What do you think of the recent CW editorial about copyright infringement on the message boards?

Longacre

Has anyone seen the recent CW editorial about copyright infringement on dealers' websites and on message boards. Usually those editorials are not worth the paper they're printed on. However, this editorial was actually worth at least a cursory read. What do you think about the posting of copyrighted material on message boards? I understand the legal prohibitions against it, but I didn't know if anyone here had other viewpoints. What about copyrighted coin pictures in dealer's inventories? We frequently post pictures of dealers' coins for discussions. Do you think a dealer would sue for copyright infringement when a small army of people are pounding their website to see what other choice coins might be available from that dealer? Does the same hold true for written work?

cladking

The article should be copt and pasted right here.

I think they're making a mistake. It's one thing to protect intellectual property but another to stifle asdvertising of your own product.

fc

i think it comes down to being polite and understanding
that money rules the internet.

for example, we cut and paste an article written by someone
who works for coins-r-us.com.

well that website wants hits. lots of them to generate advertisement
money.

by posting the contents we deprive them of those hits that
would come to them.

it bothers them a lot because they lose money.

my two cents.

in other words, the goal is not to write so as many people
read it as possible, the point of writing it was to make money.

RYK

I once long ago asked Doug Winter if I could post or link articles from his website to the forum, and he gave me free reign to do so. I suspect other dealers probably feel the same way. Publicity is good for business.™

ziggy29

<< <i>i think it comes down to being polite and understanding
that money rules the internet.

for example, we cut and paste an article written by someone
who works for coins-r-us.com.

well that website wants hits. lots of them to generate advertisement
money.

by posting the contents we deprive them of those hits that
would come to them. >>

Sometimes, yes. But on the flip side, it can also make far more people aware of their products and services, people who might otherwise not know of them or go to their site to look into them a bit more.

I'm not justifying copyright infringement, but it's not always clear that doing so hurts their business.

Longacre

<< <i>I once long ago asked Doug Winter if I could post or link articles from his website to the forum, and he gave me free reign to do so. I suspect other dealers probably feel the same way. Publicity is good for business.™ >>




I've never asked him. Will he cut me off cold turkey from the Southern gold rarities?

RYK

I've never asked him. Will he cut me off cold turkey from the Southern gold rarities?

Doubt it, but he will continue to sell you the crap no one else wants.

JK (obviously), most dealers probably do not mind. Before I got trashed by everyone and their mother for posting Legend's reports, not once did Laura ask me to stop posting links to her site or copying the articles to the forum. Even though she ends up getting trashed in a lot of threads, I cannot help but think that her increased exposure here has been good for business. Similarly, dealer Bob Green (parkave) had one monumental flame thread here a few years ago (see "done deal"). Had he not been flamed here, I would not have one of my best and favorite coins. Bad publicity trumps no publicity!

In fact, the only people who I have ever heard complain about "copyrights" were collectors, who did not want to let you use their photographs after you bought the coin from them without their expressed consent. Very amateurish, IMO.

goose3

RYK..

My mom never trashed you!!


back to the original question.....

I thought it was a pathetic article. They don't hesitate to steal information from us at any given opportunity.

CoinHusker

<< <i>
I thought it was a pathetic article. They don't hesitate to steal information from us at any given opportunity. >>




That's true. Samuel did a post about the Keelboat nickel launch a couple years ago and the following week they made mention of his thread (with no credit) in one of their articles.

Also, for clarification, if you cut and paste and give credit to who, what and where, what's the foul?

carl

In Illinois there are approximately 2,000 attorneys a year passing the bar exams. This means that every year there are 2,000 more attorneys looking for work. In just 10 years that adds up to 20,000 attorneys JUST in Illinois. This means that regardless of whether or not anyone knows about copyright infringements or not, one of these attorneys will be out there attempting to convince someone to sue for something.

cladking

<< <i>

<< <i>
I thought it was a pathetic article. They don't hesitate to steal information from us at any given opportunity. >>




That's true. Samuel did a post about the Keelboat nickel launch a couple years ago and the following week they made mention of his thread (with no credit) in one of their articles.

