Size Comparism Of The Moons Of The Gas Planets, Moon Systems of the gas giants compared Options

[tedstryk]

It seems odd to me too to copyright something as simple as putting publically-available pictures of planets and moons together..  What if I then make my own such mosaic, am I breaking your copyright?  It's like copyrighting a drawing of a stick figure - I doubt whatever court handles copyrights would support either one.

Where you would run into trouble is if you took someone else's work and then claimed the copyright on it for yourself. That is the issue here.

[dvandorn]

A copyright recognizes any significant value added to an intellectual property.

In the case here, spaceffm put together some very nice comparison murals. But *if* the work of scaling the images so that they were in proper scale to each other was done by someone else (especially by someone who took out a copyright, not on the images, but on the work he did to adjust each image to the proper scale), and *then* spaceffm claimed that he did the work to accurately scale the images, he would be making a false claim. It would be trying to take credit for someone else's work -- work that the someone else spent enough time and energy on, and added enough value to the images' presentations by doing the scaling calculations and manipulating the images accordingly, that he felt the value he added was worthy of its own copyright.

So, if spaceffm were to produce paper copies of these murals and sell them, or even if he were to insist on being credited if the murals were shown elsewhere on the Internet, the issue a copyright court would consider would be whether or not spaceffm had added any significant value to the images, as manipulated and copyrighted by Tayfun Oner. If spaceffm could prove that he did all the work to scale and manipulate all the images in his own murals, then he would win the suit. Just because Oner had made such scaled images doesn't preclude anyone else from doing it -- as long as they do the work and don't just use Oner's pre-scaled images without attribution. However, if all spaceffm did was re-arrange the elements of similar comparison murals made by Oner, without actually doing any of the scaling and image manipulation itself, then he would lose the suit.

In fact, even if spaceffm did almost all of the scaling himself, if he used even *one* pre-scaled image taken from someone else's work and deliberately passed it off as his own work, he would lose the suit.

-the other Doug

[elakdawalla]

Hey, now, let's all play nice while Doug is away.

I, too was once very irritated by copyrights being splashed all over space images, which do all come from publicly supported missions. And I still think it's a bit much to claim copyright for doing something as simple as, say, adjusting the contrast in an image. But it's also true that some of the processing that is done to make these pictures is a tremendous amount of work, for which the worker should get credit. Furthermore, a lot of the processing work done by the so-called "amateur" community crosses the line into art. By calling it "art" I'm implying both positive and negative connotations -- the positive is that the images they create are truly beautiful; the negative is that they have to make up or fudge some information in the image to edit out blemishes, noise, seams, etc. Most scientists would never do that, and you'll rarely see images released by official agencies that have been fudged in that way. By indicating who gets the credit for the image you also inform whoever is looking at the picture how literally "true" the image is, and acknowledge the work of the artist.

Really, though, I'm not interested in the legalistic stuff; for me this debate comes down to being polite. It is polite and kind to ask permission from someone before taking an image from his or her website. For the most part, you will find these people to be delighted that you are interested in the work that they spent many hours producing. All they ask in return is that you give them credit for their work. In effect, this permission has already been asked for, and granted, from NASA/JPL; they have given a blanket permission to all who use their images -- themselves the product of an incredible amount of work on the part of hundreds of scientists, engineers, and IT people -- for educational purposes for the reuse of their images -- and they should be credited! I've already asked permission from Ted Stryk and Mattias Malmer and Doug Ellison and Olivier de Goursac to use the images that they've worked on on my website, and they have given their permission enthusiastically. What's the harm in asking permission? In the end, it's a way of opening a friendly dialogue among all of us who, after all, share interests in gazing at the beautiful images returned from our robot explorers. Many of you might find this asking of permission to be a great way to make contact with the scientists who produce the official images too. It's a very polite way to open a dialogue, and I'll bet you'd find that you'd either get a pleased response or be ignored, that you'd probably never be denied permission.

Which reminds me...at the risk of being hopelessly sentimental, I'd like to advocate that those robot explorers be acknowledged in image credits too, where space allows of course. They gave their 'lives' to us to return these images.

--Emily

[tedstryk]

I was referring to the image processing - coloring, reprojecting. A few I recognize as Oner's, a few as others. I agree about free distribution, with a few exceptions, but it just struck a nerve to take images that others had processed, even if he scaled them himself, give those who processed them no credit, and then claim copyright over the product.

Here are the instances in which I have asserted copyright claims in the past. First, when someone else posted, in unaltered form, one of my images and claimed to have done the work. I have made requests that have been honored to anomalist websites, when I see my images posted there, to get them removed. The only time I have ever threatened legal action (and I did get a lawyer who is a friend of mine to send a letter, which worked) was when an anomalist site posted my Phobos 2 images WITH credit, and claimed that I was doing work with the images to investigate the nature of alien spaceships and artifacts seen in them. I only involved the laywer because the site owner, who I won't name (I am not sure I still even have the name) refused to remove the references to me or my images. The reason I took this so seriously is that when dealing with old data and foreign data not found on the PDS, I have been fortunate in that scientists and archivists have been more than helpful in providing me with material - for example, Francis Graham's finding me the matrices to make the Pioneer-11 Io images. If my name was spread over the internet as being connected to the anomalists, I fear that scientists would be less willing to respond to my inquiries for data, which would greatly damage my work. But, other than that, I have never, even if I legally could, tried to stop others from using my images, even without credit. My whole purpose of doing the work is to resurrect images that (in the case of Soviet images) never reached the west in proper form, were lost among a myriad of other images, were processed decades ago and are in need of touchups, and occasionally a famous image that I think could be processed better. This is so that some of the many vistas of the Solar System can be shared by more people, not just those of us who obsessively process the data. And, therefore, my goal is to see it spread around as much as possible. My only concern is that it not be used by anomalists to distract people with their utter nonsense from the true wonders of the solar system.

