Dear Sir,
I feel obliged to answer, beacause I started this particular thread.
However, please, do not take the discussions and criticism over Copyright violation cases so much personally. We are discussing some general rules everyone should stick to, and members of Shipspotting.com, including myself, are reporting cases of Copyright violations discovered on ANY website, where such situation occurs, not only the one of yours, and not because of anger against anyone, but because we have right to defend our Copyright. Reporting on Copyright violation cases is a kind of solidarity among members here.
I feel sorry about the difficult position you are in, same as many other Shipspotting community members certainly feel. I also much appreciate your courage and effort about reporting Arctic Sea accident. I may also feel sorry that the lack of freedom of speech in Your Country or any other adverse circumstancess (I do not know about) have forced you to flee. I understand it will not be any real help for you, however please, be assured that also countries which seem to be more mature in democracy (such as Western European ones) are lacking freedom of speech more and more these days, too (I am especially referring to Political Correctness madness).
However this is whole another story, not connected to and not to be affecting Copyright matters.
If someone is not caring for his own Copyright - giving his news and pics to all around - that is his business and his right do do so. Absolutely the same as somene else has right to defend his/her Copyright...
If someone is not caring about his/her Copyright of news or photos generated by him/her - that is his/her right to do so, but this individual approach cannot be spread over everyone else. Many people do care for their Copyrights and are right to do so.
Rules do not need to be worked out. The rules are already in place and well known: "Ask first, then publish if permission is issued".
Many persons on Shipspotting.com have been issuing permissions for someone else (asking) to publish photos free of charge (including myself on rare occassions), and I also was asked for similar thing (also rarely, but it did happen).
Many of Shipspotting.com members would allow you to use their pics free of charge. But it was necessary to give them chance to allow. It was necessary to ask for permission before use. Some people would refuse, others would allow...
One may understand the nature of your Web news service (for example that it is non-commercial) but after being adviced about that, after explanation. Good occassion for this explanation is when you ask someone for permission to publish his/her photo. If I visit your Website I cannot tell whether it is commercial or not commercial. One might allow his/her photo published free of charge on Website like yours (if asked). But you cannot be angry if someone is upset when he/she discovers his/her photo on your Website, not being asked for permission before.
Whether the Website is commercial or not may affect someone's decision if he agrees for use of his photographs (free of charge or for a fee).
However REGARDLESS of being commercial or not, institutional or private, professional or hobby-wise - every Website has to obey the Copyright and NOT publish photos without permission from Author. This is not the matter of money. Copyright is - above all - the right of the Author TO DECIDE who, how, when, where uses or re-uses the Author's work. Money (publication fees) is just one of several Copyright related issues that may be or may not be involved in particular case. But it is Author to decide, not the user (who is - to put it gently - not polite enough to ask for permission of use of a photo).
Author decides if his work may be reproduced somewhere else or not, for a fee or free of charge, without caption or with "fully featured" caption containing Author's name and link to his Web page. Author decides not the one who saw a pic on the Net and took it because he liked or "needed" the picture.
Rules do not need to be worked out. You even do not have do know Copyright. The rules are already in place and known at least from due diligence in approach to someone else's property (such as photos) and from sound reasoning and from sense of politeness.
It is true that when there was a Copyright watermark on the photo you have not removed it. But in case of many photos that did not have an Author's mark on them - why have NOT you (at least) provided name of the Author and link to source - for example Shipspotting.com page with this particular photo in caption of photo on your Website (not to mention asking for permission first,
but even if we forget asking for permission - why Author's names and sources were not provided) ?...
And if you have to act quickly about the news... You do not have time to ask the Author for permission and you cannot wait for his answer which may not come immediately...
Why not put only a thumbnail on your Website with direct link to original Website and particular Web page, where the Author (member of Shipspotting.com or MarineTraffic.com community) put his photo by his own will and agreeing to show this photo to the public free of charge ?...
Why not thumbnail and link to original source (like on
this page) instead of placing the medium or full size photo on your Website without even mentioning the Author's name and source ?...
I am not extremely active Shipspotting.com member. However I upload photos from time to time. This is part of my hobby and why not share views of ships with other members of the community. However putting pics on the Web does not automatically mean I am allowing to RE-USE and RE-PUBLISH them on whatever (Web) place in whatever way someone wishes...
Regards,
Peter
