Table of Contents 1. Copyright Matters 1.1. The genesis of the research 1.2. What Google dug up 1.3. Delving deeper 1.4. Fair use 1.5. Technical aspects 1.6. The matter of onus 1.7. Summary dismissal 1.8. A lovely ending 1. Copyright Matters 1.1. The genesis of the research 1.1.1. I had always believed [from reading books on creating web pages] that one was free to copy and use any image on the web, albeit that there may be some "restrictions" whereby the "right click" has been disabled or replaced with a message to say "do not copy", especially if the "invitation to copy" in the top LH corner [Microsoft browsers, post 1995] is not there. One might also be able to copy a downloaded image from their temp directory [if they know how], and if one does that to overcome a disabled right click then it seems different considerations might apply at law in regard to copyright protection, as it is hardly an invitation any longer. 1.1.2. The next consideration, which has always seemed to allude those in governments that want to control the web for their own purposes, is that the web is NOT confined to the United States of [God Bless] America [or Australia, as our Prime Minister seems to believe with our "internet anti terrorist laws" that say one must provide an ABN number before taking out a .com.au site], albeit that readily available leading cases would all appear to be in regard to USA cases [involving USA internal issues decided under USA law and legislation]. And to add to the confusion, there do not seem to be any cases directly dealing with "images on the web". However given that Microsoft actually invites one to copy most images and Google makes what is termed a "compilation" of images to the user's search instructions, it would seem that it might be most difficult to mount a case that "someone on the other side of the world copied my digital image and used it in their own web site". 1.1.3. So with such "gut feeling" knowledge of the "state of the art" [if not the law] of such practices, I was somewhat taken aback by an aggressive attack upon me recently. The situation is that I host a web site at www.jaearth.com which makes "location specific" compilations of images. The general public is invited to have their own location featured, and they can either upload their "album" themselves [using a directory locked FTP Client] or they can request that I make the compilation [album] myself [and I then upload] based on images they email to me or I obtain by the methods set out hereabove. These compilations generally consist of a sample only of the images available at the user's own web site and a link is provided back to that site. And, as seen herebelow, they are generally of "lesser quality", hence one would assume less attractive to those "pirates" who might seek to copy them for "devious" purposes. 1.1.4. In this case there was general agreement [as I saw it] that that person wished to have his location featured but he appeared to have little understanding of the FTP method, and also did not seem to understand the principle hereabove of making a new album containing just a sample of his own site [which has a large number of uncompressed images, so was not suitable for the "art" of my site]. I therefore made an album on behalf of the person as set out hereabove, but the person threatened all manner of draconian legal sanctions upon me, whereupon I removed the album from my site [and ultimately from my server], while I researched the issue in general. 1.2. What Google dug up 1.2.1. I therefore started my search by putting "image copyright" into Google and came up with a web site at: Digital Images and Fair Use Web Sites Maryly Snow Librarian Architecture Slide Library University of California, Berkeley 1.2.2. Now it may well be that by assuming [a very dangerous thing in the law] that this site was "up to date" on such law, that I may have missed some recent authorities [at least in USA] relating more specifically to copyright of images. If that is so then I will be very interested to see any such advocacy by others based on any later cases and compare that to my interpretation based upon "non image" cases. In this way I am not attempting to fully research this complex subject, but rather to get a general "feeling for the law". 1.2.3. This site refers to the case of Feist and makes the following assertion: In 1994, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the Supreme Court in Feist v. Rural Telephone, reaffirmed the Constitutional basis for the 1976 Copyright Law: "The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art....[Copyright law] ultimately serves the purpose of enriching the general public through access to creative works." (1) 1. Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 US 340,349 (1991 1.3. Delving deeper 1.3.1. Now these are the first court cases I have read under USA law, albeit I have read thousands under Australian law, and a few from the House of Lords, mainly concerning Family Law. It would seem there are some basic differences in the "compilations" [to use that appropriate copyright term] between the jurisdictions. Firstly the UK/Aust system tends to blend all paragraphs into a "judicial soup", apparently to deter any "non legal" people from chancing their hand at the law, whereas the USA system separates facts, precedent and judgment by the use of Roman numerals. But on the other hand the UK/Aust system is very particular about quoting from other cases, setting out the text exactly as stated in separate [indented] paragraphs, while the USA art seems to have licence to just "throw in" a phrase from another case, in mid sentence, and indeed even quoting more than one case in one sentence. 