+- BAJR Federation Archaeology (http://www.bajrfed.co.uk)
+-- Forum: BAJR Federation Forums (http://www.bajrfed.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?fid=3)
+--- Forum: The Site Hut (http://www.bajrfed.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?fid=7)
+--- Thread: Copyright, Diggers and archaeology (/showthread.php?tid=3879)
Copyright, Diggers and archaeology - kevin wooldridge - 13th April 2011
mpoole Wrote:Excellent observations. Copyright is fairly straightforward. I'm not a laywer but I have worked on the issue regarding copyright in other situations where people have lost a great deal of money through the illegal copying and uploading of copyrighted material to sub-rosa file-sharing sites. It's a huge problem for people such as musicians whose CDs are 'shared' or DVDs which are copied and 'shared' illegally. It's a big problem, and it is important that a copyright holder be given the chance to determine what happens to items to which they hold copyright. That doesn't always mean there is money exchanged for access to the copyrighted information BUT it does mean that it is the choice of the copyright holder how the access is determined. If they don't want their information accessible other than by physical, printed materials accessible only through a library or other physical resource that's their right.
And therein lies the rub!! The question of copyright is as you say fairly straightforward, however the enforcement of the right to exercise that copyright is anoither matter.
At the moment the music industry (and to some extent book publishers) are expending a great deal of effort in going after so called internet pirates (particularly P2P files sharers) but conveniently ignoring other blatant abusers of the copyright system. Every charity shop in the UK which resells books, CDs, DvDs or videos is equally in breach of copyright (the part that prohibits the resale of copyright material) but to my knowledge there is no campaign by either industry to clamp down on this. Most secondbook sellers also breach the same laws on copyright....little wonder that many abusers would conclude that the laws regarding copyright are not worth the paper (or digital media) they are written on....
Copyright, Diggers and archaeology - ShadowJack - 13th April 2011
Quote:
The legality, copyright status, etc are not obvious in a case like this. The data is made up purely of observations which anyone with the equipment and access could get
Ah - but not if you have created you're own algorithms/custom settings on how the information was detected and collected.
Quote:
Which brings up the question: if an archaeologist makes an observation -- whether it be by digging, geophysics, or otherwise -- and someone else has access to the resulting information outside a published source, is it illegal to use it? Is there any way you can protect your observations from misuse, since they're not inherently protected by copyright?
If the access wasn't authorised then there would be a breach of Client confidentiality (?) But I'm pretty certain the information would be covered by Intellectual property right. However, in some cases, you might find that the unit/contractor isn't the sole owner of the copyright/information - it belongs to the client who has contracted the unit to carry out the work.
I think Marcus is right in his interpretation of what Unit is trying to say (just wish he'd do it himself and stop playing around).
However, we do need to re-emphasis the distinction between diggers working for an employer and diggers contracted as freelance/self employed archaeologists.
The act is very clear on this issue of copyright ownership, from Section 11:
(2)Where a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work [F1, or a film,] is made by an employee in the course of his employment, his employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work subject to any agreement to the contrary
The company does not have to stipulate in the employees terms and conditions the status of copyright ownership.
For freelance/self-employed diggers it would depend on the contract they signed. Now, they can, as could Unitof1, insist on retaining copyright to the records they produce, plans/photos/sections etc and context records if they used their own recording system.
But....how many units would agree to those terms?
One unit I worked for was very clear on this issue with regards illustrations - if the freelance illustrator insisted on retaining copyright and ownership of the artwork they were contracted to produce - we we were told to use someone else.
Oh - and just to throw another spanner in the works - copyright and the physical ownership of the material in question are/can be two separate issues.
To put it simply..if you contract a freelance illustrator to produce a painting reconstructing a scene from the Saxon village you've excavated - you have no right to either copyright or ownership of the finished painting only the right to reproduce an image of the painting - and usually that is for a very specific one-off occaision. All you have paid for is the illustrator's time and skill.
.....unless you have clearly specified and reached an agreement on these issues with the illustrator during contract negotiations.