Also, for clarification, if you cut and paste and give credit to who, what and where, what's the foul? >>



It's true that the coin papers borrow heavily from the forums but it's not copyrighted
nor is it taken verbatim. It's also great advertising for the forums.

SanctionII

I read the article and found it interesting. The comments posted here are also interesting.

It is all about money. If someone's intellectual property is being copied and resold without the permission of the owner of the work, that injures the pocketbook of the owner (i.e. pirated songs or movies, where the pirate makes millions that would otherwise go to the owner). That is clearly wrong and no doubt copyright laws were created to offer protection to the owners of such works.

Posting a CoinWorld article on a message board or posting a link to such an article does not provide income to the poster. It also may not deprive CoinWorld of income it would have otherwise received (and even if it did, it would be 99.9% impossible for CoinWorld to prove such a loss). In fact it may just generate additional income to CoinWorld if a person who reads the posted/linked article goes out and subscribes to the rag or starts buying the rag at the local coin shop.

The free publicity to CW from message board posting and linking probably gives more benefit to CW than detriment. Again hard to prove. I also have seen CW articles that mention this message board and CW does not acknowledge the author (not that they have to).

As for me, I can understand CW taking the position that it does since the "print media" (large newspapers) have been seeing dwindling subscriptions and eventually will become an extinct dinosaur, replaced to technology that provides instant electronic news and information on demand 24/7. However, the position it takes does not necessarily mean that it reflects todays' reality of unlimited access to unlimited information, both proprietary and that which is in the public domain.

CaptHenway

<< <i>I once long ago asked Doug Winter if I could post or link articles from his website to the forum, and he gave me free reign to do so. I suspect other dealers probably feel the same way. Publicity is good for business.™ >>



I have always given permission to reprint one of my articles in a club publication when asked. The important thing to do is ask first.
I have had people reprint without permission, and that peeves me no end.
TD

MikeKing

There is a clock/watch forum I sometimes participate in. They will not even allow you to comment on ebay auctions or dealers web sites. Those posts are instantly deleted. They claim they are protecting themselves from law suits. Perhaps something did happen to them, but I'm unaware of it. e.g. You can't show a photo of an item being sold by someone, anywhere, and say "I think this is not authentic..." Not even that is allowed. Interesting.

Here, I posted a link to Heritage trying to demonstrate how a certain coin showed up in a Goldberg auction (linked). I gave it a second thought, so I didn't say (if I remember correctly), what I thought about the coin, and I didn't post the photo. Rather, I posted the link to the website. Maybe I'm getting too paranoid, but if I posted the photo, could they complain that I violated their copyright, even if I said where it was from? If I said I thought the coin was ugly, could they complain that I'm giving unfounded criticism of their coin and hurting their business?

Coxe

I think it is ok to link to another site's page but probably it would be a good idea to get permission before linking in an image from their site. Will heritage or Teletrade sue you for posting an image from their site? Probably not, but the possibility exists. The issue with copyrights isn't limited to damages claimed by the holder nor profit assumed by the infringer. Whether you make a nickel or not from the infringement is not the test. Limited publication of excerpts in a review are permitted. Also copyrights do not need to be registered. There is an impossibly crazy technicality on this as it relates to replying and forwarding personal email. If there is a place I would worry it would be alledgedly unscrupulous eBay sellers. Think twice before linking in their pics or rehosting them from another server. One of these days, ridiculed on the forum or not, one might take on an infringement suit. Another thing to be wary of is uploading icons that are copyrighted images and photographs, like celebrities for instance.

IwantNonCCs

IwantNonCCs

I think many publishers would outlaw public libraries if they could.

For a free country, there sure is a lot of rules

Michigan

<< <i>I think many publishers would outlaw public libraries if they could.

For a free country, there sure is a lot of rules >>




Coin World is just being cranky because they and Numismatic News no longer have a monopoly
on coin related news coverage which in turn makes their publications less useful to their
readers. Who wants to read 1 or 2 week old news when you already read it here or in
other forums?

Welcome to the 21st century Beth Deschler (sp?)

DieVarieties

I just got thru reporting 5 different current auctions to eBay for intellectual property copyright infringement. These sellers were using my photos which were published in my book and for which I have the original photos and the negatives to them. Not one of these sellers I reported to eBay contacted me, but instead, used my photos without my permission or my knowledge so as to help enhance sells of their auctions.

