SSA Copyright

On Dec 23, 11:23*am, Andy wrote:
On Dec 23, 10:24*am, Darryl Ramm wrote:

"related to the sport of soaring" says just that. What does that
*really* mean -- like anything else it's what a court would decide.

You seem to have completely missed the point I was making. *The phrase
"related to the sport of soaring" does not describe the purpose for
which the work may be used. * The phrase "related to the sport of
soaring" describes the type of third part that SSA feels they can pass
the material on to.

Please read it again -

""and to authorize third parties who are engaged in the dissemination
of
information relating to the sport of soaring to reproduce and sell or
distribute freely, such material."

Andy

I do not expect a court would take that to mean that organization then
has rights to sell or allow other use of the copyright material
outside their own normal and reasonable role of dissemination of
information relating to the sport of soaring. But you are granting
rights to that organization to allow them to reproduce and sell or
distribute freely or for charge your material within their role of
dissemination of information relating to the sport of soaring. I do
not read this as allowing a blanket grant to somebody downstream to
sell or distribute freely for any and every possible purpose--
otherwise the agreement would not have included the initial
stipulation. But then the court has the final say.

I think your best options are medication and/or not submitting your
photos to the SSA. :-)

Darryl

On Dec 22, 2:35*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Dec 22, 11:48*am, Andy wrote:









I had a look at the on-line SSA Sailplane Directory and have to say it
looks like a very nice addition to our information sources. *I noticed
that there were no pictures of the ASW-28 and was thinking of
submitting some.

I then found the conditions for posting pictures:

"It is a condition of submission to and acceptance by The Soaring
Society of America, Inc. (SSA) that all material submitted for
consideration and/or publication (including photographs and text),
whether submitted as a result of a request by the SSA or not, is
submitted on the basis that the SSA has the right, without payment or
compensation, to reproduce and sell or distribute freely, and to
authorize third parties who are engaged in the dissemination of
information relating to the sport of soaring to reproduce and sell or
distribute freely, such material. By submitting such material to the
SSA for consideration and/or publication the submitter represents that
they hold the right to grant a release of copyright in respect of such
material. If the submitted material is clearly identified with the
name of its creator suitable attribution of its source will be given.
It is a condition of submission to and acceptance by The Soaring
Society of America, Inc. (SSA) that all material submitted for
consideration and/or publication (including photographs and text),
whether submitted as a result of a request by the SSA or not, is
submitted on the basis that the SSA has the right, without payment or
compensation, to reproduce and sell or distribute freely, and to
authorize third parties who are engaged in the dissemination of
information relating to the sport of soaring to reproduce and sell or
distribute freely, such material. By submitting such material to the
SSA for consideration and/or publication the submitter represents that
they hold the right to grant a release of copyright in respect of such
material. If the submitted material is clearly identified with the
name of its creator suitable attribution of its source will be given.
"

This is the same condition as for pictures submitted to the magazine
or to the calendar. *It is the reason I have not submitted any of my
pictures to either, and also the reason I will not submit any of mine
to the Sailplane Directory.

If I submit a photo to SSA I think I should be allowed to specify what
it will be used for and that any other use should require my approval.
Under no circumstances should I be required to give up the copyright
to my work.

Does this copyright policy bother anyone else? If not, why?

Andy

Managing third party copyright content like this would be complex and
would be a significant distraction and expense. What item can be used
for what and when, in what form and resolution, with what
acknowledgment/clearance is required for each end every item. Managing
all that is complex and costly and the downside of an aggrieved
copyright owner coming back and seeking compensation are a risk. This
is not unusual for unsolicited articles/content. I would not want to
see my SSA fees wasted on managing complex copyright issues--and I am
quite OK knowing there may be some nice content we don't see because
of this. For key important/solicited articles I assume the editor
would be open to negotiate copyright assignment terms (e.g. for use in
the magazine and reproductions of the magazine only).

And strictly you are not "giving up copyright" on your work, you are
assigning rights to the SSA and others downstream for use related to
the sport of soaring. You retain all other existing copyright owner
rights.

