I don't know how big you need them, but AdultDVDEmpire has fairly large and unwatermarked covers on their site.

Saki

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Saki is correct about the reasons for our watermarks. It takes a great deal of effort to produce high quailty scans and we learned that other sites (competitors) were stealing our images. Even after we asked them to stop, the copying continued. In many cases, our images weren't being copied but sites were linking DIRECTLY to the URL of our images. A dealer on Ebay was linking directly to over 100 of our images. At one point 1000's of extra hits were being generated on our web server becasue of this problem. In effect we were providing FREE bandwidth to our competitors.

Finally, we made a decision that if others were going to use our images without permission we might as well put our name on them. Once we started using watermarks the problem diminished but even today we sometimes run across our images on other stores.

We've tried to make our watermarks as unobtrusive as possible and I hope you understand the reason for our policy.

Ken Graham
Five Star DVD

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Did the watermark stop the crooks? Don

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Prometheus - there's a legal reason to adding a visible watermark to cover images. Scanned covers may be considered protected works under copyright law. Copyright law recognizes 'derivative works'. It's hard to make a case for a derivative work if the image is simply a resized scan. Add a visible watermark and you've got a foot to stand on when making a claim for damages under copyright law.

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The fact that someone adds a watermark to stolen images would not turn it into a derivative work. In fact, it would be rather ironic to assert that in court because a watermark is usually added to an image to identify it as an original and discourage theft in the first place!

Snowman

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I believe that you are referring to invisible watermarking techniues. Most invisible watermarking techniques can be defeated with minor effort and are hardly a deterrent. Visible watermarks are obvious. They clearly indicate the source of the image.

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The issue would not turn on whether the watermark was invisible or not.

The copyright owner generally holds an *exclusive* right to prepare derivative works based on the copyrighted work. (17 U.S.C. 106)

It is not a defense to an infringment action to say that "I took this copyrighted box cover and added a visible watermark. Now it is a derivative image and the original owner of the work is out of luck."

If it was permitted, you and I could take a movie like Star Wars, tack an extra credit at the end of it with our names on it call it our own. Or why not take the latest Stephen King bestseller, add a page on the end that says "Snowman Press" and call it my own?

Perhaps you misunderstood what that attorney was talking about.

Snowman

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I'd be curious to know if the scanned image (which was supposedly done with permission of the copyright holder) would be enough to get a website to take it down since the actual scanning adds value to the original image-time/energy to scan it, webspace to hold it, etc.

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Originally posted by Snowman:

The watermark simply provides an easy means of identifying theft to later state "You stole this image from me". I am not saying a watermark entitles the creator of a derivative work to resell or distribute it in any way, for profit or otherwise.

HoustonDon - it does provide protection. Most sites do respond and take the images down. (At least I did.) All of my knowledge in this discussion comes from experience. When Steph and I started Divadee we had two lazy employees in charge of data entry and scanning. Instead of taking the time to scan all of the cover images, resize them into large and small, front and back, and save them to the appropriate place on the network, they decided to take the 'easy' route and steal some of the images from DVD Empire's site. I didn't find out about this until I received a friendly note from Jeff Rix (owner of DVD Empire) asking that I remove his copyrighted images or face a potential lawsuit. (Our employees denied stealing images. I eventually caught them in their lie. When confronted they said "we didn't want to tell you the truth because we thought we would get fired." I should have fired them then.) I consulted our attorney at SMRH and he explained that Empire had legal grounds to file suit under copyright law. There were already cases tried on very similar issues as of 4-99. It would be a slam-dunk win for Empire and a lot of unecessary legal expenses.

I went out and bought 6 USB flatbed scanners and the theives had the priveledge of working around the clock rescanning every title we sold. We had to rescan everything because they couldn't remember which covers they scanned and which ones they stole.

Edited by - Drew Black on Jan 24 2001

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I am asserting that DVDEmpire has *no* copyright interest in the scanned images to assert. DVDEmpire - even if they had express permission to display and copy the images for every single disc which they show (which seems unlikely)--cannot stand up and assert a copyright infringment action on behalf of Elegant Angel or VCA.

