An appeal to GR authors

deiby said
DMCA compliance is what actually protects Envato I believe. That’s what it’s for. Look at YouTube vs Viacom for a good example.

I just read up on that. That is actually good to hear! I wasn’t aware of this, and it seems that for once a ruling in all these copyright nonsense trials actually makes sense.

That’s probably also where the difference with MegaUpload comes in. It seems that here they actually have definitive proof that the owners/managers of the company were fully aware of pirated files on their servers and actively encouraged uploading and spreading them both undertaking it themselves and paying others to do so. Otherwise they would logically have to be protected under the same DMCA compliance…

Cheers

Chris

Edit. Thanks for the information Deiby.

ShermanJackson said
As long as it’s used for “preview” purposes only, I think it’s fine. If it were not fine, the flyer section and a few others would need to go on holiday.

I don’t think it matters. You are not allowed to use images you do not have a licence for, not even in the preview. Only that in the preview you do not need an “extended” licence which you would need if you wanted to include the image in the download. That’s the only difference between preview images and included images.

But without the appropriate license you are not allowed to use the images anywhere, preview not.

Cheers

Chris

chrisatlemon said

ShermanJackson said
As long as it’s used for “preview” purposes only, I think it’s fine. If it were not fine, the flyer section and a few others would need to go on holiday.

I don’t think it matters. You are not allowed to use images you do not have a licence for, not even in the preview. Only that in the preview you do not need an “extended” licence which you would need if you wanted to include the image in the download. That’s the only difference between preview images and included images.

But without the appropriate license you are not allowed to use the images anywhere, preview not.

Cheers

Chris

The main thing is the solution or confirmation coming from envato. Arguing will make matters worse.

ShermanJackson said
The main thing is the solution or confirmation coming from envato. Arguing will make matters worse.

Sorry Sherman, I wasn’t arguing, just clarifying – no offence

I think if you re-read the thread from the start you will see that the discussion is not whether unlicensed images are allowed in the preview or not. We know that they are not, and Envato state this clearly in their rules. There is no discussion on this.

The discussion is why there are so many items which are clear infringements, how they can slip through, and why nothing is done about it. This is why the thread was started … I guess we got a little sidetracked along the way

Cheers

Chris

ShermanJackson said
The main thing is the solution or confirmation coming from envato. Arguing will make matters worse.

You don’t need a confirmation from Envato at all. If You want to use any of the photo or graphics in whatever (preview, item for sale or just a personal wallpaper) YOU NEED to have propper license of use.

As said before, in preview You will be fine with standard license as long as You wish to include it in your download.

For Envato reviewers it is almost impossible to ask for license documentations as the review process would be like 1-3 files per day and authors from foreign countries has it in their own language.

Now to the point of famous people. In most cases the owner of rights is the photographer who made the picture and if You have his permission or bought the photo from him with some kind of standard license, then it is fine to use it in your preview.

I don’t know if Authors bought it, but only the photographer or the rights holder of the photography can send DMCA .

Right I came across another forum that is discussing this exact problem

Envato staff have replied there

I will not post the link to the forum as I’m pretty sure that wont be allowed but here is what one of the Envato staff have said on the matter

“Hi Folks,

Thanks for bringing up the question of copyrighted assets in preview images. It’s very clear that we should do more to educate our contributor community about licensing. I’ve just had a meeting with our CEO and legal counsel to work out how we can best do this.

It seems that images shown in some of the previews mentioned have most likely not been licensed properly. I’ve let our support team know, and the items will be removed from the site and the relevant contributors will be contacted.

For clarity, our policy on the marketplaces is that contributors are responsible for appropriately licensing images (and other assets) to be used in both previews and items for sale. We have provided a free asset library for some time for contributors to use, though it’s fairly limited. And of course licensing stock photography appropriately is also a common and acceptable way to demonstrate previews.

When we are made aware of any item that is infringing someone else’s copyright, we act to take down the item and notify the contributor.

When an contributor uploads an item for sale they must agree/assert that it is their own work or they have an appropriate license:

“Any images, sounds, video, code, flash, or other assets that are not my own work, have been appropriately licensed for use in the file preview or main download. Other than these items, this work is entirely my own and I have full rights to sell it on ThemeForest.”

On our upload instructions and pages we provide links to documentation like this article “What images, videos, code or music can I use in my items?” http://wiki.envato.com/selling/tips-selling/what-images-videos-illustrations-or-music-can-i-use-in-my-items/

Misuse of other people’s IP is not the intention of our marketplaces at all.

There’s a lot to do to improve the marketplaces, so I’m grateful that the community pushes for action on important issues like this one.

I know some of you have already referred to our T&Cs regarding how seriously we take intellectual property, and want to assure you that you will see actions that back up our intent of respecting the intellectual property of others.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we will be looking to see how best we can address the wider issue and educate contributors to keep their items clean and clear. I think we can do more to encourage them to use our asset library, creative-commons licensed photos, and of course licensed stock photography in particular.

In my experience a big push with the contributors yields good results. Most contributors want to do the right thing, and have most likely failed to understand the issues involved.

If you have any questions, please let me know. I’ll add this thread to email notifications so I hear about any subsequent posts.

Thanks”

Thanks for the quote Matu I cam here to post it..

By the way I’m sure Envato is handling this with care, I agree with chrisatlemon in the previous page, we said almost the same things

I want to say again that for prevention, is better to use only licensed images, to protect the markets reputation and future.

or granted access to use the image/s from the author in written form

I think that authors should continue to include preview images in articles but must include a file called sources.txt

In this files (sources.txt) authors in that file should include the source of the images.

Happy ending for all