Copyright of image

[tan_Yui]

About several problems :
http://online-judge.uva.es/p/v108/10818.html (10818 Dora Trip)
http://online-judge.uva.es/p/v109/10976.html (10976 Fractions Again?!)
http://online-judge.uva.es/p/v109/10977.html (10977 Enchanted Forest)
http://online-judge.uva.es/p/v109/10980.html (10980 Lowest Price in Town)
, and it's original problems on contest.

There are copyright of image respectively.
I don't know the image source, but I know some of images are from Japanese cartoon.
Perhaps, it infringe the copyrights!
It's a serious matter.

The problem setter or admin should make sure that you infringe the copyrights
by making contact with their writers, promptly.
After confirmation, you should write the information about each copyright or remove these images.

There might be other any problems which have doubt about infringe the copyrights.

I wish that this site be legal, because I love it.

And I want you the write the progress reports on management on this board or main page.

Note: some pictures in the problem description are directly taken from the Web. Should the usage of them infringe the copyrights, please inform us and we shall have them removed immediately.

This phrase is a quotation from contest site.
I think that :
- If you want to use the image (not your own), check the information about its copyright, at first.
- Above a phrase of quotation is wrong from a viewpoint of order process.
- It should not be after the fact, but beforehand.

Best regards.

[tan_Yui]

And, if you solvers find the other problems or board image of user which have doubt about infringe the copyrights, it'll be helpful to fix for this site.
When you report the information about board image of user, not to write it to this board, but to email to them or admin directly
(because if specific user name were written, the user or you may be a target of criticism).

Thank you.

[contest_clarificator]

Thanks for your post.

The quotation you have is directed to site admin, not to contestants. We include this line simply because we know nothing about the copyright laws in Spain. The site admin has the right to make any changes to the webpages as they want.

I recall the following pages:
http://acm.uva.es/p/v102/10217.html
http://acm.uva.es/p/v104/10465.html
http://acm.uva.es/p/v106/10622.html

In these pages you can find images from movies or cartoons. I think the use of them are okay for non-commercial purposes, but I don't know, since I'm not Spanish...

Anyway, I leave the decision to the site admins. If they find the use of the pictures improper, just delete them. This will not affect the clearness of problem statements at all. Ah yeah, if perhaps the character names mentioned in the problem descriptions violate the copyrights too, please have them changed.

Btw, we know that there are many websites/mini-contests taking our problems and putting them in their pages. We problemsetters aren't even informed. I don't know if this infringes the copyright as well (though we don't care).

[tan_Yui]

It is preferable to send the written apology with the progress of current matter to the writer,
regardless of what decision will be done.
Especially because a lot of people all over the world are using this site,
I think admin have to pay attention to such a problem to keep the web policy and law.

Thank you.

[contest_clarificator]

Sorry again.

I have written a mail to site admin about this matter. Let us wait quietly while they are fixing things. Putting new posts here does no good, since the site admins do not read this forum often. (I am not a site admin.)

P.S. Next time if you find problems in contest pages, please consider writing to us (contest_clarificator) directly. In this way we can give faster response, rather than having to check out every new topics. Thanks.

[rayc]

Excuse me for saying a few words as the tasks all come from the contest jointly hosted by me and my friend.

Firstly, I would like to stress that we are hosting contest for interest and we are not doing any kind of business nor gaining any commercial benefits. According to the situation in Hong Kong (that's where we are from), it should be that copyrights are infringed only if commercial purposes are involved (and I believe that's the case in many other places and countries). Anyway, I am not taking any law courses in my university so I cant tell for sure but that should be the case in many places (correct me if I am wrong).

Personally, my friend is a japanese manga lovers and that's why he's putting those images as decoration in his tasks. I hope you understand the point that we are not gaining (or merely trying to gain) any benefits from using the images in a contest, on a site which is highly academical.

On academic fields, again the situation in Hong Kong, it is only illegal if you copied or used the others ideas without proper acknowledgement (and we call it plagiarism, which is similar to the cases of copyright). It's very hard to contact the original creator in many cases so we usually use in-text citation (if we quote from others), together with referencing at the end of an article (or whatever it is). Again, these images are not consisting of any kinds of 'ideas' and so I, personally, don't think it plagisrised any sources. (correct me if I am wrong)

Surely, it would be a matter of minutes or seconds to remove those images without affecting the clarity of problem description. So, if there really exist problems (which I doubt), I agree the images should be removed by the admin as soon as possible. I will try to reach my friend and see what he (or actually it was he who made the above replies) thinks on the matter, as he's the problem-setter of the quoted tasks.

Lastly, this is a place where we can talk freely, academically on algorithms and programming stuff. Let's not making any kind of commerical problems bother or affect the freedom and atmosphere here.

Regards,
Raymond

[contest_clarificator]

Thanks everyone.

You may have noticed that the concerning images have been removed from the problem statements, and I have mailed the copyright holders. Hopefully they'll reply within a few days.

Let us just leave this topic as it is now until we receive the replies, shall we?

Sorry again for my fault.


---------- [EDIT @ 2006-01-05]

So many days after the mails are sent, I still haven't received any reply. That could mean:
1. the mails have not reached them for some reason, or,
2. they have received the mails and have decided to ignore them.

In any case, if I still do not receive any reply by next week, I shall send them yet another mail. But if they do not reply on that either then I can do little to help. Hope you understand.

And for the figure illustrating the sample I/O for 10977 Enchanted Forest, we may or may not have it redrawn.

[Larry]

In the US, non-profits doesn't automatically get protection from copyright infringement.

It is unclear rather this falls under Fair Use, as even derivatives (which includes stories of problems which relates to copyrighted material) are protected under Copyright.

At the very least though, it is important to include the original copyright notice..