If any of the sellers had contacted me requesting permission to use my photos -- I would have responded to them with permission to do so as long as credit was acknowledged for the photos they wanted to use somewhere in the auction description such as "Photos by or Photos courtesy of." But no -- they steal intellectual property -- and the key words is "steal and "property" that does not belong to them.

So - I can fully relate to the Op-Ed piece in CW.

Coin Finder

I think we are all on thin ice. We all say and do things on these boards that can be printed off on used against us. When we first signed up we had to agree to the terms as stated by CU. I believe we do have some liability when we take copyrighted material and post it without permission in writing form the person or group or those that can legally represent the person or group.

I think we all need to stop the trashing of dealers, individuals and prices, etc., (I include myself in this by the way!) and really watch what we put into print. We live in a litigious society and anyone can sue anyone. It doesn't mean they will win, but it is a pain and costs money.


That said, if we are a watchdog group for fraud, which I believe we are in a way, we need to be careful how we do it.

I am dead serious about this subject

Michigan

<< <i>I think we are all on thin ice. We all say and do things on these boards that can be printed off on used against us. When we first signed up we had to agree to the terms as stated by CU. I believe we do have some liability when we take copyrighted material and post it without permission in writing form the person or group or those that can legally represent the person or group.

I think we all need to stop the trashing of dealers, individuals and prices, etc., (I include myself in this by the way!) and really watch what we put into print. We live in a litigious society and anyone can sue anyone. It doesn't mean they will win, but it is a pain and costs money.


That said, if we are a watchdog group for fraud, which I believe we are in a way, we need to be careful how we do it.

I am dead serious about this subject >>





I have seen something I posted over in rec.collecting.coins show up just about word for word
in a numismatic publication, also part of one of my auction descriptions along with a picture of the item appeared in a research article in the same publication. I knew where they got them both, I just shrugged it off.

tradedollarnut

Could someone please cut and paste the editorial here so we can read it?

Coxe

<< <i>I think we all need to stop the trashing of dealers, individuals and prices, etc., (I include myself in this by the way!) and really watch what we put into print. We live in a litigious society and anyone can sue anyone. It doesn't mean they will win, but it is a pain and costs money. >>



Yeah, just ask the folks who had that little Florida suit filed by a hardly viable competitor of PCGS. It was a shame that they could not and now won't freely criticize the grading quality of a grading service for fear of the expense of a lawsuit.

Certainly, images for avatars/icons and in message threads that are not yours personally or for which you have received explicit and documented permission to use in the manner used should be seriously reconsidered. I am not so sure about links to images or pages. There is probably a case against that too. Probably the only safe thing is to relate an auction and/or lot number and then be very careful about the word choices in criticizing a seller or his merchandise. It seems insane and the bigger houses are not likely (one would think) to take legal action against their best customers -- particularly when they are linking a flattering image of a lot they bought from them. Good practices are probably best applied consistently.

Although the legal staff at Heritage, Teletrade, ... would probably not allow a blanket sign-off on permission, but it might be worth asking for it -- at least for linking to lot pages.

Another thing: are the PCGS TrueView (or whatever they are called) and NGC's PhotoProof [and sue me because I didn't put trademark symbols after them] image rights held 100% by PCGS and NGC, respectively, regardless of the fee you paid to have your coin imaged by them? If so, we really need HRH (or staff) to give the appropriate permission to use those images here. It's a no-brainer that it would be a good idea as it attracts more customers to that service.

BECOKA

I have seen numismatic articles being posted on some dealers websites word for word without any reference to the original article. They are using this as bait to sell their coins. This is very wrong.

What we do here on the forums I think is generally OK as there is no profit involved and in most cases the original location of the pic is either mentioned or linked creating additional traffic to the original site.

I do not feel bad about most of what goes on in these forums. What happens in the forums, stays in the forums.

joeyuk

I can agree with people being ticked by those using their pics in auctions because you are profiting
by the original pic. I also object to cut/paste of entire articles to the forums but I see nothing wrong
with scanning a pic from a book if someone asks what a particular variety looks like. I used to credit
the book till I was warned about copyright laws.