1.3.2. That "license" seems to be further contorted in the USA in the case of "articles" such as the one hereabove. I am not being critical as such, as the article has put me on the "Yellow Brick Road" to understanding copyright law, but I will attempt to dig a bit deeper to find the source of the "lofty ideals" stated hereabove. This is the actual quotation from Feist which best matches the quotation of Snow. It may seem unfair that much of the fruit of the compiler's labor may be used by others without compensation. As Justice Brennan has correctly observed, however, this is not "some unforeseen byproduct of a statutory scheme." Harper & Row, 471 U.S., at 589 (dissenting opinion). It is, rather, "the essence of copyright," ibid. and a constitutional requirement. The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Art. I, 8, cl. 8. Accord, Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 156 (1975). To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. Harper & Row, supra, at 556-557. This principle, known as the idea/expression or fact/expression dichotomy, applies to all works of authorship. As applied to a factual compilation, assuming the absence of original written expression, only the compiler's selection and arrangement may be protected; the raw facts may be copied at will. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art. 1.3.3. As seen, the first sentence is actually [according to Feist] from Aiken [but see below]. The second sentence is from Harper & Row and the third sentence is in fact from Feist, but because the sentence commencing "This principle" has been omitted, the words "This result" are supposedly tagged to a totally different "principle" then that in Feist. The last sentence does not seem to appear in any of the cases, but would seem to be a direct quote from the legislation or perhaps a dissenting judgment that was not published [at least on the web]. So while the whole submission is very "sloppy" and not suitable for court advocacy [in Australia], it is a good starting point. 1.3.4. The next issue is that all of the quotations were by way of obiter dicta, as well as dealing with dissenting judgments in part, and rather than I try to explain what that means, I will leave it to Justice Kirby in his keynote address to AustLII in 1998: Thinking conceptually: Thinking conceptually (indeed thinking reflectively at all) is still a great challenge to some lawyers. Bentham was not wrong. The danger of the common law methodology, from precedent to precedent, is that conceptual differences between circumstances of cases are papered over by superficial similarity between the facts. AustLII will give the lawyer and the public ready access to court decisions. But this will be no substitute for proper legal analysis. Indeed, it may be dangerous for people to assume that everything said in a reported judgment represents the law. The judge cited may be in dissent as, alas, I often am myself. The passage cited may be inessential to the resolution of the case - so-called obiter dicta which do not bind later courts. The court in question may not have the authority to require that its decision be followed by those who come later. The decision may itself quickly be overtaken or even over-ruled on appeal. AustLII can help with some of these problems, especially the last. But access by the people to the law requires an understanding of how legal principles are derived from cases and then used in later cases to guide the decision-maker to a conclusion. Providing undigested legal material is not enough. 1.3.5. However I will enter the discussion "at the other end" via this judgment in Feist. This case was principally concerned with copyright of compilations, specifically two competing telephone books. In my submission that relates directly to my own issue regarding compilation of images into albums, and in my submission, there is a side issue here that by making a unique compilation of images from someone else, I may myself be "top dog" in the "copyright war". The court then goes on to rebuff the "sweat of the brow" contention from earlier authorities, particularly after the 1976 amendments to the Act. This would seem to put paid to the argument of my own accuser based upon "I walked 300 miles to take those pictures", and I will return to that herebelow. 1.3.6. The judgment concludes by descending from the competing compilations issue, back to the issue of the source material whereby the law says even if "stated" as copyright, it still must have a claim to originality, albeit the bar is set quite low. But in my case I would be asking about that bar level with a "Point & Shoot" camera, in the case where the camera was digital and required no special skill to "import" to a PC and "upload" to the web. It would seem to me that in reading these cases as to such a benchmark, the question falls to "could the next person to that location have recorded the same image?". 