Quote:
little wonder that many abusers would conclude that the laws in copyright are not worth the paper (or digital media) they are written on....
Hehehe...unless you make the mistake of thinking that of mapping data (I know one one rather large outfit which thought it was too big to have to take notice of a pesky little thing like OS copyright - they learned the hard way)
Copyright, Diggers and archaeology - Martin Locock - 13th April 2011
When working with freelance illustrators, some prefer to retain copyright so they can re-use and re-sell the image elsewhere, and therefore will charge more if they are required to transfer it to the commissioning organisation. Insisting on transfer of copyright is a very blunt instrument - licensing can provide the necessary level of permitted use.
I couldn't find any prohibition of the re-sale of books and videos by charity shops - they juts can't make and sell copies.
Four sensible comments in a row on a copyright thread? Strange days indeed.
Copyright, Diggers and archaeology - mpoole - 13th April 2011
Martin Locock Wrote:I couldn't find any prohibition of the re-sale of books and videos by charity shops - they juts can't make and sell copies.
Exactly. Resale of original items is fine.
There's a great US site on copyright, most of it is general and applicable to any country that is a signatory of the Berne Convention. Brad Templeton's commonsense guide to copyright myths would be of use as a starting point for general research on the topic.
As for enforcement, there are a lot of smaller groups that work hard to enforce their rights but without big money behind them, it's always been an uphill battle. Resale of books is not a copyright violation, which should ease Kevin's mind a bit. It falls under the 'first sale doctrine' which is a US term but is enshrined in the Berne Convention on copyright, too. Once you create a copyrighted item such as a book or CD and it is sold, that exhausts your right to control ownership of the item but does not relinquish your copyright in the item. You can sell a CD you don't listen to but you can't make a copy for your own use and then sell the CD as it effectively creates a second item that has not been created with the permission of the copyright holder.
That makes four and a half sensible comments!
Copyright, Diggers and archaeology - Unitof1 - 15th April 2011
Sorry folks have been away concentrating on watching brierfs for the last few days. Yes little old ladies extensions, un-evaluated variety, and unfortunately generating copyright. Sometimes I see something and I think -don’t look, all that’s going to happen is that you are going to generate copyright son. Nobody wants copyright about topsoil and natural do they. Most of its from dubious contexts which I have mainly scraped away at in section. God knows what I am supposed to do with it now I have got it. Put it in a report generating even more copyright. Presumably I should just forget about it. That’s what everybody else does.
I have tried talking to the little old ladies about it. I suggest that the copyright possibly belongs to them. They ask is there any value in it. And I reply that to my knowledge none that I have heard of. Although I add that if she does not pay me I will not show it to the authorities who made her employ me and they will be angry. She will be hounded until the seventh generation, is my standard reply if she asks how angry. What do they do with this copyright she asks? Sometimes they put it in a very expensive HER and then suggest that if any other digger wants to work within 1 km that they must make themselves familiar with it a bit. They also put in it to the internet. Do people pay to make themselves familiar she asks? Not if they can help it but time is money I astutely reply. The impasse is reached and I give her my bill. “What! but you will render my family to rags until the seventh generation”. The answer to that one is presumably the price for my copyright and maybe specifically for the un-evaluated variety.
But the world seems obsessed with copyright. Its not just me. It really getting to be a phomnemenon. Copyright is changing. People are getting their copyrights extended to many years after their death. Some kind of mortmain possibly for the benefit of the family and the state. It is that people had been under charging all along. Is it that institutions need copyrights extended to survive. It appears that originally copyright was introduced as an “Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law
Its interesting that it proposed to encourage learning as archaeology is awash with those principles. One wonders how much more the nationalists will increase these rights. There appears to be loads of things concerning copyright on the internet as FFS moplooe, is this a possible copyright infringement UK Copyright likes to point out. The internet is a relatively new phoomemenom, newer than archaeologists. The Greenwells of the 1970s probably never saw it coming and who knows what they will think of dinos “publish properly” which I suspect is laced with post modern internet irony. You would have thought that if stuff is now freely available and available for ever to everyone that people would just give up on copyright like us diggers.
