Well I am glad you said this KarmaGirl. I understand Bakerstreets' point of view and do agree on a few points he made. I like your society with set laws better though.

Lecrayon: read motion's post and then read yours. She wasn't talking to you. I said pretty much the same thing she did about motion's situation:

"My conclusion would be that the above is technically stealing, but only in such a esoteric way that it would be impossible to prove... "

Your question was:

"If I would make a collage of photographs I have collected from glossy magazines or newspapers, would I have to ask each photographer the permission to make the collage?"

The laws concerning this question are already set. You are taking one person's art, and giving it away without securing the right to do so, neither by asking or paying for it. Why should the magazine buy commercial art if you don't have to? You distribute it to just as many people on a skin site, if not more.

With a collage mostly is meant: you tear up a lot of text, pieces of photographs, cut out photographs, cut them again into pieces and you end up with a total new lay-out, paint over it, glue new pieces of paper over it, etc...it's not something like neatly placing whole photographs in rows on a cardboard.

By the way, these kind of collages are made by a whole lot of well known visual artists.

About collages, there's a reverse question:

There's a great site of news about digital area. One of their authors has made an article speaking about skinners, and he puts some screenshots of: a WB skins made by Adni, a wallpaper created by Lecrayon, and some of the Mormegil's icons. We -the skinners- are uploading our works in Wincustomize with this knowledge: we give permission to Wincustomize and Stardock to redistribute our pictures, and them -WC,Std- protects our intelectual rights.

The writer have our permission to put this screenshots without request permission to us?
Is he/she breaking the law?

Recently (this weekend) i received a request to use a screenshot with my icons. This man is right.

Lecrayon: a copy is good if it enhances the original, or create better variations. It is not good the plagiarism, or rip, or simply oportunism.

I agree with you Carlitus.

According to the US Copyright office:

"Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports."

So references in a 'news' type article would be fine. Also, if someone is reporting news, and there is a tradmarked/copywritten logo or whatnot in the background, it is considered incedental and is legal as well.

The difference between 'physical' art and on-line digital art, with regards to 'collages' is that when the 'physical' media artist cuts up a magazine, creating his 'work', he subsequently would be likely to display it in a gallery, on a wall.
This has been going on since Adam was a pup and could be argued that it is of insignificant difference to a physical 'still-life'...a 'real' bowl of fruit on a table.

Digital 'collages' displayed on a web-site, however, are quite a different kettle of fish, in that their 'display' facillitates their duplication/distribution.
By downloading, suddenly there are more 'actual' copies of an image that was originally created by another, and this specific distribution/dissemination was not agreed to by the photographer/artist when submitted to the magazine from whence the images were taken.

Same situation applies to any and all 'artwork' uploaded to a facility for duplication/reproduction/distribution....such as a web-site.

That's why we say...'yes, do what you like with skins/art on your own comp, but if it ain't yours to upload, don't.'...

Jafo, in other words, you are saying: you can make a collage physically and display in a gallery, but if you scan in the collage and display it online you violate copyright? I feel so ignorant on this subject.

in my opinion, if you make a collage and hang it in your house, you are within your rights. You are using an object you purchased. If you hang it in a gallery as a work of your own, you are abusing the rights of others, i.e. displaying their work in a way that they did not have the opportunity to approve, and in a way that creates confusion between your artistry and theirs. If it were not for their work, your collage would not exist. If the snipped images weren't of importance, you'd take your own. So, there must be a inherant reason to use those particular images, right?

Like the Jazz discussion above, artists give other artists a lot of leeway when they are treated respectfully. Jazz often revolves around taking melodies and making them your own through improvisation, and sharing happily exists. I don't doubt that such photocollages exist, and that no one threw fits about it.

What we were talking about, though, was the legality of it. The law states that only the holder of a copyright may designate someone to create a derivative work. Will the police come and get you? Not likely, but you are at the mercy of the owner of the copyright if they find out, and most people would rather have permission and credit their work appropriately than risk being forced civilly to pay what the artist is normally paid for a piece. I doubt many of us could afford it.

Lecrayon...effectively, yes.
A physical collage is a single item...an online collage scan is replicated each time it is even viewed, whether saved to disc or not.

Baker is right in that the gallery collage is using the images without approval, but their use/misuse is not compounded by duplication and distribution.

It 'could' be argued that the rights of the photographer were 'sold' to the magazine...the artist purchases the magazine and with it 'tenuous' rights to 'enjoy' the physical manifestation/product...that is, the printed magazine paper...the 'physical' entity.

