Copyright question / indirect use of logo in a photo or painting

[Andy D]

Not to beat a dead horse, I know this has been discussed many times, but this question
is a little different.. I would like to do illustrations of football players and/or football stadiums,
but that's difficult without including the team's logo or the stadiums owners logo.
So what's the copyright law about photography or art that contains indirect use of logos and selling them?.. Or making prints
for a customer, that contains indirect use of logos? A couple examples below (I didn't make any of these BTW)

.

 

[Bigdawg]

I don't know about the teams... but we took a picture of Bristol Motor Speedway and put it on some shirts we screenprinted and sold at the race. We sold them the first year with no issues. The next year a friend was selling the same design and the copyright police confiscated every one of them. Even though we could prove we took the pictures, we weren't authorized by BMS to use them commercially. I would suspect you will run into the same issue.

 

[Fred Weiss]

I deal with about half a dozen stock sites. Every one of them requires releases from recognizable people, recognizable buildings, anything which is copyrighted or contains a trademark. Even most automobiles and other manufactured items before they will accept an image.

From the Adobe/Fotolia website:

[h=2]Important requirements[/h]

• You must be the author of the file(s) and own all artistic elements.
• You must have a valid model release form for each recognizable person.
• You must have a valid release for each element protected by intellectual or private property rights that may appear in your file(s) (including logos, trademarks, products, homes and locations).

 

[signbrad]

Andy,

Questions like this are good.
Discussing intellectual property issues is not beating a dead horse.
The amount of misinformation floating around on this subject, even among designers, is tremendous. Since we deal with copyright and trademark issues as part of our work, should we not strive to have a better understanding of them?

..................

Some general lessons I've learned in the past few years regarding intellectual property:

Intellectual property law is complex. It changes, too. Not necessarily that the laws themselves always change, but constant court decisions affect change, how the laws are applied. And courts don't always decide things the same way. Different Federal District courts have sometimes made differing decisions on very similar issues.

A consult with an IP lawyer on an issue that's important to your business is usually well worth the money. Not all lawyers are knowledgeable in intellectual property law. That's why it's a specialty. My landlord is a lawyer, but as a tax lawyer he knows very little about IP.

It's good to have one authoritative book on this subject. I have one of the textbooks from when I took paralegal classes at the community college. It doesn't talk over my head and it is a rich resource. And it shows you how to access other resources. It's called Intellectual Property. Patents, Trademarks and Copyright, (Second Edition) by Richard Stim.

Classes in Intellectual Property law are well worth the money. A local college may have a course in paralegalism that includes IP classes. I was able to take just the paralegal classes after a couple of prerequisites, all at night. Not expensive. I was motivated by my huge ignorance in this subject and by so much conflicting information from peers in the sign business. I know a lot more, now (enough to be dangerous).

I like this blog: http://lizerbramlaw.com/blog/
Interesting posts and decent writing from an IP lawyer. He has some interesting podcasts, too.

Brad in Kansas City

 

[James Burke]

Careful here...I would imagine the persona of the player or sports figure is also copyrighted, or otherwise protected in some manner.

JB

 

[bjt140]

I read a story last year that said if you intend on selling the photographs, you have to have permits etc to photograph iconic scenery in national parks.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

There was a quilter that had taken a picture of the iconic tree used by Pebble Beach.

She took a picture, applied it to a design in fabric for a quilt (not the picture itself, that was just a template for the fabric design, it wasn't printed on there in any way). Posted a picture of that quilt in her book that she was selling.

She got in trouble, had to remove all pictures from any subsequent publishing of said book. My mom has one of the old ones before the picture was taken out somewhere in their house (finding it is another thing entirely).

Disney went after a person that took a picture of a Star Wars toy, before The Force Awakens was released. Picture of a toy that they bought, but the store put on the shelves too soon. I don't know if it went beyond the sending the letter phase or not, but depending on what you are taken pictures of, how aggressive they may go after you may vary.

Right or wrong, rather you agree with it or not, if what you are doing doesn't qualify for "Fair Use" (and in a commercial setting, that's very hard to show), I would tread with caution.

 

[Gino]

So, if you took away cameras, [cell phones] photoshop, software, printers and just about any other means of re-producing someone else's work..... would we even be having this discussion ??

Using someone else's designs, even if you photographed it..... how is that not copying ??

Is there a reason you cannot take cameras into museums [art museums] most of the time ??​

 

[WildWestDesigns]

So, if you took away cameras, [cell phones] photoshop, software, printers and just about any other means of re-producing someone else's work..... would we even be having this discussion ??

I think so. There might be varying degrees of success for the reproduction given what the person "needs" to reproduce the work if you remove most forms of reproduction. I don't think you can remove every form of reproduction as that would mean that that would also remove the forms of production as well. So you'll always have something to which to reproduce something. After all you had people like Rosa Corder creating fake Rosetti drawings back long before you had what we would have the most common tools of reproduction.

This does get more into the philosophical aspect though as no two "strokes" are identical, even from the same artist. So one could argue that there never really could a true reproduction if you removed enough of the reproducing tools.

Now, the more you remove, the more that is required from the individual to reproduce the artwork (I believe) anyway. But even that can be overcome with enough practice. But I digress.

 

[Gino]

I think so. There might be varying degrees of success for the reproduction given what the person "needs" to reproduce the work if you remove most forms of reproduction. I don't think you can remove every form of reproduction as that would mean that that would also remove the forms of production as well. So you'll always have something to which to reproduce something. After all you had people like Rosa Corder creating fake Rosetti drawings back long before you had what we would have the most common tools of reproduction.

This does get more into the philosophical aspect though as no two "strokes" are identical, even from the same artist. So one could argue that there never really could a true reproduction if you removed enough of the reproducing tools.

Now, the more you remove, the more that is required from the individual to reproduce the artwork (I believe) anyway. But even that can be overcome with enough practice. But I digress.

Kinda my point, only talented artists could pull something like this off years ago. Even after the camera came about, in it's early years, was not used to fool most people, just capture images. You'll always have devious minds and people trying to pull something over on the masses, but with today's equipment, ANYONE can do it with the push of a button, instead of any talent. This is not the same argument as computer aided signs vs. hand painting, in that, you still had lousy hand-painters and artists alike, but only the most talented could pull off a forgery.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Kinda my point, only talented artists could pull something like this off years ago. Even after the camera came about, in it's early years, was not used to fool most people, just capture images. You'll always have devious minds and people trying to pull something over on the masses, but with today's equipment, ANYONE can do it with the push of a button, instead of any talent. This is not the same argument as computer aided signs vs. hand painting, in that, you still had lousy hand-painters and artists alike, but only the most talented could pull off a forgery.

You know, I've got a sudden urge to watch Incognito tonight. I might just have to dig that up and watch that again.

 

[Gino]

Think I'll watch a Svengoolie.... !!!

 

[ddarlak]

Is there a reason you cannot take cameras into museums [art museums] most of the time ??

flash degrades the artwork

 

[Gino]

flash degrades the artwork

That's one of about 20 reasons and even at that, it's for the flashes where people would take almost right up against a painting. Doesn't happen very much. Most flashes are taken at a distance and most cameras don't use flashes anymore.