Exactly. A few years ago, Soaring Mag published an article of mine. A
couple of years later, Mr. Google found it had been published in the
Canadian soaring magazine.
First, this is exactly what the SSA says it has the right to do. And I
was glad it was republished.
Second, it is a bit rude: when SSA re-releases a work, the author
deserves (especially with written works) to be notified, especially in
order to correct it if desired.
Third, publishing a broadcast notice like this on their web site or
publishing it in the mag (as they do) would probably not, according to
my attorney (who's done some copyright law), protect the SSA if a
lawsuit were filed.
But... (4th), the commercial value of what we publish in Soaring Mag
is pretty close to zero. Even the professionals are working more for
love than for money.
Thus, (5th) no matter what the copyright violation, there will be no
material damages.
Danl J

On Dec 22, 10:00*pm, Greg Arnold wrote:
On 12/22/2010 6:43 PM, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:





On Dec 22, 5:23 pm, Darryl *wrote:

What are you reading? There is no way anything in that agreement
removes other existing rights you have as copyright owner. You are
still the copyright owner, you can do whatever you want with the same
image etc. You are assigning rights to use not assigning the original
copyright.

That is not to say there are no concerns with these types of
agreements and surprising uses may not have imagined when you assigned
over permission to use -- although the SSA agreement at least clearly
restricts this to soaring related things.

Darryl
(And if it shows, yes I've done too many source code licensing
agreements...)

" By submitting such material to the
SSA for consideration and/or publication the submitter represents
that
they hold the right to grant a release of copyright in respect of
such
material."

release of copyright means I give up my rights to the material, not
that I grant specific use. *I am sure you and the lawyers could argue
about it all day, but in my opinion, sending pictures to SSA renders
them worthless to me.

The quoted language does not say that you are releasing your copyright,
but only that you have the right to do so. *The SSA wants to make sure
that you are not giving them a photo that belongs to someone other than you.

I agree with Darryl.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Like Darryl, I spend WAAY too much time looking at copyright and IP
clauses in licensing agreements. The key word is "exclusive".
Unless the SSA requires you to grant them exclusive use of the
material (which they don't), you would still have the right to, for
example, sell a photo to another publication and be paid for the
same.

And, last time I looked, I could count on less than one hand the
number of people who have done anything other than break even trying
to commercialize text or photo content related to soaring.

So, no, I see absolutely no problem with the SSA requirement.

P3

On Dec 23, 11:44*am, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Dec 23, 11:23*am, Andy wrote:





On Dec 23, 10:24*am, Darryl Ramm wrote:

"related to the sport of soaring" says just that. What does that
*really* mean -- like anything else it's what a court would decide.

You seem to have completely missed the point I was making. *The phrase
"related to the sport of soaring" does not describe the purpose for
which the work may be used. * The phrase "related to the sport of
soaring" describes the type of third part that SSA feels they can pass
the material on to.

Please read it again -

""and to authorize third parties who are engaged in the dissemination
of
information relating to the sport of soaring to reproduce and sell or
distribute freely, such material."

Andy

I do not expect a court would take that to mean that organization then
has rights to sell or allow other use of the copyright material
outside their own normal and reasonable role of dissemination of
information relating to the sport of soaring. But you are granting
rights to that organization to allow them to reproduce and sell or
distribute freely or for charge your material within their role of
dissemination of information relating to the sport of soaring. I do
not read this as allowing a blanket grant to somebody downstream to
sell or distribute freely for any and every possible purpose--
otherwise the agreement would not have included the initial
stipulation. But then the court has the final say.

I think your best options are medication and/or not submitting your
photos to the SSA. :-)

Darryl

Hey Darryl,

Do you really need to resort to personal attacks against me and Andy
when we don't share your opinion? I think that sort of thing is
beneath you, and I don't appreciate it. Lets keep the conversation
civil. As far as reading legal agreements and knowledge of the
subject, my wife is a lawyer and a stock photographer, my dad is a
freelance photographer and journalist, and was the president of ASMP
for several years. He focused a lot of effort during that time on
protecting copyrights for photographers.

Matt

On Dec 24, 11:46*am, "Matt Herron Jr." wrote:
On Dec 23, 11:44*am, Darryl Ramm wrote:



On Dec 23, 11:23*am, Andy wrote:

On Dec 23, 10:24*am, Darryl Ramm wrote:

"related to the sport of soaring" says just that. What does that
*really* mean -- like anything else it's what a court would decide.

