Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 February 5

= February 5 =

Lord Lucan and the disappearing judge
According to our article on John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, after his bloodstained car was found near Newhaven, East Sussex a search of the area was carried out but "all that was found were the skeletal remains of a judge who had disappeared years earlier". Who was this judge? When did he go missing? Was there foul play? Judges aren't the sort of people who are noted for vanishing into skeletal obscurity on the South Downs, or indeed anywhere else. The question was asked on the article talk page a couple of years ago, but answer came there none. DuncanHill (talk) 04:39, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I can't find the old reference desk thread, so I may be duplicating old research. The text was added in, citing Pearson (2005), pp. 256–257. Searching that book actually finds it on page 160: "In the end they found a body, but it was not Lucan's. In dense undergrowth towards Ditchling Beacon they stumbled on the skeleton of a judge who had disappeared some years before. If only the body had been Lucan's, many anxious minds – and not" [end of snippet]. Unfortunately, a web search for "Ditchling Beacon" "judge" "skeleton" turned up nothing. -- BenRG (talk) 06:39, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The question was on the article's talk page rather than the RefDesk, and can be seen at Talk:John_Bingham,_7th_Earl_of_Lucan (nobody answered). Alansplodge (talk) 17:26, 5 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I was able to see a bit more of the book at this search result, where it is on pp256-7, it does not identify the judge or say anything more than is already in our article. DuncanHill (talk) 07:09, 5 February 2016 (UTC)


 * While I haven't tracked down his identity yet, I've found a few more clues. It was on the banks of the River Ouse, between Seaford and Newhaven, and the judge disappeared in 1965, according to this article. Smurrayinchester 08:45, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The wording of that article is a little more vague. It says that the bones were found on the banks of the Ouse and that the Ouse "runs out" between Seaford and Newhaven, which it does - that's where it runs into the sea. That leaves open the possibility that the bones were found upstream somewhere. I don't know where Ditchling Beacon comes into it unless it is a way of signalling "upstream and into the Downs". Between Newhaven and Seaford are Tide Mills, East Sussex, which if I recall correctly would have already been abandoned by 1965. A large expanse of open ground covered with shingle and old channels, the kind of place someone might abandon a body, or where you could get lost and die forgotten. Until the 2000s there was a circuit judges' residence at Telscombe, a long walk from Newhaven but nearer than Ditchling. Possibly relevant? Itsmejudith (talk) 14:55, 6 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Hmm, well the Ouse meets the sea at Newhaven - you can see it doing so at the top of the Newhaven article. I've walked the Ouse from Lewes to Newhaven, and bits of it are out of the way enough to lose a judge in - more so in the 60's before the path was made. Ditchling Beacon does seem to be a red herring, if the New Review article Smurrayinchester found is to be believed - and as our Lucan article says, the search was not great in extent. I'd forgot the judges' house at Telscombe - and the New Review says his car had been found a few hundred yards from his body, so our judge need not have been a great walker. I think I may need to look up some old newspapers, perhaps a trip to the library or to The Keep. DuncanHill (talk) 20:09, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I can't find anything obvious searching The Times archive, but it's hard to be sure what combinations of search terms would bring it up. Warofdreams talk 14:19, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

License to Reproduce Copyrighted Photographs
I had professional photographs taken some time ago and the photographer gave me the digital high resolution jpgs. I specifically asked the photographer whether we're licensed to reproduce them as we see fit (anticipating, foreshadowing perhaps, an issue), and he said, by email, that we could do what we wanted with them. There is no doubt that the photographer is the copyright holder, but I believe that the email from the photographer grants me a license to reproduce these photos.

With the background set, I submitted some of the photos online today to have them printed by a "large retail establishment" and was told when I went to pick them up that they could not be printed because they suspected copyright infringement. I explained the situation, and I showed them the email I received from the photographer, to no avail. They quoted their policy, which I found online later, which reads, in part: "we will not copy a photograph that appears to have been taken by a professional photographer or studio, even if it is not marked with any sort of copyright, unless we are presented with a signed Copyright Release from the photographer or studio." A store-specific form was attached.

Do I have any recourse, or does any company just have the right to refuse my business because they suspect that the activity is illegal and they fear being sued? I'm rather frustrated, but then again I suppose that the company is probably within their right to refuse my business-- it's not like they're discriminating against me on the basis of some protected class. Let me know what you think. Any suggestions for trying to get them reproduced in the future, without having to get the photographer to sign a store-specific form? There has to be a way around it without lying and saying I'm the copyright holder, which isn't true. Jared  (t)  &ensp; 20:02, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * They are probably being ultra-cautious. Take your stuff to a local firm and see if they'll do it for you. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:58, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid we can't give legal advice on the reference desks. Tevildo (talk) 22:25, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I removed an archiving box from this question because although legal advice isn't provided, editors may be able to suggest effective ways of getting high-quality printing done -- presuming the OP is correct about the legality of his actions -- without dealing with this particular company's policies. Wnt (talk) 02:37, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Without commenting on the policies of any particular store, you'll likely find companies are much more likely to consider a signed copyright release drafted by a lawyer or paralegal or at least someone familiar with the law. Whether this release came from a store (not necessarily their store provided it clearly applies to everyone and not just the store it came from) or a generic one available online. I don't think it's that surprising a company may not give much stock to a random email with no signature and which even there's no dispute it really came from the copyright holder, may not adequately address any legal concerns they may have (and they probably won't know since realisticly no one is going to send the email to their lawyer to ask for a tiny order). Also, while I'm not really sure who you were dealing with, frontline staff are often going to just do what they've been instructed and are unlikely to be willing to make exceptions to such instruction. Often particularly with a large store, emails, social media or letters can be more conducive to getting an exception or resolution in an unusual case. More generally speaking, I'm not sure what size prints you were referring to, but I'm fairly sure some companies particularly those that are mostly online have fairly limited staff involvement in the printing process. Note that in all cases it's ultimately your responsibility to ensure you are doing something you're legally allowed to. Nil Einne (talk) 07:27, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Properly professional photographers should have terms and conditions that you sign (or at least are referred to on their website) when you engage their services. These will usually set out the ambit of your rights - whether the copyright is assigned to you, or you are granted an exclusive or a non-exclusive licence to use them, whether for personal purposes or otherwise, which you would be able to show to the store. So if everything is working as it should, the system should work. If your photographer's work is professional enough that the store gets paranoid about them, but his/her business is not professional enough to have set him/herself up with proper terms, then you've fallen into a bit of a Kafkaesque quandary. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:11, 9 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Quite a few shops have little kiosks (often run by a company like Kodak or Polaroid) that print off photos that you bring in on a USB stick. I was in the same position when printing my wedding photos (the photographer sent me a USB stick of high-res photos that I was allowed to print for own personal use) and had no problem getting those done at a Kodak booth at the local drugstore. IIRC, you have to confirm that you have permission to print the photos, but I think you can tick that in good conscience (and it's a bit hypocritical, since the machine also offers to connect to your Facebook and print pictures of you from there, even though most of those photos probably won't have been taken by you). Smurrayinchester 09:59, 8 February 2016 (UTC)