Ostriig on 27/4/2008 at 01:15
Quote Posted by Zillameth
[...]
Of course, that's the continental European standpoint, whereas Eidos is based in England. British/American law and general copyright culture is kind of insane, which is why I expect a cease&desist order by June.
Interesting points. A matter of curiosity, though - starting from what you posted above, if Blurb were not based in the US*, but somewhere in continental Europe, could Eidos do anything to have the product taken down?
*Had no idea where the company was, so dug a bit around their site:
Quote Posted by Blurb EULA
11.2 Governing Law, Venue and Arbitration. This Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of California without giving effect to any conflict of laws principles that may provide the application of the law of another jurisdiction.
Dominus - frumos, arata foarte bine cartulia! :)
Zillameth on 27/4/2008 at 02:45
Quote Posted by Ostriig
Interesting points. A matter of curiosity, though - starting from what you posted above, if Blurb were not based in the US*, but somewhere in continental Europe, could Eidos do anything to have the product taken down?
First of all, I'm not a lawyer, just an engineer who took a few classes on copyright a few years ago, so take whatever I'm saying with a grain of salt. I'm not sure if Blurb's location is relevant at all, because I've never heard of a case where copyright was infringed and a printing shop was targeted. It's usually a matter between the entity that published the piece in question and the entity that feels offended. There are many professional publishers who don't have their own printing facilities, so I don't think this is a special case. The part of EULA you quote is probably relevant in cases when there is conflict between Blurb and a customer. For instance, when someone orders something and doesn't pay.
On the other hand, this could make for an interesting case, because, for example, which country was this book published in? In Romania, because that's where the publisher is based? In the US, because that's where the printing shop is? Or maybe in Romania after all, because that's where the book was delivered? And how much of a real "publication" is it, anyway? It probably doesn't even have an ISBN number, and each copy is being made on demand for a specific customer. One might try to claim this book is well within "fair use", because each copy is being made "just for myself". One could argue that this isn't a publication at all (although that would probably require every person to create their own source file).
Anyway, it would be best to ask a real lawyer. I only made a remark earlier, because American copyright culture, which is very restrictive, is often taken for granted as a worldwide standard. This is simply not the case. I feel this becomes especially important when people start to use such words as "uncool" in a situation where no actual harm has been done to anyone. On the contrary, a few fans get an opportunity for increased happiness, a few anonymous artists' work gets a chance for some appreciation (and preservation), and on top of that, a few job opportunities have been created.
pavlovscat on 27/4/2008 at 04:01
I spent 5 years working at Kinko's. Believe me, people will go after the copy shop in a copyright infringement lawsuit. Think about it. Kinko's has lots more money than Joe C. Infringer, and those things are typically settled out of court. While I worked there (1994-1999), Kinko's was very careful about copyright. We were expected to refuse to copy anything questionable. Now, if you did it yourself at the self-service copy machines we could look the other way because we were not responsible for what the customers printed.
In this case, though, the images are readily available in public domain, so I doubt there would be any problem unless Dominus was selling copies for profit.
BTW, Dominus, the book looks great. I think I'll get one. Thanks!
Zillameth on 27/4/2008 at 04:21
Ah, yes, I forgot to take that particular cultural difference into account. Sorry.
Our local law gives an exact figure for the amount of money you can sue over. In case someone infringes your copyright on purpose, it's three times the "appropriate compensation". In other words, three times the market value (the judge may also order a penalty, paid to the state, and an imprisonment, if a case is extreme). It's fair, it covers losses, it's painful but only harmful to large scale pirates, and it doesn't fill lawyers' heads with stupid ideas.
Dominus on 27/4/2008 at 08:08
I don't know what to say, maybe you guys are right :erg:
I just used free pics from the internet to make a book without any profit but they can harm Blurb and I think better safe than sorry, I'll remove the link to purchase the book.
I saw some of you already bought it, enjoy it! There will be only six copies now, including mine.
Wille on 27/4/2008 at 08:15
Six copies only, damn I wanted one too :(. I guess these could get fetch a nice price on ebay in few decades :p.
Ostriig on 27/4/2008 at 14:59
This sort of reminds me of the whole no-CD cracks affair. It's not really clear what's going on.
Back on the subject of this book, though, how about putting the .pdf up for grabs off the net? Like on Filefront or something. Would that still be an infringement of copyright, gathering a bunch of freely available images from the internet and making a single package of them, also freely available on the net?
Gambit on 27/4/2008 at 15:21
No infringement...
I consider pdf fan e-books the same thing as fan-missions, free and for all.
xxcoy on 27/4/2008 at 17:02
If you just make it an e-book people can download on the circle or somewhere else (and get it printed by themselves then) you might avoid the problem above.
I could host it either.
Digital Nightfall on 27/4/2008 at 17:20
I would be very happy to host a pdf. It doesn't make any sense why not, as we already have all of the artwork for download one by one.
