***WARNING*** wrecked exotics.com

I occasionally look at wrecked exotics.com & it came to my attention that another F Chat member's 355 fire photos posted on that site. What really hacked me off was the copyright that was placed on the photo for there own personal use. I contacted the car owner to let him know what’s going on & of course wrecked extocs.com never had permission to post those photos. This is completely tasteless by any means & is an act of theft due to the fact they resale a CD library for there own personal profit. For anyone posting photos here from now on, it would be a wise idea to place a copyright on your photographs.

EXAMPLE:
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Unfortunately, due to currently copyright law, people are allowed to copyright databases, and more importantly the data inside and how its structured. So in theory one who has a database of pictures, depending how its structured, they can possibly own all the content that makes it up. I'm sure a big bad lawyer can bring order to it all this though.

 

There's a difference between legitimate restructing of copyrighted work such that it becomes a new form of expression, on the one hand, and simply categorizing someone else's photos by make and model on the other.

 

Well that's my car, and the photos were taken by fellow FChat member JRS who helped me at the scene of the incident.

They obviously obtained them when I posted them on here, and have certainly not had the permission of either JRS or myself to copy them

Whats the deal here:

a) can I ask them to remove the pictures?
b) How can they copyright them when they do not belong to them?
c) how do you go about copyrighting photos like this that are posted on the net?

Thanks
Eric

 

Wanted to add that they can't even get their information right - the cause was not fuel line related.

 

1. Yes.
2. They can't.
3. A valid copyright exists as soon as the work is created. You do not have to register the work to have the copyright.

 

Many thanks, will be contacting them to ask for removal.

 

i think by taking YOUR pictures and posting them you have some power, but if they took their own pictures and posted them they would not have to take them down.

 

ZJPJ is correct and the copyright holder has a viable action against the unauthorized user (at minimum) in tort for what is referred to as "commercial appropriation".

This is an action to recover damages for one who uses another's name, likeness, works, etc for commercial that person's personal gain.

For instance, a woman named A. Hitchcock who writes books could not use the classic Alfred Hitchcock profile to promote her books!

 

You can demand that they be removed, but keep in mind that most folks treat text and images posted to the Net by or with authority of their authors as being subject to an implied license to download and repost them. Obviously, if you didn't authorize the initial public display of a photographic work on the 'Net, you have even more cause to complain.
Z is right about registration not being a prerequisite to copyright in the United States (or anywhere else for that matter), but the absence of a copyright notice (the "c" in a circle that is shown on copies, along with the author's or copyright owner's name, and the year of first authorized publication) can allow for a defense of "innocent infringement" which may mitigate or eliminate the possibility of a monetary award as part of relief. (Copyright infringement is generally a strict liability tort, and intent is not an element of the claim, but, in some instances, like the absence of the "c" notice, it can set the stage for an "innocence" defense to monetary
damages. Injunctions are available against infringers, whether or not "innocent").

The fact that Wrecked Exotics is falsely placing a notice in their own name on photos they did not author, or in which they did not acquire copyright ownership, constitutes a false notice- until recently, some case law supported a claim under the Lanham Act for this as a type of false representation,ie, by wrongly sticking "c" notice on a work which was not that party's to claim, it was deemed to have made a false representation. But that case law was essentially eviscerated a few years ago by the Supreme Court in a case called Dastar, involving allegedly false claims to production credit over a video documentary about WWII.
NB In response to G Calo's comment about commercial appropriation, he is referring specifically to a right of publicity claim, and more generally to unfair competition. The right of publicity claim has been asserted in the past over the identifiable attributes of a racing car associated with driver Mosenbacher (sp?), and against a robot clone lookalike of Vanna White, but typically, it involves personal attributes, not objects. Nonetheless, to the extent you could assert such a claim, or a broader claim of unfair competition, i'm afraid it would be preempted by the copyright law- no state law may be used to take the place of what amounts to a copyright claim- and indeed, the Dastar case mentioned above is just the latest in a series of cases holding that no other federal law may be used as a substitute for a copyright claim either. I don't hold out much hope for such a non-copyright claim in view of this.

Getting back to copyright for a moment, if it could be shown that there is a pattern of this abuse involving a number of different author/copyright owners, I suspect that a court could easily get around any "innocence" defense, and sock these guys with a real meaningful damages award.
The only other ways to avoid the problem in the first instance are to use a technology that prevents the easy copying of images or text- although that's easy enough to get around, or to encrypt the content in a way that only enables authorized users to access it by a password, after agreeing, in a click license, not to copy and repost. A violation of those barriers would give rise to a claim under recently enacted anti-circumvention laws- the same laws that were involved in a major case against a group of hackers responsible for proliferating an executable that enabled unauthorized access to encrypted DVD movies, and would also give rise to contract violations, in addition to copyright infringement- which, in those circumstances, could easily be proven to be wilful, if such barriers were trespassed, leading to more significant monetary damages. So, next question....

 

That would appear to comprehensively cover it

 

I learned more by reading Bills response then I did in 5 years of college

 

The fact that it says: "Copywrite WreckedExotics and their respective owners" maybe gets them around the laws some how. I think that if it bothers you that much ask them to remove the photos and see what they say. Let us know how it turns out?

 

How so? If I ripped the spine off a book, ran it through a photocopier, and sold it with a "Copyright zjpj" on the front, that wouldn't get me around any laws at all.

 

Z- I think it's more like you rip the spine, photocopy it and say "CR Z and the original publisher and author." It's a pretty lame defense, i agree, but given the possible implied license argument coupled with some arguable attribution to the actual copyright owner- generically, i realize- they are blunting the edge. Granted, they have no right to claim copyright in any individual photos in such circumstances, but i'll bet they'd argue their claim is for the "compilation" even though a notice as described by SurfCity in this context is misplaced, and should not even appear on the individual photos.

 

Thank you Whart for your insight on ths subject.

 

Wrecked Exotics have removed the pictures... pretty rapidly it has to be said! Here is their mail to me:

Hello Eric,

*****
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We apologize for the
unauthorized display of the images. It is never our intention to
display photos that have not been approved by the copyright holder. We
make this clear in our submission policy.

The photos have been removed. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have
caused.

Best regards,

Gregg
WreckedExotics.com
*****

Seems fair enough to me, thanks to William for bringing it to my attention, and to the advice received from everyone on this thread