Re: Spaceflightnow.com

In article <C45Ie.23943$Kx6.3771@xxxxxxxx>,
Bruce Palmer <BrucePalmer@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>ed kyle wrote:
>> Robert Bonomi wrote:
>>
>>>I'm not prepared to even *speculate* as to whether what they do to the
>>>imagery does, or does not, meet the 'original creative effort' requirements
>>>of the copyright statutes.
>>
>> What they do that is worth something is watch and
>> record and edit video from all of these launches
>> (not just NASA shuttle missions) and package the
>> result. Any of us could do the same, but we would
>> have to spend money to purchase the required
>> hardware/software and spend lots of time, often in
>> the middle of the night, watching and recording
>> during the mind numbing hours that pass when
>> *nothing* is happening prior to launch. We would
>> then have to spend many more hours editing the video
>> down to the useful, interesting moments. If we
>> wanted to offer a competing internet feed service,
>> we would then have to invest mucho bucks in a server
>> farm, etc.
>>
>> We who subscribe to the service pay spaceflightnow
>> for its labor and editing expertise, basically,
>> because we can't spare the time to do what they do,
>> and even if we could we probably wouldn't do it as
>> well.
>
>Everything you have said is 100% true. They perform a valuable service
>that people are willing to pay for. They should be compensated for
>their work.
>
>None of that has anything to do with Copyright law, however. :) If I
>pay someone to clip newspaper articles from around the country for me on
>a given subject, that person cannot claim Copyright on any of the
>materials. There may be (and probably there are) other legal
>protections available to them, but unless some original material is
>added - making them a derivative work - Copyright isn't one of them.


FALSE TO FACT. There is another section of copyright law dealing with
what is called a 'compilation copyright'. A newspaper clipping service
may well hold a valid compilation copyright on the material they send
to their customers. It depends on exactly how they provide the service.

If the only thing they do is cut out the articles, and mail you the pile
of clippings, a compilation copyright does not attach. It is _really_close_
to qualifying for a compilation copyright -- but 'not quite there'. Mostly
because the pile of loose articles is not fixed in any particular order.

If, on the other hand, they paste those articles onto letter-size pages,
including the 'continued on page xx' part on the same page as the 'lead in',
and annotate it with with the newspaper name, and the date it ran -- *that*
work _is_ enough to push things over the line, and a compilation copyright
_does_ accrue.

Note, in the case of a clipping service, that compilation copyright is pretty
much meaningless -- because virtually _any_ use made of that 'work product'
qualifies under the fair use exemption for "scholarly research and analysis".


I know more about this than I care to, because -- once-upon-a-time -- I had
to _get_ a copyright release from a clipping service, along with a whole
sh*tload of newspapers -- because I was planning to use blow-ups of a batch
of clipping service 'pages' as posters decorating a large meeting room.
"Bragging", as it were, about how successful a particular 'product awareness'
campaign had been. A type of use which does _not_ come under any of the
"fair-use" exemptions.

Note: _getting_ the clearance(s) in this case was mostly a non-issue,
Everybody said "sure, as long as our name is on it." With that condition
satisfied, they were, in effect, getting some free advertising,



.