1.3.7. That is to say the law is very clear that "fact" can not be the subject of copyright and in my submission it would be hard to argue down the contention that a Point & Shoot digital camera simply records digital fact. It may be possible to argue that an SLR digital camera might invite [but not necessarily invoke] some of the skills of photography from bygone times that might take the act of "shooting" above that low benchmark, albeit that I would argue not. Remember that the fact you had to "travel for 40 days and nights over the desert" to get that "special shoot/shot" is of no consequence with "sweat of the brow" authorities being overturned. 1.3.8. So the paragraphs hereabove concerning the "lofty ideals" regarding the furtherance of art and science were, as I say, most definitely obiter [albeit most tantalising obiter], as it opened up an "ecclesiastical safety valve" in my own "case", albeit that the source of that obiter is a bit hard to find. But by following the trail it is clear that it is simply the Objects of the Act. To explain, Objects are generally contained in the first few Sections of an act [though in USA acts it seems the words Section and Object are not used]. These are general Sections applying to the Act as a whole, and can be argued in a court where appropriate, albeit that blood sucking lawyers rarely would do so. 1.3.9. I say rarely as my main experience is in family law where the George Clooney character Miles Massey in Intolerable Cruelty is spot on, in any country [eg Paul McCartney in his recent property "settlement"]. The point is that justice and equity have nothing to do with the practice of family law, which is simply a "dash for the cash" and bring out the plain brown paper envelopes. So it is no accident that my favourite quote is by Sir Gerald Brennan [as he later became] in the 1991 High Court case Harris vs Caladine, where His Honour said "It seems that the pressures on the Family Court are such that there is no time to pay more than lip service to the lofty rhetoric of s.43 of the Act. That is the section which speaks of the need to preserve and protect the institution of marriage as the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others voluntarily entered into for life (par.(a)) and the need to give the widest possible protection and assistance to the family as the natural and fundamental group unit of society, particularly while it is responsible for the care and education of dependent children (par.(b))." 1.3.10. The case was about the legitimacy of making the family court into an even more efficient sausage factory by delegating the stamping of the orders by "consent" to non judicial officers called Registrars. The majority decision said yes, as long as under direct supervision of a Chapter III [of the Constitution] judge, so Brennan J was dissenting but nevertheless making a stinging comment on the court. In particular he notes that there are Objects in the Family Law Act and they express "lofty ideals" but blood sucking lawyers are in the business of breaking up marriages, not mending them. 1.3.11. So back to the Objects of Copyright law and specifically my own hypothetical case. It would seem that the global concept at jaearth.com could well be argued as being unique [if not also to the benefit of art and knowledge, and perhaps science] in several facets, including the compilation of the album for the accuser. So although I do not expect such matters to be tested in a court [particularly as the accuser is in Greece and I am in Australia] in my submission such a case on American soil would find the complaint being dismissed with costs [see hereunder]. 1.4. Fair use 1.4.1. Without making any more quotes from case law or legislation, Snow goes on to mention what she describes as "Fair Use Sites" [ie web sites]. There seems to be a connection in her mind between the Objects and Fair Use, but it is far more simple than that. While the Objects are "up front", at the other end of the Act we have a type of caveat by way of fair use, per: 17 U.S.C. § 107. Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Fair Use Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies of phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -- 1 The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; 2 The nature of the copyrighted work; 3 The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and 4 The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all of the above factors. 1.4.2. In legal parlance we have here "a little list" of factors [generally called matters in Australian/UK legislation, but then mistakenly called factors by blood sucking lawyers], and this one is a non exclusive disjunctive list, meaning you only need to pass the threshold test [get up] on one of the factors, plus you could argue a similar matter not specifically in the list. 1.4.3. To return to my own hypothetical case, but without going into pages of detail, I can in fact see pages and pages of submission as to why my use could easily be argued as fair use, based on the four factors in § 107. I will however just mention two obvious factors, firstly [as for the fair use sites] my usage generally involves a "lower resolution" image [factor #3], and I will return to that matter herebelow. Secondly [factor #4] the fact that my usage always involves a link to the "owner's" web site means, in my submission, that any "effect" would be positive, and not negative, as it essentially amounts to free advertising. 