[Clipart] clipart Digest, Vol 74, Issue 35

[chovynz]

Thanks for your thoughts Duncan.

Having a "Non-defamatory" or other notice about how you can use the public
domain clipart, immediatly makes it "not public domain" as far as my
understanding of Public Domain goes. The great thing about public domain is
that there is no restrictions. You don't have to attribute (it's a good idea
to do so, but you don't have to), you can use it to make money from, and you
can defame (if you want to - it might not be such a good idea, but you can
still do it), and you can use it for "illegal" purposes too.

Until Jon and Whoeover Is Responsible changes their mind on PD policy, we
are stuck with Public Domain - and all it's legal quandries.

As a Librarian for OCAL, I see OCAL as both the supplier, and the user.
Someone uploads a clipart, it is their responsibility to upload
non-infringing clipart. OCAL trusts them to use that responsibility. But if
they upload with no attribution, then who can say what is infringing or not?
If it's a highly public image, it's fairly easy to tell if it's legitimate;
however if it is a low-visibility image then it may be awhile before it is
recognised as NOT being in the public domain. Meanwhile 600+ users might
have downloaded that NOT PD image and used it in all sorts of publications
and sites, unknowingly breaching copyright. At the point of download, OCAL
becomes the supplier, not when the clipart is recognised in it's legal
status. Of course, the end user is responsible at the end of the day for
checking, but they did get it from a site that claims to have "the actual
content is PD".

How do we place the onus back (more than we are already) on the user when
there are no restrictions on legitimate public domain clipart? The PD
licence <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/> is there for all
to read. The file guidelines are there when they upload.

What do we do about countries that don't recognise Public Domain? I do get
your point, but it's not as simple as putting a "defame" notice up.



On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 12:38 PM, Duncan Cowan <brendon.cowan at bigpond.com>wrote:

> It would appear to me that a simple solution might be to place an agreement
> on
> the site (every page) stating like; uploading or downloading any artwork
> (to / from OCAL)
> you the user hereby agree to the following terms. The artwork must not
> infringe upon,
> contain, be used in nor be of a defamatory or otherwise unlawful nature.
>
> I'm  not legalinastical but I'm sure that you can garner my point. Place
> the onus back
> on the user and the supplier. From memory it's fairly standard practice, or
> was.
>
> PS Please accept my appologies if this is sent to the wrong address.
>
> DJ Cowan
>
> On 20/05/2010, at 10:12 AM, clipart-request at lists.freedesktop.org wrote:
>
>  I'm not worried about OCAL getting sued, im more : "need input". Instead
>> of
>> having arguments on here about what is what and where
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> clipart at lists.freedesktop.org
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/clipart
>



-- 
Cheers
Chovynz
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