[thelist] copyrights and linking

[James Wampler - Evolt]

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> Spin the thing around on its ear, and maybe you can better find an answer:
> How would you like to hire someone (I'm assuming the purpose of the
> portfolio is to get hired) that you knew for a fact would disregard your
> rights and do whatever they wanted to with what you paid for, including
> using your own web bandwidth for their own ends?
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Well, since everyone is prefacing their comments with "I am not a lawyer,
but" then i guess I will, too.  The way I interpret this situation, she is
not a violating politicswatch.com's copyright.  As I understand it, she is
not claiming to be the owner of these works, and in fact says on her
portfolio page that these were works she created while employed for
politicswatch.com and are owned by them.  If she copied the images from
politicswatch.com and hosted them on her own site, then she would be
infringing on their copyright, because they are no longer in control of
their property.  If she claims to be the owner of these images, then she
would be in violation of their copyright.  But as it stands right now, she
is simply linking to content to that politicswatch.com has made available,
and that is esentially how the web works.  If they don't want their images
linked to, then they need to remove them from the web.  That is the only way
they can truly protect them.

A better question is to ask if it is ethical to link to these images.  While
it is not as bad as using the images hosted on another site in her design,
she is still using politicswatch.com's bandwidth for her purposes.  As a
rule, I always try to create unique works for my portfolio site, or obtain
permission to link to works I create for pay.  In fact, as part of my
contract, I retain rights to host work I was paid pay on my portfolio site.
Since she made these images once, it might be a better solution to make
images using similar techniques that were used in the politicswatch.com imag
es and host them on her portfolio site.  This would allow her to show off
her skills, and avoid any legal issues.

Hope this helps,

James Wampler
evolt at jwampler.com