Barry

Yeah, just ask the folks who had that little Florida suit filed by a hardly viable competitor of PCGS. It was a shame that they could not and now won't freely criticize the grading quality of a grading service for fear of the expense of a lawsuit.

I was one of those folks and I still freely criticize where a critique is due (adding in my opinion, of course.)

It's Coin World's right to restrict republication of their material. Do I like it? No. Do I respect Coin World? No. Not because of this, but because of the blind eye they turn towards some of their sleazy full-page advertisers.) However, I still respect that right.

ms70

The internet is basically a free-for-all and anyone who places material within it should have that understanding from the start. With the billions of people on the internet
it's hardly reasonable to expect total respect of other's virtual property. I'm not saying that's the way it should be, I'm just saying that's the way it unfortunately is.

IGWT

I think that it's wrong to pilfer intellectual property. But, it's kind of hard to take CoinWorld's editorial seriously when it promotes CoinWorldOnline with this invitation: "EMAIL AND PRINT - See an article that would interest a friend or relative? Email a copy with one click! Need a paper copy? Print articles or advertisements!"

Outhaul

I have become a customer to many dealers who were mentioned in posts on this site.

Bottom line is if the comments are favorable then they won't say boo. But if they are criticized, then they will pitch a bltch.

swhuck

Heritage's basic policy is that if you credit Heritage for the image and you aren't using it for commercial purposes, it's fine. I approve requests to use our images all the time. I know somewhere that we have a written policy that any use of our images for the purposes of non-profit organizations such as coin clubs is expressly permitted, with credit, of course. Just don't use the images to sell your items on eBay or elsewhere on the web; we don't allow that.

As far as I know, we don't have anything remotely resembling a policy on posting images or links on a site like this one, but there hasn't even been a whisper of any objections, at least in my presence, and that wouldn't be in line with what I know about our philosophy. We like people seeing the images and coming to the website. Indeed, a major reason for the presence of our Permanent Auction Archives is for education within the hobby -- whether prices, varieties, or whatever.

kranky

I'm sympathetic to CW's position of not having their material reposted on websites. It's their property, their copyright, and they can decide how they want to distribute it.

It's disingenuous to say it's free advertising because I have seen here more than once that people who have said they won't subscribe to the paper will ask for an article to be posted. Someone who has been reading these boards for a period of time would likely get the impression that CW isn't worth the money based on the majority of comments made here.

If everything they publish gets posted to the net, they'll be out of business. No one, myself included, subscribes just to read the ads. I don't think a hobby without CW and NN will be better off. If they want the content freely available, let them post it on their own site, and others can link to it. If you can't access the article on their site, then it shouldn't be posted here via scanning or other method.

Now I have to admit I'm being hypocritical here, as I have started threads based on stories I read in CW but it's always a short summary, not all the details.

And I disagree that everything in CW has already been covered somewhere else. Auction results, sure, as that's a frequently discussed topic here and many members tell us the results the same day or the next day. But there have been many good stories I never saw anywhere else before I read them in CW. I read quite a bit of coin info on the net and I don't feel like CW is just a printed copy of stuff I already read.

I would agree that dealers probably benefit, but not necessarily. Posting a photo here without identifying the source won't do them any good.

Whizzard

<< <i>We frequently post pictures of dealers' coins for discussions. >>



Much of this is accurately described as "fair use". I think we have a couple of numismatist attorneys that could explain this more fully.

Coxe

<< <i>

<< <i>We frequently post pictures of dealers' coins for discussions. >>



Much of this is accurately described as "fair use". I think we have a couple of numismatist attorneys that could explain this more fully. >>



I think so too as it generally constitutes a review and only includes what is relevant to the discussion. Anyone can sue anyone though. There are some attorneys around here somewhere.

Oh, and thanks Stewart on stating how Heritage sees it. Most images have a Heritage copyright naturally relating the source.

I checked the NGC PhotoProofs and they do retain full copyright ownership and have all the attendant threatening legal statements on them. One would think for on the order of fifty bucks you might get to own the photos you requested along with the useless general series verbage they waste on half of the product, as if you might confuse the authorship with Dave Bowers or something. Oh well.

BigE

Is it legal to post Trends prices if they are published by Coin World----------BigE