1.4.4. But, even putting the list aside, in my submission there is a powerful corollary to be argued via the sub-section after the list re unpublished works, but in reverse. In my case I will generally, by necessity/logic, be using an image that is already on the web. Therefore my submission is that anybody who actually publishes their work on the web, with no protection [eg watermarks] other than what I might call "chest beating" of "this is copyright so keep away", can expect no support at all at law if someone uses the image, other than for a blatant "re-sale". 1.5. Technical aspects 1.5.1. To follow on from the chest beating argument, it seems that a lot of the misunderstanding of the legal position happens as a result of not actually understanding the technical and marketing aspects of images on the web. To use the vernacular, the web beat the digital camera by a short half pixel, meaning that as we poured over our copy of "Idiots Guide to HTM[L]" back in 1996, it said "your scanner may well be able to scan at 600 dpi, but you only have 72 ppi on your screen so you are wasting your time scanning at high resolution". 1.5.2. Two other things were also important back then, firstly dead slow dial up speeds and small site allocations meant that images included in a web page were generally limited to 320 x 240 pixels or so, and maybe 20 kb. Technically, apart from images going to average 640 x 480, nothing really changed resolution wise with digital cameras, broadband and web hosting. The new P&S digital camera in 1998 or so was an absolute boon for enabling high quality [screen wise] image presentation, but "serious photographers" remained with film, firstly because they were generally dealing in printed material as the end product and secondly because they also wanted more control than afforded by the P&S camera, which in essence was a digital version of the automatic [except for focus] "rangefinder" camera from 30 years before. 1.5.3. In recent times the P&S became cheaper and cheaper while the "megapixels" specification got bigger and bigger, and the digital SLR came to be, changing the minds of most serious photographers about their film type SLRs. And the marketing of course pushed the "size does matter" mantra [megapixels wise]. The result was that in essence the basic principles stated above have been lost in history and many website designers use images of a resolution possibly 10 times that required for "best for PC" display for no other reason than "I can do it" [meaning they have a free 10 Gb webspace and 10 mb broadband speed, and of course a 10 megapixel P&S camera]. 1.6. The matter of onus 1.6.1. So you may well ask "where is this taking us?". Well, in what would appear to be a Kafkaesque juxtaposition it seems to be these same [chest thumping] people who are yelling the loudest about "this is copyright, so do not copy" who are the ones furthest removed from any relief under the legislation. As an example of my own accuser, the images I copied and compiled into my own compilation were "compacted" to an average file size of 25% of the files copied [meaning that while they looked the same (to me) on the screen, the compression would have almost certainly rendered my versions totally unsuitable for anyone else to "re-copy". Furthermore my rendition meant that the image files had green frames around them. 1.6.2. Now the accuser framed [no pun intended] his complaint [as best I can understand it] as an infringement of his copyright because of the compression and the inclusion of the frame. In my submission he was completely misunderstanding the purpose of copyright legislation, and my experience is that that misconception is more the norm than the exception. 1.6.3. So the gravamen of copyright, in my submission, is that as for most legal questions the onus is on the accuser to prove infringement and clearly to get up, the petitioner has many hurdles to jump over in a forum where "sweat of the brow" and "chest beating" have no place at all. Obviously the petitioner has an onus to prove he/she was financially disadvantaged [or possibly potentially disadvantaged?] by the actions of the accused, so if the petitioner was in fact already offering the same image [ie same resolution] for anyone to download, then in my submission the hurdle is very high indeed. But if, as in the "case" I am using as an example, the accuser is already providing better versions of the image himself/herself then, in my submission, the case is lost, with costs. 1.6.4. In this way copyright is totally different to patent law, where a person must jump though hoops [as I found] to actually get a piece of paper to say they own a patent. For copyright, that designation is essentially "provisionally inferred" and not by way of a piece of paper, so in my submission it would be a far harder job to successfully litigate, and with the full onus upon such a litigant to prove firstly they were entitled to copyright in the first place, before then having to argue down the respondent's Objects and [disjunctive] Fair Use justification. So, in my submission, it is understandable why there are not a lot of cases litigated. 1.6.5. In this way I am saying that a person can actively avoid any situations that offend the Objects of the legislation simply by following the "rules of the game" whereby as long as one renders their image as "no better than required for best for PC" then he/she has automatically fended off those looking to "pirate" the original work. And if not happy with such measures then it is simple matter to add a "watermark" to totally "spoil" the image for potential pirates. 