France has appointed collecting societies to obtain licenses to index images legally
Tech Dirt reports the French government has passed a law that requires any site that indexes images on the internet to pay royalties to collecting societies for each image.
Under this law, the reproduction right and right of communication to the public of any image published online will be transferred to one or more collecting societies that have been appointed by the French government the moment they are published.
Thai based law firm Siam Trademark Associates practice Intellectual Property law in Thailand dealing in copyright and trademark registration and protection in Thailand
The scope of the measure was apparently unclear, as it did not specify if the transferred rights pertain only to French websites or all other websites around the globe. The law also fails to mention what would happen to the images licensed under Creative Commons, whose authors have given the general public the right to share and reproduce their images.
Tech Dirt states “Once again, like so many of these laws, this seems to not be so much about copyright as it is about taxing Google.”
Read the full article here
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
{ 0 comments… add one now }