Chart and copyrights?

[Pavel]

Do I understand it correctly, is scanning paper charts and using them on your own PC considered a copyright infringement? It's been mentioned earlier on the forum.
If yes, could someone explain me the official reasoning for that? Just doesn't seem to make much sense.
OK, I get the scanning and sharing thing - that would be simple piracy. But if I've paid for the charts and want to use them personally on my own PC on my own boat?
I mean, if copying and or/backing up copyrighted material for one's own use is illegal, what about iTunes and uploading your CDs into it? What about Sky+? That's reproduction on another medium, both of them. What if I memorize something from the chart (another medium) or, god forbid, tell you what I've seen on it (distribution and sharing)? What if I write something down or make a sketch?
I would think that buying a product means you can use it the way you please as long as you don't distribute copies to someone else. Am I wrong?
Or could it be that Admiralty, Imray and other providers are afraid of the perceived or real risk of their electronic products not being able to compete with iPads, laptops, Android phones and stuff like that loaded with open source software on raster scanned charts? Is the situation generic and does the same applies to scanning or otherwise converting other products - books, let's say - or is it charts only? Can they actually define what they do and do not allow you to do or not? Whether they can or cannot enforce it is another matter.

 

[bedouin]

Roughly speaking, making any form of copy of a copyright work is unlawful.There are a few exceptions - such as recording a broadcast to watch it later, making back-ups, copying small portions of works for research and so on. These are laws that were made centuries ago and so take no real account of modern technology - they pre-date photocopiers, let alone scanners, MP3, DVDs and so on - and they look increasingly out of date in a digital world

Ripping a CD you own to MP3 is also breach of copyright - but I believe there are plans to make that legal.

Note - in spite of what some people will tell you it is not theft - and not usually a crime. If you copy a work you own for your own use the only thing a company can do is to sue for damages - and that isn't going to happen.

So yes - scanning your own charts onto your PC is breach of copyright. No need to blame the providers as the law has been there for years. However in practice if you own the original and aren't trying to do the printer out of revenue by avoiding buying a second copy then you are probably okay in doing so

 

[prv]

Note - in spite of what some people will tell you it is not theft - and not usually a crime. If you copy a work you own for your own use the only thing a company can do is to sue for damages - and that isn't going to happen.

Also, as people here of all places ought to know, not "piracy". Piracy is theft and violence on the high seas, not commercial copyright infringement. Bill Gates coined the term "software piracy" in a letter in the late 1970s, to make the issue sound more dramatic; if we don't believe that copyright is the single biggest issue facing mankind, there's no need for us to dramatise it.

Pete

 

[Boo2]

Do I understand it correctly, is scanning paper charts and using them on your own PC considered a copyright infringement? It's been mentioned earlier on the forum.
If yes, could someone explain me the official reasoning for that? Just doesn't seem to make much sense.
OK, I get the scanning and sharing thing - that would be simple piracy. But if I've paid for the charts and want to use them personally on my own PC on my own boat?

You may be able to do what you wish under the fair dealing provisions of UK copyright law :

Research and private study

Copying parts of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work or of a typographical arrangement of a published edition for the purpose of research or private study is allowed under the following conditions:

• The copy is made for the purposes of research or private study.
• The copy is made for non-commercial purposes.
• The source of the material is acknowledged.
• The person making the copy does not make copies of the material available for a number of people.

Boo2

 

[electrosys]

"Under the UK's current copyright laws, transferring media from one format to another – for example, from a CD to a computer or an iPod – is illegal, even if the owner is the only person who ever uses the media.
Today the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, will back plans that will legalise the practice.
Under the proposals, based on recommendations made in the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property, the sharing of legitimately purchased media across platforms, and with immediate family members, will be allowed by law.
The Independant, 03 August 2011"

The government, as usual, is playing 'catch-up' with a rapidly-changing technological world.

 

[photodog]

Different licence terms will apply for different publishers as well...

So it's worth looking at the source.. Is it imray, ukho, etc...

Iirc the noaa charts are free to use as you wish.... But you need to check that..

 

[prv]

Iirc the noaa charts are free to use as you wish.... But you need to check that..

It is an admirable principle of US law that no copyright exists in any work produced by the federal government. Hence freely-copiable charts, tide tables, weather data, etc. I bet if the UK government had been the first to put up GPS, they would have charged handsomely to use it and we'd all still be on log, lead and compass.

Pete