Excerpt from an earlier message:

>>I also wouldn't worry too much about the copyright. You can put on the web
>>low resolution images that can be suitable for a web site, but not for
>>other uses. For sure you cannot print them on paper, and as Ray Vincent
>>said, in every art magazine you find so many images at a higher
>resolution.

On 12 Dec., Brian Padol said in response:

>wrong, wrong, wrong. one must protect one's copyright or it can be lost to
>public domain. if you were right [and excuse any misspellings, please],
>selchow and richter would not be so gung ho about protecting the status of
>scrabble's copyright. in writers' trade magazines, many companies take ads
>asking authors to cresit copyrights. coke will follow up with any candy
>store that has a non-authorized coke sign, especially if the store doesn't
>sell coke [tm]. the worst cases of image theft are on those 'personal' web
>pages that many internet providers give all their subscribers. check with
>your lawyer before you act on this.

Although the last sentence is advice always wise to follow (which is why we
have too many lawyers), I think we're mixing two different ideas here (but a
strictly lay opinion).  My understanding regarding trademarks is the fear
that a trademark will become accepted as a generic term (for example, if the
trademark Xerox became accepted as a synonym for photocopy).  Under those
conditions, it can be argued (and apparently successfully) that you have
lost exclusive use of the trademark.

I have not heard such argument in regard to original creative works, and it
would seem that any argument based on inferior (low resolution) occurrences
would be doubly doomed.

Comment?

Art


Arthur H. Harris
Laboratory for Environmental Biology
Centennial Museum
University of Texas at El Paso
El Paso, TX  79968-0519
USA
Fax (915) 747-5808
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