[Fsf-friends] On copyright violations...

[Sajith T S]

Hi!

Surely this topic must be of interest to this list?

Background is this: my friend Arun had posted a photograph of his
family's Onam celebrations last year, in flickr.com, under a modest
Creative Commons attribution license.

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/maxaud/234884178/

Recently we came across the same image posted in another website, with
no attribution and no copyright information, with a "BizHat.com" layer
over it.  In fine MS Comic Sans font, no less.  It is posted by a user
called "gallery", with no user information on their profile page.

  http://gallery.bizhat.com/showphoto.php/photo/54916

In fact they have quite a large collection of images there.  I would
be surprised if they are the actual copyright holders of a fraction of
those.  The website has listed no contact info, other than a feedback
form.  (But there's whois, as always...)

Arun has written to the website, and we're waiting to see what's
coming out of it.  I would like to seek your advice on what can be
done under such circumstances, under prevailing copyright laws/norms.
And perhaps more imporantly, what can be done to raise awareness:
come to think of it, perhaps the website owners are too naive to know
that it is actually wrong to use someone else's work this way?

Cheers,
Sajith.
-- 
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than
your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.
		-- Richard Bach, "Illusions"