Reply To: Article 11/13 for the EU and future of the site

[blinky465 17028xp 1]

@onlyonepinman – you’re right that it’s all arse-about-face and poorly thought through, but it’s also very unlikely to be the death knell some people are suggesting. To pick up and correct assumptions about what might happen, based on past precendent is not to support the (Article 13) law.

Admittedly, it was about 15 years or more ago, but *in my own experience* of taking photographs (of football grounds) I’m pretty sure that taking photos of miniatures (painted or otherwise) and sharing them on a website wouldn’t be in breach of the copyright of the miniature manufacturer.

I approached football teams for a licence to use their imagery/logo in some football database software I’d written. Many clubs refused most strongly, and some (Man Utd, I’m looking at you) even threatened legal action. So I, and a few friends, over the course of a number of months, attended games featuring each of the 92 teams of the football league and took photos of the players in action – and of the empty football grounds. We used these images – that we had taken, and to which we owned the copyright – in the software (and subsequently on the website) without penalty.

Sure, Arsenal FC were annoyed that I used a photo of Dennis Bergkamp (although we modified the photos to give them a “cartoony” look – hey, it was the early 2000s – it was still clearly him) and that their team colours and team badge were clearly legible. Had I recreated their strip as a graphic/icon (as I originally wanted to) I would have been in breach of copyright, and liable to pay licence fees. But taking photographs of an actual person (or thing) are not the same as recreating an image or likeness of them, or sharing a photo that someone else has taken (and thus breaching copyright).

As it was, we simply presented a footballer – here’s a guy called Dennis Bergkamp, he plays for Arsenal, this is what he looks like – and no copyright/trademarks were infringed.

You may well be right about what happens in future, with Youtube/Facebook failing to create the necessary algorithms; but a site like BoW could easily change to a different video hosting platform that does have the intelligence to filter content – I’d be speculating as much as you are to claim that this is what would happen, and extrapolate this into saying “obviously that means all kinds of content will be banned”.

My own personal experience (albeit a while ago, though I’m not aware that actual copyright laws have changed in the UK) suggests that the threshold for breaching copyright is higher than some might assume (yet, paradoxically, much easier to prove than others – who are happy to share copyrighted material – might think).

Just sharing my experiences in this area, rather than speculating on conspiracies.

It’s interesting to note that Youtube has the technology to identify (and mute) music videos that even contain cover versions of songs and songs that are significantly different (in key/pitch/tempo) to the original – it’s not impossible for them to match videos against “content fingerprints” for identifying content to be blocked, they just currently choose not to implement it.