poster? Printing it and sell? okay,
> and where is infringement for NIKE? c'mon, don't go to absurd.
>



-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
João Marcelo Pereira Alves (J) - Genomics, Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution
Dept. Microbiology & Immunology - MCV/VCU - Richmond, VA, USA
f. 1-804-828-3897 / 804-852-1234 - http://bioinfo.lpb.mic.vcu.edu