Originally posted by: lordjediOriginally posted by: Marvolo
As long as other things are in the image you can't be charged, I looked it up. A couple years back they tried to copyright any photos taken of the eifel tower. They were trying to make it so any photos taken of the eifel tower could not be posted publicly because the eifel tower image is trademarked. The courts said they couldn't stop people publishing their photos as long as other objects were in the image or background. This is because the person could say he was taking a picture of something else and the eifel tower was in the shot but he took the shot anyway. The person who took these pictures can argue the same logic, such as, " I was taking a picture of my hand at different angles when turning pages to visually determin the stress on joints and how the muscles in my hand would flex, since this was the book I had at the time it became part of the experiment." Also, the person who originally posted all the images didn't title them in any specific way so his intentions may not have been the reproduction of the book. If a lawyer will argue a case of someone suing McDonalds for making them fat and win, then this kid could win his case. Also, Scolastic is the one who said libraries could open the boxes early, that is their own stupid mistake.
I'm pretty sure that case was unique in that the Eiffel tower is a public landmark. I'm also pretty sure that a judge would laugh in your face for even attempting a defense like that. So you had to flip through nearly 800 pages to determine how your joints moved and then instead of posting it somewhere like myspace or facebook, you put it up in a torrent that clearly is related to Harry Potter and not images of joints moving? HAHAHAHAHAHA. GUILTY!
This guys intentions are very clear and I'll be surprised if he isn't prosecuted. You may think your defense will work, but a judge isn't going to think so (I don't think even you think it'll work, sounds more like a devil's advocate argument). This is definitely a copyright violation.