Plagiarism?

[-Kevin-]

As a qualified lawyer, what Mistified said is legally correct. By law the penalty is a hefty fine rather than imprisonment but yes in answer to sexylucs question technically you could be liable for taking a screencapture or someone's artwork, changing it and reusing.

That said it is unlikely that Seven would ever sue somebody for using their material given that persuing it is highly expensive, not to mention detractive and serves no purpose as its not really harming anybody.

I also doubt whether anyone on a internet board would go so far as to persue legal action, bearing in mind that the burden of proof is high and the costs would far outweigh the damages but there is a legal case to answer if somebody wanted to persue it.

In those sort of cases the burden of proof lies with the person alleging copyright theft. Proof that you posted an icon a month before someone else used it is proof in our eyes but the law requires more comprehensive proof in order to bring a legal writ.

As far as bttb is concerned we do not allow people to pass other people's work as their own and if you provide us with proof we will do our best to deal with it. That would include removing the material in question and issuing board warnings to the member in question.

But would they have a case though ?

If it involved a H&A icon then would there be a case seeing as they don't have the rights to the actual picture which is owned by Seven ?

[Eli]

Lately we've received several reports about artwork posted in threads here at BttB, that were in fact taken from makers at other message boards/web sites, and posted by BttB members who claim to have made them. This, sometimes referred to as plagiarism, and even copyright infringement; has been an issue before, but once again it seems like we need to go over this, unfortunately.

We have noticed than when the legal side of this has been brought up, people have practically been laughing in our faces about that, saying it's ridiculous to think there would ever be a lawsuit over some icons, etc.. But that's not the point of this at all, and we find it rather disturbing that people seem to think it's not a big deal at all, just because it won't have legal consequences. Actually it's not even a part of the BttB board rules, however, we will continue to issue warnings for people who try to pass off other people's work as their own.

This is not as much a legal issue as it is a matter of respect and honesty, both of which are values we operate by here at BttB.

Passing off someone else's work as your own is in many ways very similar to stealing and lying, and although we won't try to send anyone to jail over this, we expect all our members to show these pretty basic understandings of what can only be described as common courtesy.

BttB staff still deal with these cases, whether they're illegal by law or not, as any other offence on the board, and offenders are punished with warnings, followed by things like posting restrictions and suspensions for those who keep failing to follow our rules and regulations.

We're by no means baing "bad cops" running around looking to prove that someone has stolen a piece of artwork, but if we get a report, we check it out, and sadly often it turns out the artwork reported has been posted somewhere else before. So think before you post someone else's work as your own; not about legal action, but about basic morals and values we have to make society function. They include being honest.

Any further questions or comments should be brought up with a member of staff.

Kind regards,

The BttB Staff