1.6.6. It may be appropriate to provide a last word from Lord Brandon in the House of Lords in the case of Livesey and Jenkins, per: "I would end with an emphatic word of warning. It is not every failure of frank and full disclosure which would justify a court in setting aside an order of the kind concerned in this appeal. On the contrary, it will only be in cases where the absence of full and frank disclosure has led to the court making, either in contested proceedings or by consent, an order which is substantially different from the order which it would have made if such disclosure had taken place that a case for setting aside can possibly be made good. Parties who apply to set aside orders on the ground of failure to disclose some relatively minor matter or matters, the disclosure of which would not have made any substantial difference to the order which the Court would have made or approved, are likely to find their applications being summarily dismissed, with costs against them ..." [the emphasis is mine]. 1.6.7. Livesey was a Family Law property case where the husband had consented to transfer the former family home to the wife by way of capitalised spousal maintenance. However the wife had not divulged that she was already engaged to marry another man [now called a partner]. The House decided that her failure to disclose that fact [which nullifies spousal maintenance] did indeed constitute a "miscarriage of justice" from the lack of "full and frank disclosure", but as seen a warning was issued as to "minor matters" being dismissed summarily [with costs]. 1.7. Summary dismissal 1.7.1. In Australia [and I am assuming similar for UK and USA] the authority for summary dismissal is Lindon v. The Commonwealth (No.2) (1996) 70 ALJR 541, per Kirby J [as he then was]: 1. It is a serious matter to deprive a person of access to the courts of law for it is there that the rule of law is upheld, including against government and other powerful interests. This is why relief, whether under O26, r18 or in the inherent jurisdiction of the Court, is rarely and sparingly provided; [General Steel Industries Inc v Commissioner for Railways (NSW) (1964) 112 CLR 125 at 128f; Dyson v Attorney-General [1911] 1 KB 410 at 418. 2. To secure such relief, the party seeking it must show that it is clear, on the face of the opponent's documents, that the opponent lacks a reasonable cause of action [Munnings v Australian Government Solicitor (1994) 68 ALJR 196 at 171f, per Dawson J] or in advancing a claim that is clearly frivolous or vexatious; [Dey v Victorian Railways Commissioners (1949) 78 CLR 62 at 91.] 3. An opinion of the Court that a case appears weak and such that it is unlikely to succeed is not, alone, sufficient to warrant termination. [Coe v The Commonwealth (1979) 53 ALJR 403; Wickstead v Browne (1992) 30 NSWLR at 5- 7.] Even a weak case is entitled to the time of a court. Experience teaches that the concentration of attention, elaborated evidence and argument and extended time for reflection will sometimes turn an apparently unpromising cause into a successful judgment; 4. Summary relief of the kind provided for by O26, r18, for absence of a reasonable cause of action, is not a substitute for proceeding by way of a demurrer. [Coe v The Commonwealth (1979) 53 ALJR 403 at 409.] If there is a serious legal question to be determined, it should ordinarily be determined at a trial for the proof of facts may sometimes assist the judicial mind to understand and apply the law that is invoked and to do so in circumstances more conducive to deciding a real case involving actual litigants rather than one determined on imagined or assumed facts; 5. If, notwithstanding the defects of pleadings, it appears that a party may have a reasonable cause of action which it has failed to put in proper form, a court will ordinarily allow that party to reframe its pleading. [Church of Scientology v Woodward (1980) 154 CLR 25 at 79.] A question has arisen as to whether O26, r18 applies to part of a pleading. [Northern Land Council v The Commonwealth (1986) 161 CLR 1 at 8.] However, it is unnecessary in this case to consider that question because the Commonwealth's attack was upon the entirety of Mr Lindon's statement of claim; and 6. The guiding principle is, as stated in O26, r18(2), doing what is just. If it is clear that proceedings within the concept of the pleading under scrutiny are doomed to fail, the Court should dismiss the action to protect the defendant from being further troubled, to save the plaintiff from further costs and disappointment and to relieve the court of the burden of further wasted time which could be devoted to the determination of claims which have legal merit." [the emphasis is mine]. 1.7.2. With this in mind I read with some order of mirth the case hereabove Twentieth Century Music Corp.v.Aiken 422 U.S. 151, where it was said: The Copyright Act of 1909, 35 Stat. 1075, as amended, 17 U .S.C. ' 1 et seq. gives to a copyright holder a monopoly limited to specified "exclusive" rights in his copyrighted works. As the Court explained in Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists, supra: "The Copyright Act does not give a copyright holder control over all uses of his copyrighted work. Instead, ' 1 of the Act enumerates several 'rights' that are made 'exclusive' to the holder of the copyright. If a person, without authorization from the copyright holder, puts a copyrighted work to a use within the scope of one of these 'exclusive rights,' he infringes the copyright. If he puts the work to a use not enumerated in ' 1, he does not infringe." 