Somebody on facebook – no, NOT me – has posted a reprint of an old MR article. Does MR care? I don’t want to get anybody in trouble, but I also respect copyright.
how old an article? year
Copyright lasts for “a work made for hire” 95 years. It is probably illegal and unethical. I don’t know if MR has the resources to file for damages or if it has to prove there are actual damages.
We had a local restaurant named Sony’s, the owner was a Phillipino American named Sony and the Sony Corp thought it worthwhile to sue her and maker her change the name of her restaurant. Sony was successful.
You could email MR editorial wih a link to the facebook page and they might give you a “Finders Fee”.
Interesting on that, since there are multiple factors there - first, no one is legitimately going to confuse a restaurant for consumer electronics, and two, it’s their actual family name - Sony the electronics company is a made up name. More likely as a small family owned restaurant they just didn’t have the resources for fight it and had no choice. Completely wrong if a court ruled that.
–Randy
Sony has to challenge everyone, large and small. If you let anyone get awat with it, you weaken your overall case.
Rich
Johnson & Johnson didn’t feel the need to go after Johnsons’ Lumber or Johnson’s Menswear in my town. Nobody goes to either to buy bandaids and baby powder.
But, maybe if an accounting firm, or a law firm started up with the name Johnson & Johnson, Johnson & Johnson just might take action against that.
Mike.
We are confusing “trademark”- the legal protection for names, logos and symbols associated with particular goods or services (such as “Sony” or the McDonalds arches), with “copyright” which protects original works of writing, music, art and photography and such, for example an article in MR or a Ted Rose painting or Phil Hastings photograph. This can be a fine line: Disney owns the trademark in Mickey Mouse’s image, but also a copyright in images taken from a Mickey Mouse cartoon film or book.
With rare exceptions MR/Kalmbach owns the copyright in its articles, whether staff written or outside author (from time to time over the years I have seen the copyright symbol (C) next to an author’s name on an MR article). I believe they and Trains magazine are reasonably liberal about giving permission for copying, but most places that permit ask for a phrase such as “used by permission” or something along those lines. I have seen handouts at clinics that were permitted copies of articles.
Indeed Kalmbach freely gives permission to copy their scale drawings provided you make the copy for yourself and your own purposes and do not distribute or share the copy/copies with others.
Without knowing what agreement Kalmbach enters into with its authors, sometimes the original actual author, even if they have been paid for their work, is permitted to make further use of their article. BUT even then, Kalmbach always adds original work of its own to every article: not just the editing, but the graphic design, organization, photos and drawings, etc. They retain the exclusive copyright in that original work. The original author might be able to make use of his words, but not the actual version printed in MR because that contains original work that was not his (or hers).
One test for copyright violations is, did it deprive the copyright holder of the value