You seem to have completely missed the point I was making. *The phrase
"related to the sport of soaring" does not describe the purpose for
which the work may be used. * The phrase "related to the sport of
soaring" describes the type of third part that SSA feels they can pass
the material on to.

Please read it again -

""and to authorize third parties who are engaged in the dissemination
of
information relating to the sport of soaring to reproduce and sell or
distribute freely, such material."

Andy

I do not expect a court would take that to mean that organization then
has rights to sell or allow other use of the copyright material
outside their own normal and reasonable role of dissemination of
information relating to the sport of soaring. But you are granting
rights to that organization to allow them to reproduce and sell or
distribute freely or for charge your material within their role of
dissemination of information relating to the sport of soaring. I do
not read this as allowing a blanket grant to somebody downstream to
sell or distribute freely for any and every possible purpose--
otherwise the agreement would not have included the initial
stipulation. But then the court has the final say.

I think your best options are medication and/or not submitting your
photos to the SSA. :-)

Darryl

Hey Darryl,

Do you really need to resort to personal attacks against me and Andy
when we don't share your opinion? *I think that sort of thing is
beneath you, and I don't appreciate it. *Lets keep the conversation
civil. *As far as reading legal agreements and knowledge of the
subject, my wife is a lawyer and a stock photographer, my dad is a
freelance photographer and journalist, and was the president of ASMP
for several years. *He focused a lot of effort during that time on
protecting copyrights for photographers.

Matt

Matt

You do understand what a smiley means? And that would be the same Andy
joking about the same medication needs recently.

I am well aware of your father's contribution to photo journalism but
basic reading of stuff here was fairly interesting. You may want to
talk the legal stuff through with your wife again. I'm also happy to
recommend some great IP attorneys if you want to pay for an opinion.

Again if you think you have stuff that is commercially or culturally
valuable then just don't submit it to the SSA and by all means go sell
rights to it to others. I expect the average soaring pilot in the USA
who submits photos to the SSA would be happy for them to be used to
promote soaring. And I just do not see it is a good use of SSA
resources to be trying to manage complex copyright issues. It is much
easier for them to generally work in the free and clear. Lets see I
spent a few years on the editorial board of a professional/trade
magazine, I've worked at Adobe on InDesign (a software platform used
to publish many magazines) and ran a publishing industry team in
Europe for Adobe and worked on development of content/asset management
technology and dealt with enough software licensing deals with
copyright issues that I probably have some reasonable basis to say
this is a mess that I'd hate to see the SSA waste resources on trying
to appease people worried about the pretty standard type copyright
submission wording that stirred up this thread.

Thanks

Darryl

On Dec 24, 12:47*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Dec 24, 11:46*am, "Matt Herron Jr." wrote:





On Dec 23, 11:44*am, Darryl Ramm wrote:

On Dec 23, 11:23*am, Andy wrote:

On Dec 23, 10:24*am, Darryl Ramm wrote:

"related to the sport of soaring" says just that. What does that
*really* mean -- like anything else it's what a court would decide.

You seem to have completely missed the point I was making. *The phrase
"related to the sport of soaring" does not describe the purpose for
which the work may be used. * The phrase "related to the sport of
soaring" describes the type of third part that SSA feels they can pass
the material on to.

Please read it again -

""and to authorize third parties who are engaged in the dissemination
of
information relating to the sport of soaring to reproduce and sell or
distribute freely, such material."

Andy

I do not expect a court would take that to mean that organization then
has rights to sell or allow other use of the copyright material
outside their own normal and reasonable role of dissemination of
information relating to the sport of soaring. But you are granting
rights to that organization to allow them to reproduce and sell or
distribute freely or for charge your material within their role of
dissemination of information relating to the sport of soaring. I do
not read this as allowing a blanket grant to somebody downstream to
sell or distribute freely for any and every possible purpose--
otherwise the agreement would not have included the initial
stipulation. But then the court has the final say.

I think your best options are medication and/or not submitting your
photos to the SSA. :-)

Darryl

Hey Darryl,

Do you really need to resort to personal attacks against me and Andy
when we don't share your opinion? *I think that sort of thing is
beneath you, and I don't appreciate it. *Lets keep the conversation
civil. *As far as reading legal agreements and knowledge of the
subject, my wife is a lawyer and a stock photographer, my dad is a
freelance photographer and journalist, and was the president of ASMP
for several years. *He focused a lot of effort during that time on
protecting copyrights for photographers.