It's not 'distribution' of a photograph, but a 'public' display of a privete-use license...and a bit 'greyer' to argue/defend.
More than likely, it's just not worth pursuing to any degree legally and has become common practise.

Remember, the solid, physical collage is not a duplication of the physical image, just a re-association of it...

Hmmm I am beginning to understand. Still there are a few questions left. When a physical collage is a re-association of several cut up images/photographs you might argue it is new work. If so, you are entitled to scan (duplicate) and put it online. If it is seen as derivative work I perfectly understand the illegality of it. Now where does one draw the line where it is new work or derivative?

Quote from a friend: "When you take several pieces and put that together in such a way it forms a new image, and don't take one piece as the core of the image, every talk about being such a new image as being copyrighted is talk of a drunken strawberry". End of quote....

If a work contains previous work by another artist it is derivative, unless the collected images are incedental, like in the 'news item' discussion. People confuse 'fair use' and 'derivative'. If you featured a wadded-up newspaper, for instance, whatever was written on it would most likely be incedental. If, though, a noteworthy photograph is staring out at you from the newspaper, and it impacts the work, then it would be derivative. (though you could claim it was incedental...) The definition of "derive" is:

a : to take, receive, or obtain especially from a specified source
b : to obtain (a chemical substance) actually or theoretically from a parent substance


The key word there is 'specified', i.e. choosing a particular item purposefully. A collage is pretty much dependant on the images that have been put together, so I would think it would be hard to claim incedental inclusion. Sure, you might need a generic picture of a any car, but the image you choose still has a great impact on the work. If you need generic images you could take them yourself. The only way that I can see for images to ever be used without permission is 'fair use', and works of art usually don't fall into that unless they are forms of parody, or maybe political commentary. Even in those case I think the responsible (and safe) thing to do is to get permission.

Lets not forget that even when you are right, and a good lawyer can prove it, you still have to pay for a good lawyer, and that can be a lot more than what you would owe for the rights to an image. I would suggest removing all doubt when at all possible.

"Sure, you might need a generic picture of any car, but the image you choose still has a great impact on the work"
I agree with you there bakerstreet, so when you make sure it hasn't got the impact, but just fills in for the totality of the collage, it is derived, but it's only part of a new work. If I take 10 worldpressphoto's, put it through a shredder, put acrylbinder on paper and let the shredded pieces fall on it, sure it is derived, but
the new image hasn't got anything to do with the photographs. Therefore it isn't copyrighted. Same goes for a photograph of a car, you cut it into pieces, let it fall on paper..you get a new image...

Anyway, thanks for explaining Jafo, Bakerstreet. I really appreciate your information and help on this issue in the virtual world Some issues have been falling into the right places When I went to bed last night, I had this strange vision. Say, a human being is art, can one of a twin sister sue her mother?

If the content of the image has any bearing at all, then you are deriving your work from theirs. If the image has no relevance to the piece I'm not sure why it would need to be a car.

I agree that a lot of this is hair-splitting, but remember that this isn't just protecting you from weenies like us. If tomorrow Microsoft, or Apple, or a Open-Source Linux developer saw one of your skins and decided to hack it up a lot and use it, you'd have the legal tools to make it an issue. Stranger things have happened.

As you your twin idea, the cloning thing has spawned a huge debate on whether genetics are patentable. IF cloning were ever perfected, and someone could snatch a bit of your DNA and make a test-tube son or daughter, what rights would you have? Now, "genetic material" *cough* has to be volunteered through intercourse, but later, what happens if you can get it from a decent tissue sample, tooth root, or hair follicle? You could get a good amount going through people's trash, and that would be considered free-use at that point, lol.

How many sick people would love to have a genetically-manufactured spawn of Tom Cruise or Natalie Portman to exploit for the 'name' or whatever other sad reason? I can honestly see how it could become an issue. Today the argument is over genetically modified produce, but it could be people next. scary.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html (copyright office)

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html (copyright laws)

it's different than you think.....

KarmaGirl: hmm?

I have referred people to the Copyright office's site fairly often, even here, as little as a couple of weeks ago. Here's my interpretation.

A copyright holder has the *exclusive* right to display his work, reproduce his work, and derive other works from that work. Anyone who does any of those things without securing permission has violated copyright law. The only exception is limited amounts of works reproduced for 'fair use', which applies to educational material, news reporting, parody, etc.; and incedental inclusion, like a logo appearing behind someone in a video news report.

i.e.:
-If you quote a newspaper in a paper for school, or a news story, it is fair use.
-If you make a statue of wadded up newspapers, any copyrighted content would be incedental, and therefore fair use (if 'use' at all).

