Intellectual Property Rights Best Practices
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This page contains suggestions suitable for discussion. The bullet points are meant to identify issues that are facilitated, or at least not impeded, by MRTG Metadata. These points do not consitute endorsment by MRTG, GBIF, TDWG, or the wiki operators. They were originally contributed by [AnnetteOlson]
Please identify your contribution with your signature and date for ease of discussion.
Recommended ways for protecting and managing copyrighted media resources
- On the your site, have a page that clearly states your policies on public domain and copyrighted images and metadata. (Recommended)
- Display with each image a clear statement of copyright and license, including the use of either the © or ℗ symbol (the latter is used with audio recordings instead of a ©). These symbols, along with the year copyrighted, give a much stronger protection internationally than does just the statement “Copyrighted….” (Recommended)
- For licensing, encourage the use of Creative Commons by photographers - licenses are clearer than “home-grown” statements, yet still provide flexibility. (Recommended)
- Apply a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) to an image, such as an LSID – Life Science Identifier, which is an identifier that travels with an image, but is registered with an authority. Providers can use it to report how many times the resource has been fetched,applications could be written so that original contributors can use it to find out where the resource is being served. Annotation services can use it to support voluntary rreports of the utility of the images fetched by consumers. (Recommended)
- Embed all the metadata, including the GUID, directly into the image file, so that the information travels with it. (Recommended)
- The emerging standard for this is Adobe XMP. MRTG should perhaps develop a MRTG XMP Schema. (This is not an XML Schema. It is defined in the XMP documentation). --BobMorris 02:00, 23 March 2009 (CET)
- If users are able to download images in bulk from your site, have the metadata downloadable also in a separate file (Recommended)
- Embed a visible watermark – extremely problematic, as applying watermarks distorts and overrides information within an image. Aggregators especially should not implement because of the train of branding, and not being the copyright owner or holder. (Recommeded against).
- Attach at the bottom of an image a border that includes the copyright statement. It can be easily removed by whoever downloads, but it is one more layer of protection – one that is easy to add, and can initially at least travel with the image. (no recommendation as of yet)
- Embed an invisible watermark – capabilities still being researched (no recommendation as of yet).
- Providers should insure that their service architecure does not make it difficult for them to respond to "take down notices" in the manner provided by local law and regulation at the point of service. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCILLA#Take_down_and_Put_Back_provisions for US case.
- Providers should insure that their service architecture does not make it difficult for them to issue take down notices in cases where intellectual property served by them is used unlawfully.
- Some portals may choose not serve anything higher than a thumbnail – thumbnails have been found to fall under fair use in U.S. law – though that is still somewhat debated and the size of a thumbnail has not been legally determined in that regard. (Most thumbnails are considered < 150 pixels at 72 dpi, though some are up to 250 pixels on the longest dimension). (Recommended) GBIF nodes that serve as a repository, as well as an aggregator, may serve higher resolutions, but may seek to have additional protections beyond the above, such as serve higher resolutions only by login and passwords.
