Quote:
Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald
The emphasis was on may. I never claimed to be a lawyer (although I seem to know more about law than one self-professed lawyer here).
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And the emphasis on "may" was in error. Copyright law is civil law. Talk to your own attorney about the difference between civil law and criminal law.
The "self-professed" lawyer is indeed one, but his area of practice is real estate law. The law is highly specialized, and a practitioner in one area may well claim lack of expertise in another. A different set of legal codes will cover it, and a different specialist should be consulted to get proper advice.
Copyright law is property law. The property is intellectual, not physical, but it will have a value, and the value is why copyrights are claimed and why copyright law exists.
What happens if a copyright is violated? The first requirement is that the rights holder be
aware of it. If you hold copyrights, policing them is on you. You can sue if you discover they are bring violated, but you must discover it and bring suit. It does not happen automatically, and will not be done for you.
If you
do sue for violation, the question will be what you can expect. The first thing you want is for the violator to cease and desist. You probably also want monetary damages. What you can get will depend on circumstances. One question is what loss you actually suffered. How much money did you
lose because someone pirated your work? The court will want you to substantiate that. Another question was whether the copyright was registered. The US is a signatory to the Berne convention, and under it, registration is not necessary to
have copyright. That exists when the work is completed. But registration
is useful if you expect to have to sue, as it provides legal proof that copyright existed as of the time the registration was done, and you can sue for punitive damages as well as statutory damages. Whichever route you take, you may discover the defendant is judgment proof, as they have no assets and
can't pay any substantial damages. You'll have to settle for stopping the infringement and destruction of the infringing materials
And filing suit can be an expensive and time consuming business, as there are court costs and legal fees.
An acquaintance is a major comics fan. When a new comic book is issued, high quality scans are posted to the Internet the day the book is released. He's been tracking it, and posted a question to a list we are both on populated by publishing types, including people in the comics industry. He wanted to know who he could talk to to offer his assistance in stopping the piracy. The answer was no one, because the comics publishers
didn't care. The real money in comics these days is licensing the characters for things like movies, TV, and toys. (It's a good bet that Marvel made more money on the licensing for the first Spider Man movie than they made on the entire run of printed comic books since the start of publication.)
The books serve as a development area for new characters that might become valuable, and sell to collectors and those who would rather read an actual book than view the panels on screen, but from the viewpoint of Marvel and DC, stopping the piracy is simply more trouble and expense than it's worth. They can't be bothered. Their rights aren't threatened, and they aren't losing enough on lost sale of the books to justify the time and effort required to stop it.
Copyright law isn't sacred rules where violators risk a lightning bolt from heaven if they break them. For instance, scanning a paper book to produce an electronic copy for your personal use is
technically illegal in the UK. So what? If you're a UK resident, and do that to a paper book you own, the publisher won't know, and if they find out, they are unlikely to
care. You've already bought the paper copy (or somebody did), and they made revenue. They aren't losing anything because you chose to format shift. If you try to
distribute your electronic copy and they discover it, they probably
will care. In that case, they may well suffer potential losses, as people can simply download your version instead of buying one for themselves, and you can assume they will come after you.
Ultimately, it's about money, and whether suit is brought at all and what the results will be will depend upon how much money is involved.
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Dennis