[tedstryk]

I've already asked permission from Ted Stryk and Mattias Malmer and Doug Ellison and Olivier de Goursac to use the images that they've worked on on my website, and they have given their permission enthusiastically.

I will add something. While I much appreciated being asked, I would not have been angry if my images just turned up there.
I would have only become angry if Emily had tweaked one of them a bit and then claimed copyright for herself without mentioning me, or if she had made anomalist claims, particularly if she associated me with them, for the reason stated in my previous post.

I think a lot of this boils down to MOTIVATION and the need for a bit of control over one's work that is connected to that. I process images to allow people to see visions of the solar system, with my favorite thing being to extract views from obscure sources or from degraded or low-quality data. I do this because I believe that our Solar System is a beautiful and inspiring place, and I want to create something to make that beauty and inspiration more accessible to people. That is why I do my work. If it is instead used to promote kooky anomalist views that distort much of the public discussion space exploration from what really matters, MY REASON FOR PRODUCING AND DISTRIBUTING IMAGES IS GONE.

[Toma B]

I am a bit confused Toma B...how did I modify his posts?  I  am not a moderator.

UPS!?!?!?!
I... I..... I thought.... I thought that you are the ONE...
Sorry tedstryk I seam to be even more confused than you are...

"MODERATOR" please excuse me...
Not my busines anyway...

[elakdawalla]

Where did i threat ??? anyone?
U are threatrening me with a sueing case..am i getting crazy or what?

Please, please, spaceffm, no one is threatening anybody. My own response wasn't directed at you specifically, it was my general thoughs on the issues of copyright, which have come up in this forum before. I apologize if I seemed to be directing them at you specifically. In fact I have not seen the images that were at issue because they seem to have been removed from your original posts. You should have been given the opportunity to edit or remove them yourself, I can definitely understand why their disappearance has upset you. I would be very sad to see you depart the forum over this misunderstanding.

I think everyone needs to relax a little bit and continue the discussion when they are calmer.

--Emily

[dvandorn]

And believe me, I was simply proposing a what-if and using the example of the size comparison chart to discuss what *could* be actionable, and under what conditions. I *wasn't* stating that spaceffm stole *anyone's* copyrighted work -- I don't know this Oner's work well enough to recognize anything spaceffm used that might have been copyrighted.

I'm just trying to point out that if you put together something that seems very similar, or almost identical, to copyrighted material, you need to be able to prove that you did the work and you did not use any of the copyrighted material, or else the holder of the copyright on the similar work *might* decide to sue you. I never said anyone wanted to sue spaceffm, and certainly didn't mean to suggest that anyone ought to try.

I would rather see spaceffm stay here in the forum, too... and if I said anything that sounded like I was accusing him of anything, I most certainly apologize.

-the other Doug

[deglr6328]

Oh goodness, now look what I've gone and done with my simple question.....

[Bill Harris]

Great discussion on copyright and intellectual property. I had no idea that the discussion had turned in this direction.

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This is the freebie you get from NASA. But the instant you add value, tweak, crop or resize, the image created from this data becomes yours, as attached.

--Bill

[Phil Stooke]

Maybe we could recover this thread by actually making some size comparisons from scratch! They would be highly informative - everyone accepts that, I'm sure. A whole series is needed, really - from the (traditional) planets down to the comet nuclei and asteroids etc., at appropriate scales.

Phil

[Bill Harris]

A whole series is needed, really...

I've thought about something along the concept of "Powers of Ten" going from the Sun to ??whatever. Or maybe from ??whatever to the Oort cloud...

That might be too much though...

--Bill

[lyford]

Which reminds me...at the risk of being hopelessly sentimental,  I'd like to advocate that those robot explorers be acknowledged in image credits too, where space allows of course.  They gave their 'lives' to us to return these images.

--Emily

I don't think it's too sentimental - especially if one has invested so much personal time following each spacecraft - they become anthropomorphized and linked to memories like a favorite pet.

There's a lot of emotional drama as well on each of these missions, and they are symbols the tremendous ingenuity and hard work of thousands - so it's entirely appropriate to credit the images to reflect that. It's a nice touch and makes you think....

[lyford]

I've thought about something along the concept of "Powers of Ten" going from the Sun to ??whatever.  Or maybe from ??whatever to the Oort cloud...

That might be too much though...

--Bill

Something like this, but with all the solar system...
He does actually include the Moon and Phobos and Deimos, IIRC...

[elakdawalla]

Maybe we could recover this thread by actually making some size comparisons from scratch!  They would be highly informative - everyone accepts that, I'm sure.  A whole series is needed, really - from the (traditional) planets down to the comet nuclei and asteroids etc., at appropriate scales.

I'm working on exactly this sort of thing for the Society's website -- you can see the work in progress here. I've created sets of images within our image library for the scales: {1,000 km/pixel, 500 km/pixel, 200 km/pixel, 100 km/pixel...down to 1 km/pixel}. I haven't gotten to the very smallest bodies yet (just a smattering below Hyperion's size) but I'm working on it. The current page only shows the 1,000, 100, and 10 km/pixel images. Since this seems to be a popular idea maybe I should throw together a page at each of the scales I created images for. I find it really informative to be able to compare all the little bodies this way.

--Emily