copyright infringement question

[Ian Wood]

I'm not a lawyer, so my advice is worth what you've paid for it...

On 14 Apr 2008, at 23:45, Sadhunathan Nadesan wrote:

> The other opinion
> says, there is nothing illegal about it, we are not stealing anything
> it's a freely available download on the net, and it's the fastest way
> to give an idea to vendors of what we want.

'Freely available on the net' means very little. The interface  
elements etc. will still all be copyrighted material, and being able  
to view them for free has no impact on that.

The second problem, at least in some countries, is 'passing off' -  
you'd have to make it VERY clear that what you are showing the vendor  
is the work of a third party and not your own. Even then, you are  
potentially using copyrighted material in your presentation which is  
dodgy at best, and copyright infringement at worst.

> Next question is an extension of this:  suppose we make a video clip
> of a certain behavior within the competitor's product - it's nothing
> extraordinary, it's just difficult to explain in words and even in a
> series of jpegs, but, an mpeg says 1000+ words in a few seconds of  
> motion.
[...]
> and another opinion says, it's perfectly legal to
> make movies of anything in public, including demo software in action,
> peope do it on their cell phones and post it to youtube by the  
> millions.
> We are just showing a concept, not stealing anything.

Again, freely available doesn't stop it being covered by copyright,  
and the potential for accusations of passing off.

I'd suggest that you contact a lawyer before going *any* further...

Ian