While Cinema Treasures does serve an educational purpose, “fair use” does not automatically give us the ability to republish copyrighted material.
Posting a complete article is not “fair use” because it duplicates the entirety of the original work, and thus potentially diminishes the value of the work to its original creator. (If we post an entire New York Times article, there’s no reason to read it on the NYT website — and thus we would deprive them of advertising or subscription revenue.)
Anyway, this is standard practice in our industry, it’s been confirmed by our legal team, and we’ve been using these guidelines for over six years.
Generally, linking isn’t considered copyright infringement, even if you link to copyrighted material.
However, if you’ve uploaded copyrighted content to a service like Photobucket without permission, uploading would probably be an infringement. But, since this content is stored on Photobucket, you should check their terms of use to see what’s acceptable.
We’ll probably need to clarify this in the future, Lost. But, for now, use your best judgement.
Actually, Mike, they did cite their sources, but it doesn’t matter. If you republish an entire newspaper article without permission, that’s copyright infringement.
Yes, perhaps we could try to argue that doing so is “fair use” — but, frankly, it’s not worth the effort, especially when most of this material is already available online.
Just stick to posting a link and up to a paragraph from the original story, and you’ll be fine.
…
As for information on the site, you can always post a comment to correct any inaccuracies that you see. (But, longer term, we’ll be taking steps to improve how we handle this issue.)
It does seem that the majority of evidence suggests that 51-06 is correct, so I’ve updated the address. Should the balance sway towards 51-05, we can always change it back.
Thanks to Ed, Lost Memory, and Warren for putting some serious effort into getting the correct address.
Next time, though, please remember that the right answer can sometimes be fuzzy, and it’s ok to have a difference of opinion about something. ;)
Posting more explicit guidelines is a good idea, guys.
Ed — there’s no 5 year requirement. As long as a legitimate theater has served as a movie theater for some period of time (it could be weeks, months, etc.), it’s welcome on Cinema Treasures.
Next time you make a comment, try asking yourself these questions:
• Am I just trying to have the last word?
• Is my comment not informative and helpful?
• Will my comment provoke endless disagreement?
• Will Ross and Patrick have to stop this comment thread?
If the answer is “yes” to any of these, then rewrite your comment until the answer is “no”.
In closing, I’m glad to see the Cinema Treasures community working together and realizing that off-topic comments really do distract from the purpose of this project.
The response to this thread has been tremendous and it’s been thrilling to see how passionate people are about this project. While we still have some challenges, I’m very excited about the future of Cinema Treasures.
If you follow our guidelines, you have nothing to worry about, Life’s too short.
Asking questions about investment opportunities is totally reasonable. Nothing we’ve outlined here prevents you (or other users) from researching such an opportunity carefully.
Cinema Treasures has been and will remain an open forum to talk about movie theaters PRECISELY because I am a VERY STRONG believer in free speech. (Ask Ross and Bryan about all the times I’ve defended the right of a user to post a less-than-flattering comment about a theater, this website, or almost anything else.)
Our basic comment policy is staying the same… we’re just taking a moment to remind people who might have forgotten about it. And we’re now making it clear that we will take action if you contribute to yet another flame war.
This is a common-sense policy, and I think most reasonable people will see that.
There are definitely no hard feelings about Lost Memory, Ed.
We very much value his contributions to Cinema Treasures, and look forward to his return. He’s posted over 7,000 comments to the site, the vast majority of which are awesome. But things had gotten out of hand lately, so it was necessary to suspend him for a while.
And, before you ask, we realize he wasn’t the only person involved in the flaming, so we’ll be speaking with other users, as well.
We’re working on improving search, Ron… but it’s a tough problem to fix. For now, Google is definitely a good workaround. BTW, we’ve substantially improved the performance of theater pages… so you should find them generally faster and more reliable now.
Guys, I’ve clarified the language in the 2nd point… we’re concerned with direct personal attacks.
Posts about general theater management issues — presentation quality, general upkeep, programming, all that stuff — are still acceptable (even if they’re critical).
If you feel it necessary to directly name and criticize someone, think about the consequences first. One post might be acceptable, but an endless series of comments about a person (Paul Warshauer comes to mind) are no longer going to be tolerated. Even if you’re 100% in the right… this sort of discussion doesn’t belong on our theater pages.
You are correct, Moviemanforever. Some users might believe this behavior is ok, so that’s why we’re reminding people what is acceptable (and making it clear what the penalty is for unacceptable behavior).
As for posting long paragraphs, while that might be annoying to you personally, it’s obviously not a good reason to ban users.
When I worked at a movie theater in college, I was able to pick up about 40 movie posters that were laying around in the projection booth. Thankfully, they were all posters for art house films… and none of the local teens working at the theater cared much about those movies.
Jim is right, guys.
If you can’t stay on-topic and be friendly with each other, we may be forced to take action. So please keep things civil, ok?
You are misinformed, shoeshoe14.
While Cinema Treasures does serve an educational purpose, “fair use” does not automatically give us the ability to republish copyrighted material.
Posting a complete article is not “fair use” because it duplicates the entirety of the original work, and thus potentially diminishes the value of the work to its original creator. (If we post an entire New York Times article, there’s no reason to read it on the NYT website — and thus we would deprive them of advertising or subscription revenue.)
Anyway, this is standard practice in our industry, it’s been confirmed by our legal team, and we’ve been using these guidelines for over six years.
Here’s some additional info about “fair use” (including common myths):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
LOL, Lost. :)
Generally, linking isn’t considered copyright infringement, even if you link to copyrighted material.
