Thanks for weighing in. I’ll admit that I don’t know the rightness of what i did in the first place from a legal perspective. I wouldn’t have had the ability to get the screencap without the FS Detroit broadcast to be sure. If they raised issue with it I would certainly take it down without complaint and with apology. Perhaps I should have asked permission for using it in the first place. There are also “fair use” rules which I’m not at all well versed in.

I don’t use a lot of photos on this site in general and I stick to ones that I have taken or I have received permission from the photographer (and I provide credit).

As for Valenti and WXYT, they haven’t made any argument. They’ve just ignored the matter altogether.

My beef is less about ownership and more about attribution. My shot clearly came from the FS Detroit broadcast and I don’t hide that fact at all. I’d probably argue that my snapshot is a derivative work of the broadcast (which I was never granted rights to admittedly making me in the wrong also). They just flat out took the photo.

However, let me say this: Billfer, I don’t believe you own that screenshot. That, by all intents and purposes, is the intellectual property of both FSD and MLB. Any usage of that is a violation thereof, regardless of how small the sampling. It would be like, for instance, another artist sampling the last chord of ‘Day In The Life’ by the Beatles — recognizable, in either a 1 second or 20 second version. The Beatles would have every right to claim violation of intellectual property if that were to be published in anyway for profit. The snapshot from your TV is just one photograph from the video taken by FSD…

Now, I’m not arguing **for** Valenti — he’s a schmuck for taking it, period. But, if he argues that the snapshot does not belong to you, he has a valid point (and in which case, you’re both wrong to post it).

I would be annoyed at them for being schmucky about it, but IMHO, you’re both wrong here.

It’s an simple but inexcusable mistake on their part. Fortunately, it’s easily remedied.

I will be very disappoiinted if they don’t respond and credit you as the source.

I’ll let you know if I receive a response from Bigby.

Keep up the good work.

Go Tigers!

Patrick

1. I want to be careful to not bash MSM or talk radio as a whole. By and large I think the Detroit MSM isn’t blog hostile and many are blog friendly. On WDFN Jamie Samuelson (now with WRIF) and Sean Baligian were both VERY supportive of this site and I don’t want any lumping in to occur. I will say though that in my experience the MSM members who feel the need to warn the general public about blogs are generally the ones who violate the same principles they are warning about.

2. Yes, FS Detroit were the ones airing the video that I took the picture from. That is pretty clear because the logo is shown in the picture. But who else bothered to get the screen capture of it? Nobody including 97.1. I grabbed it and posted it. They took it.

3. As far as communication methods and whether or not they check the emails I know this isn’t too much of an issue. I used their instant feedback form which gets read as it comes in because they are shared on the show. Somebody saw that one. It turns out the Sports Inferno email address is defunct, but they still post it on their website. They need to fix that. I have no idea about Bigby’s email.

4. With the possibility that they got the picture from someone else, I certainly understand that which is why I didn’t attack and pointed out the original source of the picture. They are now aware of it and have still chosen to claim it as their own.

5. As for who owns the rights to the photo, I’m not a lawyer and I’ll default to Kevin on this one. I took a picture of my TV which was broadcasting the Tigers game. MLB clearly owns the right to the broadcast, but I’m pretty sure I own the right to the picture.

As far as the attribution, honestly I have mixed feelings. Not that I don’t believe in attribution, I do. If this were a picture that you snapped at the ballpark, I think you would be right on the money. It would be your original content. I’m just not sure a screen-cap from a FSN broadcast qualifies as original content. If I took a picture of a Free Press photo and then used it, could I fairly call it my original content? In my opinion, the originator of the content – whether it’s broadcast or still photography – deserves the attribution.

I totally agree with you! I have been listening to Valenti and Foster (Sports Inferno) for five years, and have been reading you for three. What they did was flat-out bush league. I sent Bigby an email, let’s hope they do the right thing.