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For the last decade, Marjorie Carvalho and her husband have produced Star Wars Action News, a podcast dedicated to Star Wars collectibles of all sorts. Predictably, they've had a lot to talk about, as waves of action figures and other collectibles have been launched in the run-up to the much-anticipated release next week of Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens.
On Tuesday, a Star Wars Action News staffer saw something he shouldn't have—and bought it. A 3 3/4" action figure of "Rey," a female character from The Force Awakens, was on display in a Walmart in Iowa, apparently earlier than it should have been. The staff member bought it for $6.94 plus tax, no questions asked. The following day, he posted pictures of the Rey figure on Star Wars Action News' Facebook page.
"Have we known this figure was coming?" the staffer, named Justin, asked in the post. "I just found her at Walmart—no new other figures."
A short time later, Carvalho got a surprising message.
"A friend texted my husband saying, hey, are you getting sued?" said Carvalho in an interview with Ars Technica. The image from the Facebook post was gone. "We looked and noticed we'd gotten a notice from Facebook saying our image violated copyright. It was confusing because our staff member, Justin, he took the photo."
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2015, @10:17PM
(original AC again)
When someone takes a picture of someone else's copyrighted 3D artwork, such as this toy, there are two copyrights to the photo: the photographer's and the original artist's (the toymaker, here). The page I linked to in my earlier post explains it:
—:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:TOYS#If_I_take_a_picture_of_an_object_with_my_own_camera.2C_I_hold_the_copyright_to_the_picture._Can.27t_I_license_it_any_way_I_choose.3F_Why_do_I_have_to_worry_about_other_copyright_holders.3F [wikimedia.org]
I think you missed my second post, /comments.pl?sid=11088&cid=275294#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]. Someone published a book with photos of dolls, and that was deemed copyright infringement.
Being in a "publicly accessible venue" doesn't matter in this situation. You might be thinking of freedom of panorama. In the United States, that applies only to buildings. We're not discussing a photo of a building.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2015, @11:44PM
My property, my rules. Copyright is not some basic human right, and this is clearly out of line. In the US, copyright's sole reason for existing is to create more innovation, and stopping people from taking photos of their own property and posting them for others to see fails to do that, as well as violates basic human rights. The DMCA is also unconstitutional nonsense.