I think that we need to understand some of the basics of Copyright law before we can figure out how many people are needed to decide those issues and what our policies should be. It would better for Veronica Johnson to clarify things from a truly legal standpoint, but I have had some extensive experience in the copyright. My comments may not be legally tight but the following apply: There is a "Fair Use" clause in copyright law. Fair use is defined in Section 107. The section contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html It is always advisable for someone to obtain permission from the copyright owner. Columbia University has an checklist for determining whether a use of copyrighted material falls under fair use. I have attached it here for reference (such usage falling under the fair use umbrella). If we can distinguish that a usage falls under the umbrella, then permission may be more easily granted by a smaller group of individuals than a long discussion by the Board. However, use of AIS materials for commercial use opens a whole new bag of issues such as "Do we want the AIS name associated with XXXYYY". Perhaps we might want to just disallow any commercial use of our material. Also the link below provides an interesting summary of copyright law and fair use specifically relevant to online images. http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/copyright-fair-use-and-how-it-works-for-online-images/ Thanks John __________________ John and Joanne Jones Registrar-Recorders, American Iris Society aisregistrar@irises.org John Jones, Chairman, Electronic Services Committee aiselectronicsvcs@irises.org 35572 Linda Drive Fremont, CA 94536
Attachment:
Columbia University Fair Use Checklist.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document
On May 30, 2013, at 9:53 AM, MORRISJE1@aol.com wrote: > All, > > The American Iris Society has much information and data that is > copyrighted. We have recently sent a "cease and desist" letter from our > Legal > Counsel to Longfield Gardens, LLC, Lakewood, NJ for unauthorized use of AIS > copyrighted material with iris sales packages at a COSTCO in California. > > In addition, various members of AIS have received requests to use and > reproduce AIS copyrighted materials. My questions to the Board are: Who > should be designated to give approval to use our materials? Should we have > an > internal approval process or not? I don't believe just "anyone" or everyone > should have such authority. Should the approval point be the President > and Legal Counsel or the Public Relations Chairman? Most of you know that I > already have plenty on my plate. As an example I just received a request > from Missouri Botanical Garden where Jean and I volunteer as follows: > > Jim, > I plan on uploading the iris images I have taken into the gardenbs (MOBOT) > database which will be accessible to the public. Each taxon has a field > to describe the plant. I want to propose to plant records that we put the > iris registry information in that field. First I would need permission to > use the AIS copyrighted information from someone within the organization. > Who should I contact? > Gary > Your opinions and quick feedback would be appreciated. > > Jim Morris > President > American Iris Society > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To sign-off this list, send email to the AIS Secretary > <aissecretary@irises.org> > The archives for AISDiscuss are at: > http://www.aisboard.org/lists/aisdiscuss/ >