Well said

Clear and consicely explained, the way this kind of thing should be, and from somebody who knows what he's talking about, which is ALL too rare!

RAH

I'm just curious if you have

I'm just curious if you have written consent for the use of that locomotive and paint scheme for your profie photo? Since that is a photo of an actual locomotive displaying an actual paint scheme, correct?

While true

There is the reality that Atlas, in this case, is overjoyed that someone is publicizing their product on a forum frequented by thousands of unique visitors monthly.  While you can get pretty hung up in the actual law of copyright, reality states that unless you are bashing a product or making money on someone else's product, the company will be more than happy to take the free publicity.  By the letter of the law, I wouldn't be allowed to post my install of the Tsunami sound decoder in my Kato N scale loco because I'd be showing several of the markings.  As Joe said in the other thread, fair use for educational purposes is a different animal. 

Don't forget fair use.

Don't forget fair use ... when the purpose is to educate or inform and the "content" in question is not the core of the post, then fair use applies. Part of fair use is also if you're selling the information.

MRH isn't selling information - the information is free. We sell the audience to advertisers - that's our product. The information itself is not our product if you want to get technical because that's all free and in the public domain. In fact, our one restriction is you CANNOT sell any of the information on our site in any commercial venue without our permission. The content must remain free.

Since we're talking model railroading-related content and since our audience is what we sell to advertisers, if Atlas did want to get sticky, I would point out they just got "free advertising".

I suspect the minute we point out that our audience is our product and any vendor's content that gets posted on here constitutes free advertising for their wares, I would suspect any complaint around posting logos and such will end right there.

Still, it's a good idea to cite your sources and a common courtesy to provide links back to those sources if the content lifted is of any substance. Certainly, if the web page or the images on the page have copyright notices on them, then don't post them here without permission.

Not model railroady, is it?

My experience with copyright is in the area of publications, not corporate identities, and here are a couple of "fair use" references that were useful when I was active in the business of editing and reviewing:

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-a.html

and straight from the horse's mouth at the U.S. copyright office

As LKandO pointed out, just these few paragraphs have kept many attorneys occupied for hours.  Copyright laws are different -- or effectively non-existent -- in other lands, but of course MRH is a US-based publication and abides by US law.

As a practical aside, in newspaper reviews, there was never an issue accompanying a review with photographs that showed a product, be it a musical play, cookware, book covers, or flex-track. There was never an issue with reproducing official spec sheets or maker-supplied photos and illustrations.

The issue that would almost always generate a letter from corporate counsel was using trademarked names in a generic way, such as Teflon, Jeep or Frisbee, which are all registered trademarks. i.e., if it ain't a Jeep or pukka Frisbee, or it isn't germane to the story, it was better to write "four-wheel vehicle" or "flying disc."

Guilty As Charged

You got me!!! I am a common criminal. I belong in logo jail.

To put everything in context, the recital I posted was for your own FYI. Reality is quite different from the exact letter of the law. The old adage everything is negotiable very much applies to this subject.

I don't get too worried about web posts

I don't get too worried about web posts and I don't think most vendors do either. I think the general concensus is any mention is free advertising and to not worry about it.

Where we do get more concerned is in our magazine, because there the author is selling us content - and if they lifted copywritten content they did not own and we publish it, we have a serious problem. I have a fair use checklist I apply if I think we might have any issues.

For example, an author may want to lift a concept from someone's clinic - in all cases, we ask the author to get permission before we will run with it. Strictly speaking, if the reference is openly made and the amount of content uses is incidental to the core of the article, then fair use will apply - but we prefer not to push it.

As to posts, reviews or "newsy" items are fine, let's not sweat it. It's free promotion, and any vendor with some sense will understand that.

 My first thought here is

My first thought here is that you are overreacting, though I must admit given the way that the US justice system works and the cost of defending a case where you are in the right, over-caution may be the best policy.

I  would see a fundamental difference between a site such as this were content is user-supplied  and the images are not making money directly and a commercial site were the images are what is earning the site it's keep. In a site like this fair-use would come into play and the DMCA would allow any party that felt infringed to ask for content to be taken down. If you are going to start applying the standards of commercial image sites then every person who's (identifiable) face appears in a photo on here is going to have to sign a model release for it to be used.

I'm afraid that these day copyright and IP protection in general has become a Frankenstein's monster that threatens to overwhelm it's creator. Gone are the days when roads would pay a model manufacturer to paint trains in there liveries for publicity purposes, now they want you to buy a licence to use their logos. I seriously believe the US Is starting to suffer economically from the costs of sorting out IP issues as opposed to regimes with a more "relaxed" attitude.

I say this both as a semi-pro photographer and a man who got himself embroiled in a copyright dispute (over a forum , of all things!) 

