Images onl allowed for enjoyment?

[dingdongbubble]

I got a Pentax K100D and upon the suggestion of some people, I strted reading the manual. I opened to the first pag to get a shock. This is whats written:

Regarding Copyrights
Images taken using the K100D that are or anything other than personal enjoyment cannot be used without permission according to the rights as specified in the Copyright Act. Please take care, as there are even cases where limitations are placed on taking pictures even for personal enjoyment during demonstrations, performances or of items on display. Images taken with the purpose of obtaining copyrights also cannot be used outside the scope of use of the copyright as laid out in the Copyright Act, and care should be taken here also.

Now what baloney is this? What is this copyright act? Where will I get a copy and will I ahve to keep consulting it everytime before taking a picture?

 

[-hh]

This mostly sounds like Lawyer-inserted CYA Baloney.


However, there are some legit issues regarding copyrights, and while this is one place to start...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1976


...this Wiki page doesn't go into factors such as Model Releases and other factors that take into consideration personal privacy, restrictions on taking photos in public places, etc.

As such, I'd be inclined to say that by saying *anything* on the subject, Pentax's lawyers have probably opened up to potentially being liable for this much bigger can of worms ... the law of unintended consequences

IMO, all Pentax should have said for their legal CYA is that as the hardware manufacturer, they're not to be held liable for any copyright infringements by the hardware's users. Of course, if they were really deviously dishonest, they could have claimed that your use equals consent to granting them licencing rights to all of your copyrighted images Now you can see why Shakespear supposedly said "...the first thing we do is to shoot all the lawyers..."

I think that the simple bottom line is to just be aware of Copyright issues in general. I don't see anything here specifically or uniquely pertains to Pentax or this equipment that you have to worry about.



-hh

A quick PS:


This should apply for both personal and commercial use of the photo equipment.

There are some aspects of "Fair Use" that do differentiate between the individual and a business, but its all covered by Copyright law, and has utterly nothing to do with the camera hardware manufacturer.


-hh

 

[dingdongbubble]

So does thi apply to me as I dont live in the USA? I am not a lawyer and just a teenager so I dont really understand all this. Thanks for the help.

 

[Doylem]

Always a good idea to read the manual... but this 'legalese' stuff is nothing to worry about. Relax. Carry on shooting...

 

[-hh]

So does thi apply to me as I dont live in the USA?

Ah, sorry - I didn't notice what country you are in.

In general, all countries have some form of Copyright Law, and generally speaking, they're all fairly similar.

The basic rules of copyright are pretty much common sense: don't steal other people's stuff*, and if you're going to do anything commercial, make sure that you have a written permission from the recognizable people in your images (ie, "Model's Release").

* - taking a photo of someone's painting can be a no-no, if the painting is "young" enough to still be protected by copyright.

For just taking personal snapshots and putting them up on a webpage, your biggest worry is someone else stealing your stuff.



-hh

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

It's just Pentax giving you a friendly word of warning that now that you have a nice camera you can't just go around taking pictures of anything you want. And you especially can't try to sell pictures of certain things.

An example: Say you go to a rock concert, you somehow manage to get your camera in and you get some sweet shots of the guitarist playing a face melting solo with the guitar behind his head. You go home and edit the pictures and decide that people would want to buy them from you. Well you can't sell them legally unless you have explicit written permission from the band (probably in the form of a legal document) because the band uses it's image to make money. You are essentially making money from one of their performances without their permission. It's no different than taking a recording device to the concert and making a bootleg recording of the show, then burning it to CD-R and selling it on Ebay.

Another example would be taking a picture of a Statue in an art gallery or something like that, then trying to sell it. Without including the Artist or whoever own the rights to that statue, you are infringing on their ability to make money. Same would go for a Race Car or anything else like that which might be used as an object to generate money. It doesn't really even have to be something that makes money for someone else, you could get into hot water for taking a picture of your neighbors dog, and selling it without a written agreement from the dog's owner.

But you could take a landscape photograph, or a nice picture of the Sunset, and have no troubles selling that.

It's much more complicated than what I've laid out, but you get the idea right?

And as long as you are using the pictures solely for your own personal enjoyment (i.e. setting them as a background on your Mac, or printing them and hanging them on your wall etc) you're fine. That is as long as you didn't break any rules about photographing something that you weren't supposed to be photographing in the first place.

SLC

 

[sblasl]

You better check with God first, His/Her lawyers might not like it.

But you could take a landscape photograph, or a nice picture of the Sunset, and have no troubles selling that.SLC

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

You better check with God first, His/Her lawyers might not like it.

Oh yeah, you've got to get permission from the man upstairs too. He's pretty lenient though so I don't think it will be a problem.

SLC