If, however, you a make a collage featuring images cut from newspapers, you have violated the copyright. Lecrayon's question, as I understood it, was, how much would you have to cut the image up in a collage if you didn't own the copyright on it or have permission? My answer was, enough that the image involved would be unrecognizable and at most incedental to the new work. That is why I said that it shouldn't matter if it was a car; if you can see it well enough to recognize it, it would impact the work and is no longer incedental.

In my opinion, any recognizable reproduction of someone else's work outside the definition of 'fair use' would be a violation of copyright.

Where am I off? Please, point it out for me, because this is a never-ending debate here.

I am interested too.
What I think:
As far as Motion's new picture: Idea's of choregraphics aren't copyrighted. He is entitled to take a photograph based on that idea. He can't however, copy and(re)distribute the photograph of Comstock without permission.
He may try a painstakenly effort to reproduce a Van Gogh painting and sign it with his own name. It only is a forgery if he signs it with Van Gogh's name. But then he has to use the same canvas and the same paint Van Gogh used, otherwise discovery is quick.


As far as the collage: You can use the material (newspaper/magazines and content) and tear it up or cut it up in such a way you can't speak of reproducing/copying one image. It looks like the copyright law speaks of compilations instead of collages.
The car image, for instance, can be used to tear up the side windows and use it as eyelids on a portrait.

Bakerstreet, I totally would agree with your view/policy when it comes to online databases of images. You can never be cautious enough. To control all the works that are originally made and compare it with uploads you get seems impossible.

As far as how this all relates to wincustomize... the rules here are simple: you upload only your own work. If it's not created by you then you must include written permission from the original artist. We can't catch every violation but we try. The help we get from the members here is greatly appreciated too.

It amazes me how many times we get logon screens that have photos from a car advertisement or a movie website with a border around it and the uploader thinks he did the piece because he made the border and placed the photos just so...

A good example is a recent upload, it was a 'tribute' to the incident that the movie 'Black Hawk Down' was about. It was made with stills from the movie. When I emailed the uploader he replied "where else am i going to get images from black hawk down".

exactly... you don't "get" images and upload them here. You "make" images and upload them here. If you are inspired to do a tribute to an event you draw your tribute or create a photograph. Or, as in the above case, he is going to ask permission from the movie studio.

If you don't feel good about your ability to create artwork - practice, study and learn. Eventually you'll be able to express yourself without having to plagarize someone else's work. Until you can create your own stuff, just download the creations here and enjoy what other people have posted for your enjoyment.

and keep practicing... amazing what that will do for your skills...

oh, btw - I agree completely with what bakerstreet said...

bakerstreet, those links weren't directed at you. I meant that, in general, copyright law is a bit different than people think. What you think of it is pretty much dead on (as is with Lecrayon ). First, it has to fit in a catagory that the copyright office recognizes. Which is:
(1) literary works;
(2) musical works, including any accompanying words;
(3) dramatic works, including any accompanying music;
(4) pantomimes and choreographic works;
(5) pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works;
(6) motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
(7) sound recordings; and
(8) architectural works.

But, (and this is where all this pertains to what motion did) "In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work."

So, unless you copy it (and I mean literally) then the picture is not a copyright violation. Motion used the "idea" in the picture, and probably used the same processes and methods, but the picture was a new picture with different subjects in it.

It gets a bit hazey when you get into the digital realm of things, and the laws are still not decided on what to do. First, the basic rule of first use in copyrighted art: "fixed in any tangible medium of expression" becomes tricky. Is that when you create the file, or the first time it was uploaded someplace? There are not enough precedent cases to deem what will be permissable in the digital world. How much of a digital image can be used before it is a violation? How is it measured? Those are questions that are still being figured out.

I think that people need to take a step back and follow ethical rules versus actual law. Everyone knows that you shouldn't copy other peoples work. If you question if what you are doing is right or wrong, just assume it is wrong.

No matter what, all laws can be interpreted by a judge. They also change with the times.

Karmagirl: thanks. I have spent waaaay too much time grumping about this online, and it is refreshing to see someone with more than my own 'lay-person' know-how wander through. I think it will all sink-in gradually. This community was started by people who generally customized for themselves, or at most their friends, and as it grew that mentality remained. We now cater to millions of people, so the 'rules' suddenly apply, lol. Thanks again.

Thank you KarmaGirl, I appreciate your time and explanations on this matter