You and the attorney that you consulted with seem to be suggesting that scanning the box cover and adding the watermark creates some sort of "new" work - and as a result it is something protected under copyright law. That is the only way I can see DVDEmpire or any other retailer who scan images having the right to sue for copyright infringment. I totally disagree with this for the reasons noted in my previous post.

If DVDEmpire has no copyright interest in a scanned image --namely because they didn't own the rights in the first place, they cannot sue this site or any other site who snags their scans. Now, if the producer of the tape (Elegant Angel or VCA) for some reason wanted to sue, there would be entitled to, however I think it is a weak case under Fair Use (especially for a review site).

I'd be interested in seeing this "slam dunk" case law on topic. :-)

Snowman

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Think about it like this. It sure would be a lot of work to buy the latest Stephen King novel at Borders and then type in the manuscript with a your word processor. It might take 1000's of hours even. If you then took your Word version of the book and posted that gigantic binary file on your web site (hogging up all that web space), do you think you would be entitled to copyright protection? If I visited your web site and then snagged all the fruits of your laborious effort with one mouse click -- and then posted it on my own web site, do you think you could sue me?

I don't think so. I think STEPHEN KING would be able to sue us both.

Copyright protects an original "work", i.e. the original, creative ideas of the authors -- but it doesn't try to protect the labor or expenses involved with publishing that work.

Snowman

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There is a big difference between the contents of a product (book or movie) and the cover.

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If that's the case, then the burden would shift from the copyright holder, to the producer of such scans, I'd think.

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Snowman

Edited by - snowman872 on Jan 24 2001

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I am hestitant to say that someone who adds a watermark could later assert themselves as a copyright owner to something in the public domain. If they did, it would be what is called "thin copyright protection", meaning that another slight alteration could defeat it. Perhaps someone adding their own watermark on top of it. Or removing the watermark, or adding their own border.

However, if substantial changes were made to something in the public domain, then maybe so. For instance, if someone took a photo of Ginger Lynn from a public domain box cover and then used Photoshop to make a creative variation of it using filters, that would probably be an enough of an "original work" to have copyright protection.

Here's another example. Documents produced by the government do not have a copyright. Imagine if I download Ken Starr's report about President Clinton and add my own title page to it. I seriously doubt a court will afford someone much copy protection, if any, to that. There's really nothing there of substance that goes beyond the original work. If I wrote a detailed long critical review of the report, and included it, then I think it probably be afforded copyright protection.

Keep in mind, this only works because the item was already freely available in the public domain. In my view, this does not apply to the boxcover scans because the adult production companies have not given up their exclusive rights. Simply because something is floating around out there on the Internet does not mean it public domain. Also, a work does not need to be registered with the copyright office or even have the copyright mark to be protected. It's better for authors to register their mark and put people on notice, but it is not a requirement.

Snowman

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Scanning is a an infringment on someone's copyright. It infringes on the exclusive right to makes copies of their work.

Snowman

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What if you then scanned a pic of Monica Lewinsky, used Photoshop to paste Clinton into it, superimposed a scan of a Corona cigar, then used this for the cover?

Man, it's no wonder lawyers are constantly working in these muddy waters!

Sorry, just trying to inject a little humor (very little!)

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A site linking directly to another site's images without their permission is taking advantage of that site's resources without compensating them for the cost of said resources (i.e. bandwidth, server load).

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When films - regular Hollywood films - are released, typically theatres and newspapers are sent what are called "ad slicks" - basically the movie poster art but with critic raves on them, in several different sizes. They're used for newspapers and for theatre fliers, etc. Many distributors are now switching to making these ad slicks available via the web, via ftp.

The point is, stores shouldn't have to scan these covers in themselves. It is a responsbility the distributors should take on - if they want their videos to sell, they need to send out the needed publicity materials.

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A legitimate company could set themselves up to do the same for the adult online stores. But I suppose the mob wouldn't let a regular person do that, they'd want the business for themselves.

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many mainstream stores use databases like muse - which charge a per transaction fee and supply data like cover, title, synopsis, features, etc.

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