Document guidelines for including copyrighted content and images

[aschrijver]

This issue was triggered by the https://github.com/humanetech-community/humanetech-community-awareness/issues/11#issuecomment-428855298 made by @micheleminno and concerns including content and images that may be subject to copyright.

I was also starting to arranging a first draft of the readme file, with some pictures useful to convey better my idea..

This is a documentation task, that should become part of Contribution Guidelines.

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It is very common for people to 'steal' pictures and video's from all over the internet, and dowload, modify and re-send them, without giving proper attention to the copyright of these artworks.

You can mostly get away with this on a personal bsais, but technically this constitutes Copyright Infringement. It is NOT DONE to handle copyrighted works in the same way for an open-source project (this project and its contents are licensed as Creative Commons, so it is in the public domain).

Instead proper care needs to be taken to refer to copyrighted work in the correct ways and apply attribution to the creators where it is due. Some uses are only allowed with explicit prior consent of the copyright owners.

For now just remember the following guidelines:

• Do NOT upload images, text and other files if you are unsure about the licensing
• Only if you are 100% sure the license matches that of this project, then uploading is possible

If you are not sure, then make reference to the work instead, by creating a link:

• Add a link to the original location of the artwork. You can use the toolbar or Markdown formatting
• Some websites, like Flickr, allow you to include Embed HTML. You can copy that in your Markdown
  • But Github does not allow <script> tags, so you need to remove that
• Follow this by mentioning the source, author and license (whatever info you know) in text
  • Be as complete as possible

Example:

I would like to add this to the Mood Board of the campaign:

(source: Caught in the App LONDON by Ritzo ten Cate on flickr)

This is the Markdown source for this inclusion:

<a data-flickr-embed="true" data-header="true"  href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ritzotencate/38632780411/in/album-72157674642373921/" title="Caught in the App LONDON"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4526/38632780411_b093240a31_n.jpg" width="320" height="213" alt="Caught in the App LONDON"></a>

 _(source: [Caught in the App LONDON](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ritzotencate/albums/72157689617769444) by [Ritzo ten Cate](https://ritzotencate.com/about/) on [flickr](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ritzotencate/albums))_

[aschrijver]

This task is now part of the Aware Prepare: Growth hacking the Awareness Campaigns project campaign.

[aschrijver]

(This comment was copied from https://github.com/humanetech-community/humanetech-community-awareness/issues/25#issuecomment-429732668 and then adapted)

There is one big point of concern, regarding your using images and modifying them, and this is portrait rights and permissions:

• People may not want to have their face associated with the memes we create (I would not)!
• We need permission before we combine text and image!

I used pictures from Ritzo ten Cate's "Lost in the App" series, who are perfect candidates for 'Phone Zombies' campaign. But here I even regret the association in the Zombies thread (will change this).

Note that e.g. Facebook has functionality that reports to users where their face has been used, when they turn on Facial recognition. Then we'll be in trouble.

[aschrijver]

On Google Images you can do 'Licensed searches' to find stuff you are allowed to use and modify. If it is not labeled 'noncommercial' then you'll still need to check how it is licensed (e.g. must buy permission on stock photo's), and also Google can make mistakes, so always need to check.

Here is an example of the Google UI:

We should add a separate stage to the Campaign / Deliverables workflow, where we do a licensing check, to ensure we are not in violation.

[ghost]

There is one big point of concern, regarding your using images and modifying them, and this is portrait rights and permissions

I would tend to think we have rights to use and modify images in any way we want, once we purchased rights to them. I may be wrong, and I guess we would have to check what the rights entail whenever we purchase one.

@aschrijver, if you already know of some prevailing legal practice that applies here, I would be happy to read - and abide.

[aschrijver]

Permissions vary on a case-by-case basis, or per provider. But I am no expert in the field. Let's keep this as an open task to evaluate further.

[ghost]

We would have to trust every contributor to make sure copyrights would not be violated if we modify, or use a certain picture. Once a creation is validated by the group, we can have an opportunity to double check. Just being extra cautious!

[aschrijver]

This is comparable to what large open-source projects do. They have a license verification process built in. If you have a NodeJs project, for instance, your project will draw in 100's or even 1000's of 3rd party modules. Most will be MIT licensed, but some will lack license or licensed differenttly. This may mean the module may not be used, and is forbidden to be included.

Then on large organizations like apache.org they require contributors to sign an agreement in which they state they have read the contributor guidelines. This however is too formal for us, but may come somewhere in the future.

[ghost]

Did some research into the use of copyrighted images to create memes. Please see https://thelawtog.com/memes-violate-copyright-law/

The gist of it (unless I read it wrongly) is that:

• A meme is an example of derivative work, which normally only the copyright owner can produce
• However, a valid defense is "fair use". The article referenced here mentions four aspects that a court would consider when assessing that defense. The first one, and most relevant, is whether the intended use is for commercial or non-profit, educational purposes.
• Generally, to be cautious, you should buy the rights or a license.

My conclusion from this: Given that we are a respectable organization, we should err on the cautious side. While it appears it would be hard for a court to resist our defense of fair use, it is much more prudent to buy a license (not so expensive!), in which case we should be fine.

[aschrijver]

Cool! And 1st search with Google Images to check for non-commercial images requiring no license.

[micheleminno]

About using copyright music in a video: https://tubularinsights.com/copyrighted-music-in-video/#101

In principle even a few secs of a song added to a video soundtrack is a copyright violation.

[aschrijver]

We need to find out how to deal with that. There should be methods to work with music before having attained the copyright. Maybe - just like with stock photography - there are 'watermarked' versions that e.g. have a recurring bleep in them, or are lower sound quality, or something.

I created a separate issue for that, here: https://github.com/humanetech-community/humanetech-community-awareness/issues/58