Respect for intellectual property and copyright … in China … ???
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Can I interest you in an iClone, Rolls Rice, Louis Vittone or Pravda handbag for the low low price of $FAKE?
It’s not that Chinese/Taiwanese are ignorant of the rules, it’s that they just don’t give a crap.
Is your daughter still modeling for photos? Obviously she has something many other companies want, so get them to pay for it at the source if possible (yeah, not likely … but maybe somebody would pay you - better than nothing).
More accurately, “The Berne Convention requires its signatories to recognize the copyright of works of authors from other signatory countries (known as members of the Berne Union) in the same way it recognises the copyright of its own nationals.” So Chinese copyright law applies in China, 'wan copyright law applies in the 'wan. US law in irrelevant is this fact pattern.
Two issues: (1) copyright, which is not actually a “single” right, but a bundle of rights: reproduce, distribute, derive, display, perform (and for audio, digitally transmit). If the component rights are not addressed, an assignment of copyright assigns all rights.
and
(2) publicity rights, which are country (and state) dependent.
There is no international convention on publicity rights. Many jurisdictions lack any publicity rights law. Common law jurisdictions without a publicity rights statute can rely on Restatement arguments and even appellate decisions from foreign common law jurisdictions. Only about 15 states in the US have a publicity rights statute.
If you’re not in a common law jurisdiction, and there is no publicity rights statute applicable, you probably need to enact a publicity rights statute. That’s the way civil law jurisdictions work.
As owner of the copyright, the magazine has derivative rights, and the magazine could switch bathing suits digitally if it so desired, but the magazine did not create the derivative work at issue. The only possible plaintiff in the fact pattern appears to be the magazine, who could sue for infringement of its copyright (unauthorized derivative work).
So, now you non-lawyers know what one type of law school exam question is like … an apparent plaintiff with a strong sympathy factor … but, unfortunately no (or very weak) legal rights.
But is that guy right to some extent? I hate to be Machiavellian about this but how far are we going to get playing by Western business rules in an Eastern business environment?
Not that i would rip another company off like that, but then I don’t have anyone in my niche here to rip off.
I got that car/dog quote from a niche gym owner in Kuala Lumpur. He told me that a new client came in once and paid cash out of hand for a 2 hour lesson, no questions asked. This was slightly unusual for a new client. The guy asked a lot of questions during the session and seemed more interested in taking notes than working out. The next week, that client took what he learned in the session and opened his own small gym, blog, and website. At first the gym owner felt ripped off, but that little bit of information was all that the guy had.
The lesson I’m getting from your experience and his is that we’d better expect to get ripped off in some circumstances. This is Taiwan, after all. I just keep telling myself, “Be the car, be the car…”
