What qualifies as copyrighted material?

From the "Site How To", "Where should I post X" section it looks like this is where I ask my question, mundane as it is. Sorry for the boring content

I have a picture of my dog reading Best Practices that I would like to post to my homenode. (It has the notation "Doggedly Pursuing Better Perl".) The top portion of the book's cover, including the dog on the cover and the word "Perl", but neither the words "Best Practices" nor anything below that, appear in part of the bottom third of the picture. Will those who monitor for copyrighted material on PM consider my un-copyrighted picture as having "Fair use" of copyrighted material within it, and therefore acceptable, or is it to be excluded because there is a part of some copyrighted material within the picture? (Would a can of Coke(TM) in a picture cause it to be excluded?)

I want to follow the rules, and so I'd like to know what the rules cover before I make a mistake.

Updated: Corrected to "homenode"

Comment on What qualifies as copyrighted material?

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Re: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by planetscape (Chancellor) on Jul 29, 2006 at 19:21 UTC
Congrats on teaching your dog to read! I'm still working on that trick myself. The cats seem to have a headstart, though, apparently recognizing the fronts of treat packages, for example... Purely anecdotally, I once heard, with regard to "art" created via the use of rubber stamps, that if one takes an existing image, but changes it by at least 15% (and how that would be calculated I am not certain), it is considered for copyright purposes a new work. I'm afraid I do not have a citation, but from your description, I'd say you far exceeded the requisite 15%. FWIW, I do not think anyone would meaningfully object to such a small slice of book cover being shown. YMMV, however. (BTW, I believe you mean to say homenode, as opposed to Personal Nodelet. ;-)) HTH, planetscape	[reply]
Re: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by GrandFather (Saint) on Jul 29, 2006 at 19:12 UTC
I can't imagine a real person with a still beating heart would object to such a picture. You could of course /msg TheDamian and ask his opinion. DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel	[reply]
Re: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jul 29, 2006 at 19:17 UTC
Your Coke example is a bad example. Coke's logo is both Copyrighted and trademarked, whereas I doubt any trademarks will be visible in the image. I don't know how each applies here, but Copyright law and trademark law are quite different. When in doubt, ask the Copyright holder, especially considering how conveniently he can be reached.	[reply]
Re^2: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by GrandFather (Saint) on Jul 29, 2006 at 19:40 UTC
Does the author or the publisher hold the copyright on a book cover? Generally the author has little input to the creation of the cover. O'Reilly also are represented among the monks. (I wouldn't blame them if they keep a little quiet about that given threads like O'reilly some sort of perl monopoly? and Boycott O'Reilly, but chromatic at least is prepared to stand up and be counted.) OP may like to /msg chromatic and get the good oil that way. DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel	[reply]
Re^3: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by rodion (Chaplain) on Jul 29, 2006 at 20:05 UTC
I'm sure O'Reilly holds the copyright on the cover and the book. It's unusual for it to be other than the publisher. I decided not to ask O'Reilly as it would put them in a bad position. You can loose a U.S. copyright if you don't "adequately" protect it, so their future ownership can be weakened every time they say "sure no problem". If the usage is fairly obviously "fair use", and they say nothing, it costs them nothing. At least that's the way I read it. In any case, it's the PM person who's stuck enforcing the rules that I care about. I'm quite confident O'Reilly won't care, and I can accomodate them easily if I'm wrong on that.	[reply]
Re^4: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jul 30, 2006 at 00:58 UTC
Re^4: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by merlyn (Sage) on Jul 30, 2006 at 05:21 UTC
Re^5: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by rodion (Chaplain) on Jul 30, 2006 at 10:38 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re^2: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by Gavin (Archbishop) on Jul 30, 2006 at 12:08 UTC
I would have thought Coca-Cola would be very pleased to have the associated publicity by exposure on the Monastery site!!	[reply]
Re: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by zentara (Cardinal) on Jul 30, 2006 at 13:32 UTC
This is far from a legal answer, but the last time I looked into copyrighting material, the answer I found was that the material is copyrighted if you declare it as such. Usually it's your name, the date and that little c in a circle. But it can be anything which clearly states your name, the date, and that you declare a copyright on it. Of course, you cannot copyright something previously copyrighted by someone else, etc. etc. And as usual in the litigation-prone society, enforcement of copyright is the problem, especially when you can't collect much damages from anonymous or dirt-poor violators. I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. Cogito ergo sum a bum	[reply]
Re^2: What qualifies as copyrighted material? by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jul 30, 2006 at 16:45 UTC
This is far from a legal answer, but the last time I looked into copyrighting material, the answer I found was that the material is copyrighted if you declare it as such. You have a copyright whenever you create something copyrightable. It's merely much easier to enforce if you put a copyright notice on it before you distribute it. See 10 Big Myths about copyright explained and the U. S. Copyright Office FAQ.	[reply]