Topic: ADMIN: Using Copyright Material

[Anne]

Copyright is a difficult area as there are different understandings in different countries. For the purpose of consistency the GMB has adopted the following as its position on using copyright material.

Posting photos or any parts or cropped portions thereof taken without the owner's consent from an eBay listing, any website, another post on the GMB or  elsewhere is not permitted on the board, but you  may link to an eBay listing, any website, but you may link to an eBay listing, any website (that is not your own unauthorised copy of copyrighted material), or another post on the GMB in order to illustrate your post. (Help on how to make easy short links to eBay sales: http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,19556.0.html)

Using scanned images of photos or any parts or cropped portions thereof or text from a book still in copyright is not permitted on the board as this can cause us difficulties with authors (and publishers), many of whom are our members and who expect us to respect their intellectual property rights. Similarly posting large amounts of quoted text is not permitted. A small amount of quoted text is permissible if relevant to the context of your post and is suitably credited with the author's name, publication name, and if possible the ISBN number and date of publication.

If you seek and are granted permission to use a quote, an image, or a scan from an in-copyright publication please do say it's with consent, and always include the owner's name or the name of the publication and the author's name so others can check the reference if they wish to do so.

Material in posts which appears to breach the copyright of someone else will be removed without notice.

If you're not sure if an image is permissible please do feel free to ask for advice before you post it.

[Anne]

UK Copyright Position

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows copyright information to be reused without the user obtaining formal consent from the copyright holder for:
- Research for non-commercial purposes;
- Private study;
If the applicant wants to reuse the information for other purposes, for example commercial purposes, she/he needs permission from the copyright holder and should be advised to contact the holder direct.

In terms of copying images to your computer, for your own reference or study only, the Act allows this for those within the UK. Other areas of the world may have different rules.

What the UK legislation doesn't allow, is for you to then share those images on, for example, the board or another website, or use them for any commercial purpose, unless you have the consent of the copyright holder.

Although we may discuss items on the board for own own interest, the fact that we are a public forum means that any information is available for people to use commercially: in eBay listings, their online shops or at glass fairs.

Summing up:
What we do here on the board is public and can be used commercially, hence the legislation exemption doesn't cover what we do.
If you save an image to your own computer for your own reference and study you are covered by the legislation exemption.

Note:
Although images will be covered by the Act, and the description provided with them is copyright in its format and presentation, facts themselves are not subject to copyright. This means that you may not re-use an image and its description or part of it, but you can extract from the description the facts, e.g. maker's name & location, model no or pattern name, production date, and designer's name.