Someone just tried to scam me on eBay.

Nope. Someone just took a picture of them and posted it on facebook and now if you post it to show your friends, your a criminal

 

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Like my new forum approved avatar? Don't you dare use it or I'll sue!

 

I hate auto correct! That last line should have read and I'm NOT using it to sell the coin.

 

No, wrong again. Potential buyers makes its commerce not education.

 

Don't worry. We won't have any commerce for you to worry about. I'll just use old fashioned text descriptions if I should ever decide to sell a coin. And I won't share any knowledge about coins based on photos for fear of offending the original Shyster...uh! ...Artist.

I might ask permission of the original artist if I knew who they were. But I just captured the image posted when I purchased the coin and I don't know who I obtained most of them from. So hopefully, Ignorance is bliss.

 

Or you just just operate like a normal adult and take your own pictures instead of continuing to act like the world is out to get you for telling you not to steal pictures to try and make money with

 

@Marshall - I've read your other posts, and have held you in high regard, especially in the field of EAC's. With the level of intelligence you have repeatedly shown in other topics, I struggle to understand why you aren't grasping what is being said here.

I'm going to try and explain it in a very simple way.


It's not that you can't use the image, you just can't use it as advertising. You can copy it, save it, print it, frame it, get a tattoo of it, name a child after it, mail pictures to your friends and family letting them know about the most awesomest coin you ever bought. But that's just it - you bought the coin. Nothing else. You didn't buy his camera, you didn't buy his memory card, you didn't by the index finger on his right finger that pressed the shutter, and you most certainly did not buy the image of the coin. You bought the coin, end of story.

Now, like I said, you can do all sorts of things with that image of that awesome coin, EXCEPT use it to advertise the sale of the coin.

Simple enough? No law, no lawyer, no photographer is going to tell you you can't do the things I listed above (unless they don't know copyright laws), and no one will sue you for doing so. BUT, use it to sell said coin, and all of them are within their rights (just like you have certain, albeit limited rights to the photo's use) to drop the hammer on you. Will they? Most likely not, but the law is there not to allow frivolous lawsuits, but to protect people whose livelihood (ability to earn a living in a legal endeavor) would be infringed upon by not being paid for work provided.

I don't know what line of work you are in, or were in if you are retired, but I'm sure at some point in your life someone (intentionally or inadvertently) didn't pay you for something you did that they should have, or maybe took something of yours without compensating you for it. Pissed you off, right? Maybe not so much that you would sue them or have them arrested, but you know you were wronged by not having been compensated for something you should have received something in trade for (cash, another item, etc.). That's what we're talking about here - using something owned by another for you personal gain, without compensating the party you infringed upon. I think that makes sense.

Nobody is going to jump on anyone's case if they are solely using the image to educate and inform. Using it to inform a potential buyer what your item looks like is defined as advertising - completely different then a documentary use of something.

No. This is a comment I would expect from someone with considerably less intelligence then you have repeatedly shown yourself to posses. You are welcome to share anything you want on Facebook, or anywhere else. Nobody will say boo about it. Just don't use it in a manner that can be construed as commercial.

I can use and reuse your flower picture in any way I decide I want to, as long as I don't use it a) to advertise my product b) use it as a logo for an enterprise (not even non-profit), or c) claim ownership and sell rights to it for purposes that fall into a or b.


Now, I really don't know how to explain to you in any more basic terms what a moral person, one who understands what is and isn't theirs, what it is that they own when they buy something, or one who understands right from wrong would need to make this more clear.

I'm sorry if you can't grasp the reason the law is there, I won't try to explain why.
I'm sorry if you can't understand what it is you own, and what you don't own.
I'm sorry if you think everything you come across in daily life is yours because it's there.

When I was a child, I would go shopping with my mom. She always said to me "Look with your eyes, not with your hands". That has held true in later life - I can look at something, but it isn't mine to handle and do with what I want, until either I have bought and paid for it (took ownership), or was given permission. I guess not all of us had the same life lessons instilled in us.

I still look forward to reading what you have to say about coins, as I too collects EAC's, and I'm not nearly as educated in that field as you are, and I'm always looking to learn, especially from those who know more about a subject then I do.