Tom

copyrights and patents

Frankly, its the lawyers and not the lawmakers who are at fault here. Sure, if you have a copyright or patent you have the right to use and profit those things that you hold the copyright or patent to. But in yodays world lawyers have become part of the route to maximizing profitability and htey wil try to hang everyone out to dry so long as they can get  whatever you own or have right to if they see fit. Adn they don't care whether it is good for their employers or not since many laws are designed to achieve the enrichment of thelegal profession regardless of what it does to the rest of the economy. This plus the fact that most elected officials who are oart of legislative bodies are lawyers doe3sn't improve the smell of the legal profession.

And the model industry hasn't gotten better over the last 20 years because they have been on the receiving end of lawsuits involving logos, designs and paint jobs reproduced on any thing by the model makers such as Revellogram and others. Want to know why so many have gone belly up since 1980? Blame the lawyers for one thing. Want to know why locomotives and railcars have increased in cost far beyond what competition and the increased cost of raw materials because lawyers on the payroll of the railroads and other owner's think they can force the manfacturwers to pay for the right to reproduce anything even a fallen flag.

Irv

Can very much be a gray area

I'm reminded of a case where The Disney Corporation sent a letter of Cease and Desist to a Girl Scout troop some years back because they had an image of Tinkerbell on their troop website.   No joke.

Copyright Issues

  Copyright infringement DONT TAKE IT LIGHTLY IN this day in age it is to be taken very seriosly I know first

   hand having been served papers 3 times and dealing with the courts is no laughing matter and the cost

    defending myself got very costly with attornys this was over things you would never thought a second

     about. SO BE VERY CAREFULL I wont go into details 2 of the cases against me lasted 2 years and lots

    of money If you are wondering I lost two of the infringments and won one after ayear and a half the csaes

    were all over designs and some modeling work.

    ron netti

It goes even further...

when I was a teenager, in my hometown, there was a bar, called  the "Mannix" (yeah, from the series "Mannix") . The bar's windows, from what I recall ( I was 10), had a  "a la" Andy Warhol representation of the lead character, actor, Mike Connors. Well one day, so I was told, believe it or not, the tender received a letter, regarding copyright on both the bar's name and illustration. I am talking mid seventies here. The bar closed shortly afther.

Then there's the story how

Then there's the story how John Allen used a Southern California lumberyard as model for both a structure and  it's signage on his layout.  Apparently he received a visit from an attorney for the lumber yard to talk about trade name infringement after pictures of his layout appeared in MR.

BTW did Walther's get a license from Kibri to copy their wild west series?  What about paying the firm that designed the original Los Angeles Union Station for copying their intellectual property?  The boilerplate in architectural drawings commonly now retains design ownership and licenses only a one time use.

And even though I'm loathe to ever own a circus car, the train sequences in the feature length cartoon Dumbo and the related kiddie books figured significantly in the design of my layout.  I doubt if the Disney lawyers will seek me out about it.

Most of us break copyright law every day

 There was an article I read several years ago by a copyright lawyer entitled "how I broke copyright law 25 times  today" illustrating how often we inadvertently break the letter of the law in our everyday lives.

Every time you forward an e-mail or quote a previous poster in a forum post  you are, strictly speaking, infringing someones copyright, the fact that no one worries about these things (and the fair use exemption) is all that keeps each and every one of out of spending all our lives in the law courts.

People, the original poster included, often lump other forms of intellectual property under copyright, but the laws for trademark protection, design rights and patents differ from that for copyrights. For instance, until very recently buildings had no protection under copyright so to copy them as suggested above would be perfectly legal, in fact copyright gives very little protection to 3-D items (apart from sculptures ) or functional items. Which is why Proto 2000 et. al were able to copy Athearn's power truck design with impunity.

The emphasis on IP rights is something which only seems to have come in in the last 30 years or so. In fact there is an argument that using the term "property" gives them a legitimiscy they do not deserve - see this article.

So my argument is we need to keep things in perspective and not panic too much, we may not be strictly within the law but it's highly unlikly we will ever get in trouble for it.

Protected At Least Back to 1999

You are absolutely correct in that I inadvertly and wrongly grouped several protection rights under the term copyright. I made the post without review of legal counsel.

However, to your point about buildings, our company experienced a rights issue (which we settled for a cash payment, imagine that) for using a photograph of a to-remain-nameless popular museum in our sales literature. One of our employees had taken the photo while on vacation. The case occured in 1999. It was argued the museum name and building likeness was a brand and as such had brand value. Who knew? We sure didn't.

When you swim with the sharks...

<

I wouldn't be that sure about it. The lawyers are expected to earn their keep these days. They are expensive to feed and house and even Disney can't always afford them so don't be surprised if you get a letter whenever the Disney executives start feeling that their lawyers aren't working hard enough.

Frankly, we need to ban lawyers from running for elective office.

Irv

That's the problem of using amateur photographs in business

 The problem there was not copyright but trademark infringement I assume. Here I can gloat somewhat, as a photographer I have photos on several stock photo sites. There are submitted by people who hopefully know what they are doing and are vetted by experienced editors on the site. Yes, it costs you money to use one of these but you should be safe from problems such as you had - and if you do have any problems the site should have indemnity insurance. 