392 U.S. at 393-395. Accordingly, if an unlicensed use of a copyrighted work does not conflict with an "exclusive" right conferred by the statute, it is no infringement of the holder's rights. No license is required by the Copyright Act, for example, to sing a copyrighted lyric in the shower. [the emphasis is mine]. 1.7.3. The Aiken judgment was very short and sweet [even if not officially classified as summary dismissal]. The case concerned Mr Aiken, who as owner of a "fast chicken takeout/eat in" joint "broadcast" the local radio station for his patrons. Twentieth Century Music Corp pleaded that Aiken had infringed copyright but, as seen, got nowhere in a very short dismissal judgment. In my submission Aiken has fairly direct application to what I describe hereabove as chest beating applications [with or without sweat of the brow connotations]. 1.7.4. In other words [if needed], it is my submission that copyright legislation and law will frown upon a person [if a case is agitated] who does a "bull in a china shop" and simply says "no person shall have access to my image, even though I have put it on the web". Obviously copyright issues are far more complex than that, even accepting that the image was in fact sufficiently "original" in the first place to allow copyright. And in my submission, if tested, the greater majority of P&S images on the web would be classified as "fact", and therefore not subject to copyright in the first place [see Feist] 1.8. A lovely ending 1.8.1. Having essentially completed this polemic, I received an email from michaelkdickson.com, observing that I was using one of his images [at http://www.themediadoc.com/jalbum/frames.htm] and saying: Subject: Your using one of my photographs without permission You should have asked me if you could use it. Please ask me or take it down! 1.8.2. Now this is my tutorial on compression of images at http://www.themediadoc.com and I had chosen one of his excellent images because they were at the other extreme [no compression] and therefore offered an excellent start point for the tutorial. I never intended to criticise him in any way as it seemed to me he was going out of his way [eg no shopping cart etc, at that time] to allow surfers to download images for high quality printing. However I could see that he might consider it as criticism. 1.8.3. So I emailed back to say: as best I recall, you emailed me re my panoramas site with advice on photography and thanks I took that on board I then asked if you wanted to be part of jaearth.com, but received no reply then as the media doc I did a tutorial on compression to assist people with understanding web vs printout resolution a lot of people have used that tutorial and it DOES link to your site, so I would like to not have to delete the whole tutorial [I dont have time to do it again] so if it seems I did not ask "officially" then CAN I please use your image [under "fair use" - see Copyright Act]. I can add any further credits you might seek 1.8.4. He emailed back to say: Yes thats fine. I have not had a computer for several days. I did not know who you were either. I could just see my web logs and activity from your site. I dont check them that often so sorry about that. Your good. Nice compression info by the way. 1.8.5. Unfortunately I had deleted my original email to him so I am unsure to what extent I asked specifically about this use, but as seen, any minor initial issues were quickly settled, and without any chest thumping but rather as one professional to another. But if he had got nasty and sued me, my provisional defence would have been that my use was "user friendly" both to the Objects of the Act [scientific, educational use] and to the fair use clauses [especially, as he remarks, my use not only did not profit me to his disadvantage, but in fact increased activity at his site]. 1.8.6. I am not inferring he was "trembling in his boots" or could even give a hoot about copyright but rather that I would like to think as such a dedicated and professional photographer [please read his details] he could see the advantages of the old adage [as applied to the "information super highway"] that there is no such thing as bad advertising. But to play the Devil's Advocate, possibly when chest beaters make such a fuss they also have that adage in mind and are just "trolling" [as the term goes]. 1.8.7. Two other things are worthy of mention in passing. Firstly there would seem to no doubt he was entitled to copyright, and by that I am referring to the apparently unanswered [by courts] question of if a P&S image is in fact "data" and not subject to copyright. Every image appears to involve a good amount of artistic and technical content [eg see his remarks about panoramas]. Secondly he obviously uses substantial sweat of the brow [even the opposite of freezing] to actually get to his locations at the optimum time. 1.8.8. And from my point of view, except for the first image, I had essentially made his images at my site totally unattractive to pirates by having a "watermark" graph in the middle of every instance. So had he not said "that's fine, your good" I was proposing to simply delete that single 500 kb image. But as seen, sanity prevailed and the initial innocent misunderstanding was quickly dispensed with, without any chest beating, trolling, or lack of heart's ease of any type.