 

And I was wondering why the hobby was suffering from people abandoning it and not entering it. Now I know.

Thank you "good" people for the lesson in polite discourse.

 

So you think people are moving away from numismatics because they can't steal other people's photos? Seriously?

 

Just out of curiosity, if I buy a coin from Great Southern Coins, I'll capture their picture of the coin for my files. They put their logo and name on the lower left hand side of the picture. I do NOT take that off the captured picture. I sometimes do presentations for my coin club, the question is, can I use that picture, with their info on it, without their permission, for an educational presentation. If I were to sell that coin, I would then take one of my lame pictures of it to add to the ad.

I believe I can use that picture and Great Southern Coins would be happy for the free ad they got from my presentation.

 

Back in the old days of eBay, I sold a couple gold coins using just words. Buy it now, of course.

 

I am not saying I'm old, but back in the old days there was no eBay. You either went to a coin store or the coin section of Woolworths to buy a coin. You could also buy or trade a coin(s) at your school's stamp and coin club. Anybody want to buy a load of plate blocks ( that the four bottom stamps with the sheet number attached to them) I got from the local Post Office back in the day? Just kidding about selling, not kidding about having three small albums full of them.

 

I'll go as far as to say that any material can be used for educational purposes without recourse. "Educational purposes" has a very wide and liberal definition. Use of their image would be ok for coin club, school, or documentary works. The only caveat to that, and I'm not sure either way, is if it is pulled from a page/website that states that standard 'any use or reproduction without the consent of...", etc., like what they say on Monday Night Football. Even though you claim them to be for educational purposes during an educational presentation, it could be argued that because there are club dues involved, and the presentation is a marketing tool to gain new members/subscribers, that the image was used for commercial gain. It's almost a gray area, but there are cases where news-type magazines used images without permission, and the courts decided that the goal of the magazine as a business entity is to gain new subscribers, and the content of a magazine is the reason people subscribe, so the use was for commercial purposes. (I think that makes sense the way I wrote it.)

I would venture to say that an attorney might advise that gaining permission from GC would be the safest way, it is highly doubtful (IMHO) that GC would sue or issue a cease and desist, or that a court would find in their favor. Not removing or altering their logo is key, as you are making it clear whose image it is, and not trying to claim it as your own.

 

I'm sure they would, but you'd be doing the hobby as a whole a great disservice. There's nothing wrong with buying from them, of course, at least as long as one knows what they're doing, or sticks to slabs (although hot potatoes seem fairly common), but for the new or less enlightened? Not so much, and this is one seller that should be avoided.

 

Seriously! And I do not agree with the stealing comment. It doesn't mean I won't obey the bad law, I just think the law has over reached to an extremist position which is being well documented on this thread.

It's not far from the laws that say I can't mow my lawn because some egghead says the weeds growing in my yard make it a wetland.

 

By that logic, then every hobby should be in the dumper, as the copyright laws do not only cover photos of coins.

If it's not stealing, then what do you call using the property of others without permission?

You make it sound like this is a new law, when actually the law in it's basic form has been around since 1796 (ib the US), with modifications over time. Last modification was in 1976, and even though there have been a lot of changes since 1976, and it's probably due for another update, I'll guarantee that the basic protections will not change.

And no, the copyright laws weren't put in place to prevent Marshall from CT from selling his coins.

 

So you're telling me I already paid $10 for the Photo?

 

Personal opinion vs. fact, gentlemen: there is a difference. Laws are laws, and one has a choice to either follow or break them, but this doesn't mean they must agree with them. If every otherwise intelligent person had to mindlessly support every law, there would be no change, ever, for better or for worse.

 

Are we allowed to talk about stealing photographs? Last I heard it's illegal and some people might find it inappropriate for conversation on this message board...

Extremist? Protecting people's intellectual property is extreme? how so? I am of the opposite opinion. I believe that your opinion that you should be able to steal others intellectual property for personal gain is pretty extreme. If photographers couldn't protect their creations, there wouldn't be any professional photographers. They would have no means to monetize their craft. Think about that. No baseball cards. No pictures in the newspaper. No yearbooks.