To me greater problem is in the last fifty years or so there seems to have change in the American psyche. Once upon a time companies were grateful for any non-negative exposure their name and logo got - the Santa Fe paid Lionel to paint their F7(3?) in the iconic warbonnet livery for the publicity value.

Somewhere this has all changed, I don't know whether it is the result of lawyers working on contingency fees , the tendency  for the big fish to use it as a hammer to keep the small fish small, the fact that companies these days seem to want to micro-mange people lives or just the fact we have started to call it intellectual "property" - property rights come so naturally to most Americans that it's something easy to defend. If we were to call it a "restriction of public rights" people would look at it differently.

I'm not against copyright per se, it just seems to me that overzealous enforcement of it will make all our lives both more stressful and a less rich experience.

Well I see someone thinks I'm

Well I see someone thinks I'm having fun with the job of Spam Deputy. I do it because it needs to be done!!

Many of you or should I say all of you including myself like MRH magazine and the forums. When I see somebody has placed a commercial copy of a magazine add in their blog or in a post I report it Admin and mention out of curtsy to the member I say it on the forum and don't close it and when its a spam non model railroad add I temporarily close the account and refer it to admin. That's my job and I take it Very Seriously and I do it for free. when someone or anyone breaks the rules posted by MRH I help enforce them and notify admin rather than Just Delete the post and kill the account I leave the punishment to admin because that isn't my job. I'm just the cop and not the judge that's Admins job.

I'm not perfect just protective of MRH and I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings when you break the rules but know this I WILL call anyone and everyone on anything that may harm MRH in any way.

I see all posts because I read every one posted and have since day one'

I look at every post as:  Does this person posting work for the company he's posting about and is he/she trying to sneak in a free add on MRH forums where 20,000 plus people visit weekly, or is he/she just unaware that what he posted may cost The MRH so much in legal fees that POOF no more MRH!! again I'm not trying to be funny.

The comment "Dan's having too much FUN" this pissed me off !!! You all should be looking out for MRH and policing it to keep it here forever or as long as possible. It would not take too much to bankrupt MRH and with one large law suit it could cause MRH to close it doors forever.

Personally I really like this forum and find the Magazine the finest model railroad production around today as it's about to celebrate it's second birthday And even if I don't remain a Deputy here I will still Bring attention to Admin to every infraction of MRH rules that I read and like now leave it up to them to deal with it. so if you don't like me telling you your breaking the rules then Don't break the rules.

Dan

Um, OK................

All I can say to that is decaf, bro!........But at least nobody can say your not 100% dedicated to MRH!

RAH

P.S. - All I can add is please watch your expletives, because while I'm no Saint and can swear like a salior with the best of them, I'm sure there are not only kids, but others here on MRH that don't appreciate it. Using your logic as posted above, we should turn you in!

Policeman Dan

Dan, is this in a thread somewhere else? I didn't see it. My little ribbing of you in this thread OP was meant in fun and not at all derogatory of you. Quite the opposite. From my vantage point you are doing a mighty fine job and I admire how you don't hold back with your comments. Sometimes the truth hurts and you are not afraid to inflict the pain when necessary. The world needs more people strong enough to voice their true opinions.

If it was my post remark that irritated you then please accept my apology. It was not intended that way.

Dan I am sure that everyone

Dan I am sure that everyone appreciates your dedication and the work that you do to keep MRH spam free, as well as your helpful posts on the forums.

Keep in mind though that one of the things that makes MRH a valuable resource, apart from the excellent e-zine itself, is the talented, helpful and knowledgeable user base.  I believe the intention is to grow the magazine and thus the user base, which means that (hopefully) new people will be visiting from time to time.  As a forum regular and 'Spam Deputy' how you present yourself is important to the image of the site, especially to people who may be visiting for the first time.  In this particular case you openly accused someone of plagiarism and as far as I can tell it looks like you were wrong as there is no evidence to back up your claims.  You say that you are "p@#$% off" because someone thought you were having fun.  Imagine how a person who took the time to take photos and write an informative post feels being publicly called out like that?

I think the best course of action for anyone suspecting anyone else of wrongdoing on the forums is to quietly alert an admin and let them take care of it privately.

Nail on the head

Marc has put this very eloquently.

I would strongly enourage his choice of action in these cases, and if you havent' done it already, I would also suggest that an apology to the offended party might be a wise idea, as there is nothing to indicate that the Atlas flextrack thread was improper in any case.

Now, back to some modeling....

No offense taken LKandO as I

No offense taken LKandO as I get it when you and others like Ralph CAR_FLOATER give me a jab now and then But it's a few others that don't care if MRH is here tomorrow or not that upset me. I tend to play Mother Tiger at times when these members that don't think before they put adds up as examples simply because they're too lazy to rewrite about a subject and put it in their own words. I just figure If you can't explain a subject in your own words then don't post it here just post a link to the article. That way you don't put MRH in jeopardy. Dan