However, if you’ve uploaded copyrighted content to a service like Photobucket without permission, uploading would probably be an infringement. But, since this content is stored on Photobucket, you should check their terms of use to see what’s acceptable.
We’ll probably need to clarify this in the future, Lost. But, for now, use your best judgement.
Yes, it is unfortunate that some articles are only accessible through pay services, but that doesn’t give us the right to republish them.
While this does happen on other sites, Ed, it is still technically copyright infringement… so please stick to the guidelines above.
Actually, Mike, they did cite their sources, but it doesn’t matter. If you republish an entire newspaper article without permission, that’s copyright infringement.
Yes, perhaps we could try to argue that doing so is “fair use” — but, frankly, it’s not worth the effort, especially when most of this material is already available online.
Just stick to posting a link and up to a paragraph from the original story, and you’ll be fine.
…
As for information on the site, you can always post a comment to correct any inaccuracies that you see. (But, longer term, we’ll be taking steps to improve how we handle this issue.)
It does seem that the majority of evidence suggests that 51-06 is correct, so I’ve updated the address. Should the balance sway towards 51-05, we can always change it back.
Thanks to Ed, Lost Memory, and Warren for putting some serious effort into getting the correct address.
Next time, though, please remember that the right answer can sometimes be fuzzy, and it’s ok to have a difference of opinion about something. ;)
Personally, I think this is gonna rock! :)
Posting more explicit guidelines is a good idea, guys.
Ed — there’s no 5 year requirement. As long as a legitimate theater has served as a movie theater for some period of time (it could be weeks, months, etc.), it’s welcome on Cinema Treasures.
And this thread ends right about… now. :)
Next time you make a comment, try asking yourself these questions:
• Am I just trying to have the last word?
• Is my comment not informative and helpful?
• Will my comment provoke endless disagreement?
• Will Ross and Patrick have to stop this comment thread?
If the answer is “yes” to any of these, then rewrite your comment until the answer is “no”.
In closing, I’m glad to see the Cinema Treasures community working together and realizing that off-topic comments really do distract from the purpose of this project.
The response to this thread has been tremendous and it’s been thrilling to see how passionate people are about this project. While we still have some challenges, I’m very excited about the future of Cinema Treasures.
Stay tuned, guys.
Well, it’s Friday, folks. And I’m heading off to celebrate the holiday weekend.
I hope everyone has a nice weekend. If you have any more concerns, feel free to email me!
If you follow our guidelines, you have nothing to worry about, Life’s too short.
Asking questions about investment opportunities is totally reasonable. Nothing we’ve outlined here prevents you (or other users) from researching such an opportunity carefully.
Relax, Movieman.
Cinema Treasures has been and will remain an open forum to talk about movie theaters PRECISELY because I am a VERY STRONG believer in free speech. (Ask Ross and Bryan about all the times I’ve defended the right of a user to post a less-than-flattering comment about a theater, this website, or almost anything else.)
Our basic comment policy is staying the same… we’re just taking a moment to remind people who might have forgotten about it. And we’re now making it clear that we will take action if you contribute to yet another flame war.
This is a common-sense policy, and I think most reasonable people will see that.
Moviemanforever — we expect you to act like an adult, and to keep your comments on topic and otherwise compliant with our terms of use.
If you’re unable to do that, then, yes, we will take action.
There are definitely no hard feelings about Lost Memory, Ed.
We very much value his contributions to Cinema Treasures, and look forward to his return. He’s posted over 7,000 comments to the site, the vast majority of which are awesome. But things had gotten out of hand lately, so it was necessary to suspend him for a while.
And, before you ask, we realize he wasn’t the only person involved in the flaming, so we’ll be speaking with other users, as well.
We’re working on improving search, Ron… but it’s a tough problem to fix. For now, Google is definitely a good workaround. BTW, we’ve substantially improved the performance of theater pages… so you should find them generally faster and more reliable now.
Guys, I’ve clarified the language in the 2nd point… we’re concerned with direct personal attacks.
Posts about general theater management issues — presentation quality, general upkeep, programming, all that stuff — are still acceptable (even if they’re critical).
If you feel it necessary to directly name and criticize someone, think about the consequences first. One post might be acceptable, but an endless series of comments about a person (Paul Warshauer comes to mind) are no longer going to be tolerated. Even if you’re 100% in the right… this sort of discussion doesn’t belong on our theater pages.
You are correct, Moviemanforever. Some users might believe this behavior is ok, so that’s why we’re reminding people what is acceptable (and making it clear what the penalty is for unacceptable behavior).
As for posting long paragraphs, while that might be annoying to you personally, it’s obviously not a good reason to ban users.
Guys, you’re getting a bit off-topic here.
If you want to have a debate about the best way to be altruistic, please email each other. This news article isn’t the place for it.
Thanks,
Patrick
Yeah, I just noticed that, Chris. Still pretty interesting, though.
And apologies to everyone for posting this story twice this week. When you blog every day, sometimes it’s easy to miss duplicates.
That scene was shot in a real theater, Paul.
According to this website, it was the Civic Theatre in Auckland.
Actually, Jim, it’s just ordinary rope light. But it’s good enough for me. :)
Yes, Ken… they’re showing DVDs, but the projection was pretty decent. They have a large screen with proper masking, etc.
I bet this will be an awesome event.
When I worked at a movie theater in college, I was able to pick up about 40 movie posters that were laying around in the projection booth. Thankfully, they were all posters for art house films… and none of the local teens working at the theater cared much about those movies.
Yeah, that’s exactly right, vito.
The poll usually provokes some pretty interesting discussion, and it’s fun to see what people think about the various questions.
We’ve already gotten some great submissions… keep them coming!