
Curated free-to-use space photography - sebkomianos
http://peek.space/
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jdnier
Here we have a "curator" saying these photos are from "Source: NASA", but with
no additional details provided. No original source or URL, no captions, no
detail on cropping or manipulation, just a collection of "the best ones" he's
found somewhere on the Internet. Nice to look at but lacking all context.

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shkkmo
I agree, I would like better attribution, and possibly some context. The
photos are beautiful, but with some information about what I am looking at, it
would be much more interesting.

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Udo_Schmitz
I’m in Germany where you can’t give up your “Urheberrecht” (literal: Creator’s
right, equivalent to copyright) so technically NASA’s (or other US government
agencies) photos are copyrighted here—even if they're public domain in the US.
Anybody ever looked into that?

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vinceguidry
If the person you pay to worry about that kind of stuff is worried about the
risk of NASA suing you, you should probably get a better worrier. Or is there
something here I'm missing?

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germanier
It's not the risk of NASA suing you but the risk of the original creator suing
you. As copyright can't be transferred under German law, it was never
transferred to NASA in the first place from Germany's point of view. Unlikely,
but might happen.

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snowwrestler
That seems really unlikely to me unless the photographer in question was a
German citizen, or the photo was taken in Germany. Otherwise they would not
have standing in Germany. It would come down to international copyright
agreements like ACTA and I don't think those allow each nation to spread their
own copyright laws over the entire globe.

But really vinceguidry is right here: the risk calculation for copyright is
not just what the law says, but what is the practical likelihood of being sued
under the law. This is true across the board; it's how a million blogs get
away with using copyrighted photos on their blog posts.

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germanier
No, the relevant law is the one where a work is published. For this you don't
need to spread law around the globe. There are known cases where a work was
already in public domain in the country of creation but not in Germany and the
heirs successfully sued in German court.

Yes, in this case the chance of getting sued is pretty small, but it's there.
See for example the US government's own statement:

> Copyright laws differ internationally. While a U.S. government work is not
> protectable under U.S. copyright laws, the work may be protected under the
> copyright laws of other jurisdictions when used in these jurisdictions. The
> U.S. government may assert copyright outside of the United States for U.S.
> government works.

[http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml#Exceptions](http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml#Exceptions)

Many German blogs stopped using copyrighted photos (at least much less use
such photos than blogs in other countries do) because you are actually at risk
of being sued. Some people lost quite a lot of money for doing this.

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vinceguidry
So, let's say you're in Germany running a blog. You've made a few questionable
image choices and now the people owning the images decides they want to be a
dick and come after you for royalties. What's your exposure here? Is it
something where all you need to do is take the infringing content down and
that's the end of it? Or are you potentially on the hook for monetary damages
going all the way back to where you first published the images?

Don't tell me that that's a question for a lawyer, because you should know
about the risks regularly taken in your industry that can produce outsized
penalties. You don't become a surgeon without the understanding that surgical
malpractice could ruin your career, even though it almost never happens. If
you don't know, you're just being naive.

Even if you did potentially have that liability, what's the likelihood that
they'll actually exercise it? Sure, the US Government will want to retain as
many rights as they can, but realistically they don't really give a shit
unless you make them give a shit. If your clients are putting space images up
in the service of saying that the US is horrible and should be boycotted or
whatever, absolutely you'll have poked a hornet's nest and they're going to
assign a bureaucrat the job of making your life hell.

But if you use the damn gifts you were given in the spirit in which they're
given, do you really need to let fear guide your choices here?

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germanier
These cases are usually settled for a few hundred Euro, which is what a court
would set anyway. As there have been quite a few trials of this kind the sums
are pretty well established.

That is well known in the German blogging scene. For example, "Marions
Kochbuch" is a website with cooking photos that some people say only exists to
serve notices to unsuspecting bloggers that use their photos. Every few weeks
a new case of someone who didn't know makes rounds in the German-speaking
internet scence.

Personally I would use US government photos on my website (but not random
other photos found on the web). But I know that I'd take a small risk with
that. The US lawmakers specifically wanted to preserve rights abroad, who
knows whether the government will actually start to enforce it:

> The prohibition on copyright protection for United States Government works
> is not intended to have any effect on protection of these works abroad.
> Works of the governments of most other countries are copyrighted. There are
> no valid policy reasons for denying such protection to United States
> Government works in foreign countries, or for precluding the Government from
> making licenses for the use of its works abroad.

[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Copyright_Law_Revision_(House_...](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Copyright_Law_Revision_\(House_Report_No._94-1476\))

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ArekDymalski
In case someone is interested, one of the most beautiful photos in this
collection (parachute over the clouds) is by Bill Ingalls and is licensed
under Creative Commons Non Commercial license. (so you aren't completely
_free_ to use it)

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/16604583049/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/16604583049/)

It shows Soyuz TMA-14M bringing back astronauts from ISS.

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lelandbatey
While attempting to view some of the full-sized images, I got an error message
from Unicorn saying "No servers are available to service your request. Might I
suggest using a static file host of some kind for the full sized images?

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ohitsdom
Not a fan of the rounded corners/edges, but the photos are more than beautiful
enough to make up for it.

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dewey
Another one: unsplash.com

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c0ur7n3y
I don't think that this is a photo:

[http://peek.space/art/peek-space-img-24/](http://peek.space/art/peek-space-
img-24/)

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Trumpet6
Indeed, its an "Artist concept of Ganymede and Jupiter"[1], which only further
highlights the pointlessness of having an collection of space images without
any metadata.

[1]:[http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/march/nasa-s-hubble-
observati...](http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/march/nasa-s-hubble-observations-
suggest-underground-ocean-on-jupiters-largest-moon)

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tempodox
Holy crap, some of these images are beyond beautiful.