Matt

Matt

You do understand what a smiley means? And that would be the same Andy
joking about the same medication needs recently.

I am well aware of your father's contribution to photo journalism but
basic reading of stuff here was fairly interesting. You may want to
talk the legal stuff through with your wife again. I'm also happy to
recommend some great IP attorneys if you want to pay for an opinion.

Again if you think you have stuff that is commercially or culturally
valuable then just don't submit it to the SSA and by all means go sell
rights to it to others. I expect the *average soaring pilot in the USA
who submits photos to the SSA would be happy for them to be used to
promote soaring. And I just do not see it is a good use of SSA
resources to be trying to manage complex copyright issues. It is much
easier for them to generally work in the free and clear. Lets see I
spent a few years on the editorial board of a professional/trade
magazine, I've worked at Adobe on InDesign (a software platform used
to publish many magazines) and ran a publishing industry team in
Europe for Adobe and worked on development of content/asset management
technology and dealt with enough software licensing deals with
copyright issues that I probably have some reasonable basis to say
this is a mess that I'd hate to see the SSA waste resources on trying
to appease people worried about the pretty standard type copyright
submission wording that stirred up this thread.

Thanks

Darryl

I guess you just forgot the smiley on your comment to me: "I really
hope you fly better then you read legal agreements." My bad. Anyway,
done with this post. Santa is coming. I wish you all the best in the
coming year.

OK, guys, here's an interesting (or maybe extremely boring) sidebar to
this thread. When someone takes photos of me (at an airshow, for
example), do I have any rights to those photos? Do I have any say in
where they are released? Do I have any right to royalties on the use
of my image?

Most airshow photographers have been very generous in allowing me to
use their work, and I've paid a few of the pros for restricted use of
their work. Like soaring, these guys mostly do it as a labor of
love. While a few can make a living with aviation photography, no one
is getting rich on airshow photography. However, one of these days
when a TV or movie deal finally comes for the airshow world, photo
royalties may become a big deal. Who would have thought that a few
Alaskan crab fishermen or guys working in a hack Harley chopper shop
would someday be valuable commodities...

Bob C.

"airshowbob" wrote

OK, guys, here's an interesting (or maybe extremely boring) sidebar to
this thread. When someone takes photos of me (at an airshow, for
example), do I have any rights to those photos? Do I have any say in
where they are released? Do I have any right to royalties on the use
of my image?

Nope, that is if you are just walking by, as part of the public in the area
being pictured. It is just like news reporters taking pictures at a
football game, or in front of a store where a robbery had taken place.
Incidental exposure, or something like that.
--
Jim in NC

airshowbob wrote:
OK, guys, here's an interesting (or maybe extremely boring) sidebar to
this thread. When someone takes photos of me (at an airshow, for
example), do I have any rights to those photos? Do I have any say in
where they are released? Do I have any right to royalties on the use
of my image?

Depends - do you look like a lone Cypress tree?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...C0A9669582 60

;-)

On Dec 25, 9:16*pm, "Morgans" wrote:
"airshowbob" wrote

OK, guys, here's an interesting (or maybe extremely boring) sidebar to
this thread. *When someone takes photos of me (at an airshow, for
example), do I have any rights to those photos? *Do I have any say in
where they are released? Do I have any right to royalties on the use
of my image?

*Nope, that is if you are just walking by, as part of the public in the area
being pictured. *It is just like news reporters taking pictures at a
football game, or in front of a store where a robbery had taken place.
Incidental exposure, or something like that.
--
Jim in NC

Actually, the occasional celeb has successfully sued for *commercial*
use of their image. I believe that anyone can photograph airshowbob,
and use and distribute those images freely as long as that use is
*noncommercial*. But airshowbob's attorney probably could earn some
cash protecting Bob's rights if the image of his airplane were to be
used commercially. This case might be stronger if Bob were to
trademark the image of his show plane. So... when airshowbob's
airplane appears in a Smirnoff ad, Bob and his attorney are entitled
arrange to a little educational chat with the company.

DJ