Subject:
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Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.dear-lego
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Date:
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Fri, 17 Dec 1999 20:17:28 GMT
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Viewed:
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1154 times
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Brad Justus wrote:
> This clarification is in keeping with our previously established policy of
> Fair Play (see http://www.lego.com/info/fair.asp). The relevant part of this
> policy currently states:
>
> "The LEGO Group owns the copyrights to its building instructions, publications
> and to the photographs used in our catalogs and on our packages. Copying,
> scanning and distributing these materials on the Internet would be an
> infringement of our copyrights. Nevertheless, at the present time the LEGO
> Group does not object to scanning of limited extracts of these materials in
> unaltered form for non-commercial purposes of exchange of information or good
> faith commentary."
>
> The assumption underlying this policy is that the materials mentioned
> (building instructions, catalogs, and the like) are intended for and freely
> available to the public; specifically, that the catalogs mentioned are
> consumer catalogs. Consequently, the recent posting of certain scanned
> portions of the year 2000 consumer catalog (for the non-commercial purpose of
> exchanging information and discussion) is an activity which is acceptable
> under the LEGO Group's Fair Play policy.
I would like to Lego itself put ALL of the instructions and at least one
photo for every set ever made on their website as a historical
reference. I know some of this has been done elsewhere, but the most
suitable place for it would be Lego's own web site. The lack of
availablility of such info. from Lego is what has given rise to much of
the scanned Lego copyrighted images.
> However, the posting of retailer catalogs is a completely different matter.
> Though such catalogs may come to be in the possession of consumers (either by
> mistake or improper means), these are not materials which are intended for,
> nor are freely available to, the public. Such publications, while perhaps of
> interest to the enthusiast community, are communications between our company
> and our trade partners and do not belong online. Their release violates the
> LEGO Group's copyrights in those catalogs and may also jeopardize the LEGO
> Group's ability to protect its other intellectual property rights (i.e. patent
> and trademark). Therefore, if such a catalog or other trade material does
> happen to fall into your hands, you may NOT publish this off- or on-line in
> any form. (Note: even the digitization of analog material is itself a
> copyright violation.) Please understand that we must take appropriate steps
> to enforce this policy, if necessary.
Understood.
> Larry Pieniazek also asked (in light of last week’s LEGO.com catalog image
> episode) if it is our policy that 1) "...only images that can be navigated to
> using a series of clicks starting from [your home page] are to be viewable,
> and whether or not an image is on your public website is irrelevant?" and 2)
> "Is it your position that if an image was reachable that way in the past, but
> no longer is, that it is not to be viewable?"
>
> Our position is that only images or material which are clearly accessible
> through normal navigational means (i.e. by following hyperlinks from the home
> page) are meant for public consumption. If unlinked material should be
> “discovered” (either by accident or intent), then the publication of the
> location of that material is a copyright violation (one could argue that the
> listing of the hyperlink to that material is tantamount to publishing the
> material itself). And if material was once available (through normal
> navigational means), but no longer is, than it, too, is out of bounds.
This I, am afraid, would not stand in a court of law. Anything on your
web server that is not password protected is considered publicly
available information and therefore, even if it is not linked to from
the main page, people on the internet do have a right to view it. There
are very easy solutions to this problem:
1. Set the images so that are not readable by anyone but someone on
your system. In other words, do NOT make them world readable. To tell
people they can't view something you have clearly gave them "permission"
to is ridiculous.
2. Don't put them on the web server until/unless you want people to
look at them (This is the option I would recommend.) This should be
something extremely easy for your webadmin to accomplish.
3. Set up a password protected area for info. you only want certain
people to be able to view. This would be a good option if you needed to
have a special section for your retailers only.
I guess I don't like the dangerous legal implications of telling people
they can't look at or link to information that is clearly publicly
available (Based on its world readable presence on your web server.)
This could result in all sorts of wierd scenarios, most of which would
basically be entrapment. Also, fear of legal retaliation would prevent
people from linking to anything on any site that had such a policy. It
would be impossible to know when a link might change. With this method
of thinking, one changed link could make someone on the internet guilty
of a copyright violation, which of course is insane. One of the great
things about the internet is the ability to link to sites a person finds
interesting or useful. The above policy works against this. People
linking to your page is a great form of advertising, as it is free for
you. It should be encouraged, not discouraged. Basically, like I said
above, if you don't want people to view an image put it somewhere where
they simply cannot get to it. That solves the problem for you, and
makes it impossible for the Internet users to get in trouble, at least
in this particular case.
Sincerely,
Tim
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