http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_a ... 9/9-c.htmlConsider Fair Use Before Requesting DMCA Takedown In 2008, a district court ruled that prior to requesting a takedown notice, a copyright owner must consider the likelihood of a claim of fair use. In that case, Universal Music issued a takedown notice for a video of a child dancing to the song, “Let’s Go Crazy,” by Prince. The owner of the video claimed that since Universal didn’t consider the issue of fair use, Universal could have not had a “good faith belief” they were entitled to a takedown. Faced with this novel issue a district court agreed that the failure to consider fair use when sending a DMCA notice could give rise to a claim of failing to act in good faith. (Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 572 F. Supp 2d 1150 (N.D. Cal. 2008).)
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http://asmp.org/tutorials/frequently-as ... ight.htmlQ:
What is “Fair Use?”
A: Although many people have their own notions about “fair use” of an image, there is a specific statutory definition restricting this category “to purposes such as parody, criticism, comment, news reporting, education (including the distribution of multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.” A good resource on this topic can be found at Stanford University.
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Frequently Asked Questions about publication
Q: Is a photo published if it is on my web site?
A: If it is in a public area of the web site, it is probably published. If it is a private area of the web site, it is probably not published.
If you have unpublished images that you want to post on your web site, you can avoid the published/unpublished issue by registering them as unpublished images before you upload them. It is also important to be aware that registering the web site is different from registering the images on the web site.