Coin Talk - Courtesy Copyright Credits & Coin Collecting
A copy of our posting to the Coin Talk forum.
Despite being a regular contributor (3 posts in 6 years), I just re-read Doug's rules most of which seem pretty reasonable.
We noted the advice about copyright, which is the prime reason for this, my 4th post. It looks as though a few members have not read, or perhaps forgotten, the rules. If I end up breaking, or bending, any of them slightly, I had better apologise here in advance.
Introduction
Most members will not know I am the Chairman and MD of our eponymous company Chard (rule 3 broken already). We have a number of websites (rule 1 broken*) running to over 10,000 pages, containing over 10,000 high quality copyright images.
Photographs
We have invested many man hours in creating informative content, and employ 2 photographers with 3 university degrees between them. We are now on our 4th camera system in 12 years, and the 5th in 40 years.
After investing over £10,000 on a Nikon based system, we junked the lot a few years ago and re-invested in Canon, primarily because it had a complete macro system which Nikon at the time lacked. Apart from making our websites look prettier and more professional, we hope that our viewers and readers appreciate the clear images we provide, we know many fellow dealers appreciate them because over 300 of them use our photographs. We have a "Name & Shame" page on each of our 3 main websites. Recently one British coin dealer complained about his free advert on our sites, threatening legal action for defamation. Our lawyers advise us that what we published was factually accurate, and we have invited the dealer to sue us if he disagrees. In turn, we sent him the first of our "Cease & Desist - Notice of Legal Action" letters. As it can cost upwards of £100,000 to get a copyright case to court, we think our N&S policy is workable, cheaper and more efficient than paying lawyers, in the first instance at any rate. But I digress, as usual.
Coin Talk Rule Breakers
We noticed a few esteemed Coin Talk members have uploaded some of our images, and at least one is using an avatar based on one. While we are delighted that members like our photographs enough to choose them in preference to others, but...
Our Own Rules
...We have a few rules of our own about copyright, and use of our images. We try to be reasonable about this. For non-commercial use, we permit use on condition that a clear credit and indexable link is shown with each image. We believe it is only simple common courtesy to do so even where not required.
We note that Coin Talk has at least one sponsored link or advert, which rules it out of our non-commercial sites if using a strict interpretation, but as this appears to be in support of a good site, then we are happy to relax our interpretation, and will be happy for Coin Talk users to continue using them.
We hope we don't sound too authoritarian, and that everyone will appreciate our viewpoint, or at least respect it.
We would have added a link to our Copyright Notice page, but this might break rule 3B!
* The word website would not have been aired in a 1950's TV show.
Copyright Notice
Please see our "Copyright" page for further information.
Copyright Infringements Remedies
Our suggested draft remedies for copyright abusers dependent on category - competitors, bloggers, pseudo-expert & advice sites acting as eBay & Google portals, eBay & other auction site sellers.
Other Copyright Abuse
Other Copyright Abuse
Other Web Sites
All comments about copyright also cover content of all our other websites including, but not limited to:-
Innocent Infringement?
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The Most Copied Coin Image on the Internet
The Second Most Copied Coin Image on the Internet
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