Wetlook World Forum

Respectfully, Babyspet, in my opinion, you are stepping over a very fine legal line. You can argue that the material you find for free online is within public domain, but it may not hold up in a court, under copyright laws. Under copyright law, in the U.S, the minute someone records an image, it belongs to them, and they may do with it whatever they please. If they share it publicly, that does not mean it is free for the taking. Nor does it become the property of the public. It's really no different then any of the producers here who provides images of their works anywhere online. The person who made the recording is the copyright holder, end of conversation.

In respect to public domain. There are specific requirements that would make an image become part of the public domain. One of which is when the copyright holder of the image specifically "releases" it for use in the public domain. Uploading a video on youtube does not mean it becomes part of the "public domain". Copyright still applies, and examples are plentiful, from the producers here, who use youtube, to Youtube themselves, which takes infringement seriously and enforces their rules regarding copyright. You cannot determine the intent of the person who made the image, if they chose to fully release their copyright or maintain ownership of the images. This means, you really have no clue what is actually part of the public domain. I can tell you one sure fire way that the person still considers the videos theirs….They uploaded their videos to an account they created, and in some cases took them down. Thats enough to say, that they control the images and therefore they have maintained a copyright. My suggestion, have a really good lawyer on retainment, just in case somebody discovers that you've uploaded their images to your website and are charging a fee to see it.