Where were we
sorry shadow jack Marcus and martin. Yes it is my contention that diggers should primarily be concerned with making their money from copyright.
So Shadow Jack has pointed out
Quote:[SIZE=3]Oh - and just to throw another spanner in the works - copyright and the physical ownership of the material in question are/can be two separate issues.Hours of fun hay. No doubt one of the display panels which people like to vandalise. So shadow jack gets asked to draw a scene of the past and draws out from a report of a soil sample taken by a digger from a context that they had generated that willow pollen was found. Shadow jacks positions a body of water upon the canvas possibly with the defence that the willow pollen may have been intrusive caveat emptor.
[/SIZE]
over to sensible posts
Copyright, Diggers and archaeology - kevin wooldridge - 15th April 2011
mpoole Wrote:Exactly. Resale of original items is fine.
No no no!! Surely not. If that were the case instead of making my P2P files freely available to friends, you suggest I sell them and evade copyright restrictions? No that can't be the case.....
Copyright, Diggers and archaeology - mpoole - 15th April 2011
kevin wooldridge Wrote:No no no!! Surely not. If that were the case instead of making my P2P files freely available to friends, you suggest I sell them and evade copyright restrictions? No that can't be the case.....
No. Your file is the original. If you make that original available, it's still yours and any copies made will either be with your permission as the copyright holder or illegally. If you've lent it to friends, you still get the original files back, and those should be the only ones in existence. If they make a copy with your permission for their own use, they cannot sell that on, because it's a copy of the original and made with restrictions. If they make a copy without your permission, then they've broken the law and violated your copyright.
If you hold the copyright to the original P2P file that you're allowing someone to borrow, then you can sell the single, physical file. You can also sell copies, the same way an author does via a publisher. He owns the right to permit copies to be made for resale, so you could too if you hold the copyright to the files.
The resale of a paperback is different. It has a single physical existence, and when the purchaser is done, they may take that single book and sell it, give it away or whatever BUT they don't hold any rights to it so can't copy it and give copies away.
Copyright, Diggers and archaeology - mpoole - 15th April 2011
Unitof1 Wrote:FFS moplooe, is this a possible copyright infringement UK Copyright likes to point out.
Yanno, there's really no talking to you. I like to point out things that make sense, you like to garble damn near everything you read, it runs through the Homer-filter and comes out as some variation of 'D'oh'.
LMGTFY is not in violation of copyright, it merely does the work of creating a search ON Google for the hard-of-thinking, and is meant in an ironic and probably sarcastic way as a pointer for those who are too inept to create a search on Google for themselves.
There's no point, really, in doing anything else on copyright as far as you're concerned. Really.
Where's that dead chupacabra, surely it's around here somewhere..............
Copyright, Diggers and archaeology - Dinosaur - 15th April 2011
Blimey! Pop out for a few minutes to enjoy the weather and topsoil strip half of Yorkshire and there's pages of the stuff to read through!!....and Unit seems to approve of something I'm trying to do....:0
What happens if you publish something word for word that someone else wrote and intended to publish 30+ years ago but never got around to it for whatever reason BUT WITH THEIR NAME STILL ON IT AS AUTHOR? - which is the bit I didn't really explain in my last post on here a few pages back. Have a (admittedly rather out of date) typescript draft, inked-up permatrace illustrations and everything, which could usefully be stuck in as an appendix in an intended mongraph on some adjacent landscape. I even know where one of the pots is (unbelievably the specialist still had it after all this time and had been wondering who to give it to!).
Copyright, Diggers and archaeology - Martin Locock - 15th April 2011
In that case the copyright is still with the author (or their heirs), or their employer. If you consider that it is clear that they intended to be published, you could argue that you are merely fulfilling that intention, but they might reasonably respond that they could have done but chose not to and don' t want to now.