Important Question about Copyright

[belindasue70]

Hi, All!

I appreciate all of the knowledge in this forum, as well as all of your input!

I'm VERY confused about copyright..... What is and is not allowed. What is and is not right/wrong.

I see things being sold such as pictures of animals for an example, ones that can be searched for on Photobucket/Google, Etc.
Cute Cat/Dog of the day! Animal photo of the day, bla bla..
All being free if you just do the right click save image as......

(So, I see them being sold in the market place, with some words thrown on them....... IS this OK?) Who owns the Copyright to these items? All of US, none of US? I honestly don't get it.

Then we have some items being sold with images on the tags that are from a very well known Artist (Who does NOT allow his work to be used for commercial use), yet his work is being used for commercial use.
Granted the Seller has the Artist Copyright on them, but that doesn't change the fact of his TOU's.

I spend a lot of money on PSP Tubes from all different Artist, and I know I do NOT have the right to sell them in any way shape or form.
And if there were to be a question on my part, I'd be at the Site looking for the TOU's.

Now, I've seen in many threads where people have told others (most noobs) that they cannot just take images off photobucket and use them.
Then I've seen members say if the images are NOT in a private folder, then they are free for anyone to use!

So, I guess my question is; What IS OK?

Thanks bunches for your replies..

:winkiss:
Belinda

[Kasami2k4]

No :o Disney just sued a bookstore in michigan for having mickey mouse painted on the side. I dont have anything copyright on my website :/

[urheart]

Wow...this is a really great question. I don't make graphics/layouts for sell anymore. I only make them for one of my websites now, and whenever I use photos,I make sure to only use ones from stock photo sites.

There are also commercial fonts being used on graphics that are probably being sold without a license...I haven't thought about that until now.

You asked a very good question. I feel bad for even have used celebrity pictures in the past.

[belindasue70]

No :o Disney just sued a bookstore in michigan for having mickey mouse painted on the side. I dont have anything copyright on my website :/

WOW! This makes me even more cautious! I'm just going to stick to, if I didn't buy a commercial license, then I have no right selling it! :no:

Thanks, Tif! :winkiss:

[belindasue70]

Wow...this is a really great question. I don't make graphics/layouts for sell anymore. I only make them for one of my websites now, and whenever I use photos,I make sure to only use ones from stock photo sites.

There are also commercial fonts being used on graphics that are probably being sold without a license...I haven't thought about that until now.

You asked a very good question. I feel bad for even have used celebrity pictures in the past.

Thanks, Gee! :winkiss:

I'm going to do some searches for the stock photo sites.
Thanks so much for the info.!

[trixinitynet]

keep in mind that celebrity images, photographs of people or animals are not allowed to be sold, but people do make myspace layouts and graphics with these images and sell them. Basically your taking a risk but the chances of these huge companies finding our websites and sueing us all is highly unlikely and not worth it.

Once your site gets HUGE then it may become an issue, but yeah, youre always better off making your own stuff from scratch as much as you can anyways, Good luck. =]

[Pooraffiliate]

Even if you get an image that says 'non commercial' and you modify it and dont sell it on the marketplace, but put the image on your website, where you make money off ads, you are still violating the 'commercial' vs 'non-commercial' use, because you are making money off it.

So basically if you didnt make the image from scratch, and you didnt get a 'commercial license' for the image, you cant use it on your site or resell it in any shape or form. If you do you run the risk of them coming after you, even though they more then likely wont.

[Andrew2]

Even if you get an image that says 'non commercial' and you modify it and dont sell it on the marketplace, but put the image on your website, where you make money off ads, you are still violating the 'commercial' vs 'non-commercial' use, because you are making money off it.

No they aren't who told you that lol, if THAT were the case then I'd have to be sueing a lot of people. Nickelodean ran commercials, ChristinaX uses my fonts in her templates sometimes as does xLove, but they aren't selling the template. Just because it has ads doesn't mean it's suddenly being used Commercially.

The issue in your example would be "putting the image on your website", if you are redistributing the image as clipart or free-to-use graphics you may have a problem but ads don't suddenly turn it's usage into "commercial use".

[Pooraffiliate]

Ok lets take youtube for example.. youtube didnt sell or distribute videos as free, yet they made money off advertising next to the videos. Did they get sued? yes. Did they have to take down all the stuff? yes.

You can sue, you can use the DMCA and have all people using your fonts be forced to take them down.

[Riseykins]

You may ONLY use images found online if you have permission from the copyright owner (usually the artist/photographer) to do so. To use their images to make graphics and sell them, you must have permission to use it commercially. You can't just modify something and sell it, either (unless you have permission for commercial use).

If you can't find information on use of the image, don't use it. The site you've found it on may have just taken the image without permission, too.

Also, if you sell graphics that use images that are not allowed to be used and the person you sell to then distributes the graphics, they are breaking the law, and every person that uses the graphics on their MySpace, website, etc.

[Anne]

Pooraffliate is correct.. If your site has ads on it, and you make money from them, then it's a commercial site.

I was just reading where Ed Hardy was suing different people for copyright infringement. I love the work, wish I could use it, but even though I'm small potatoes, I'm not willing to take a chance.

I'm not saying I've never used a copyrighted image, or a font for that matter, but that was before I knew what the risks were. Nowadays I'm much more careful where I get my images from.

All I can say is, weigh the risks, and see if you are willing to suffer the consequences.

[moonstar]

There's some weird thing with fonts though that doesn't cover them with as much copyright protection as other formats *.
I think they can be trademarked, but not copyrighted (in the US) for some reason.

* may not be entirely true, there is some discussion about it here http://www.boingboing.net/2004/12/26/can-you-copyright-a-.html

[Andrew2]

I agree with it to an extent but if I posted someones Photograph on my blog which has ads, that doesn't mean I am using it commercially.

[shariden]

yeah anne you are right.. DO NOT PUT ED HARDY STUFF ON YOUR SITE!!!!

i have been trying not to use any images such as celeb pics anymore but i am guilty of doing it in the past. :whistling:

also I use a lot of fonts from dafont but i try to stick with A&S and DNA fonts since i have a license for them ;)

its not like i have a big site or anything though so i guess it doesnt matter right now lol

[Riseykins]

If you use fonts from DaFont, they come with a readme (usually). Some allow commercial use! If there's no readme, the creator clearly didn't care enough to put one in. I wouldn't use them in commercial use, if you're worried about being safe, but if someone distributes a font to the entire internet without copyright information, then they're a bit of an idiot if they didn't want it commercially used!

[Andrew2]

That's very convenient for you guys to mention Ed Hardy, Unfortunately in the myspace graphics world it's not a very real situation.

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=ed+hardy+graphics&btnG=Google+Search

There are risks with everything, If you've sold something that you either didn't know you could or knew you couldn't then you're risking as much as the next person.

In this forum you do what you do, If someone complains THEN you take action but we're all hypocrites here so just do either avoid it if you don't want anything to do with it or go on with your day if you're fine with it.

Nora sells stuff that she makes herself, 100% (I think there's a couple exceptions but usually she only sells stuff she made herself). It takes more time and people only buy for so cheap. If you want to waste your time and make the font, the brushes, take the photographs and design the patterns then BY ALL MEANS DO IT and sell it for $1.00; Otherwise what the hell are we complaining about? Not stopping anyone from doing anything, legal or not.

I just had Deja Vu.

[Anne]

I wan't pointing a finger at you Drew, I was using that as an example.. Obviously you know the risks, and you made your choice.

All I'm saying is that we as sellers have to make our decision on what we will and will not do.

When I first came on this forum, I had no idea what copyright infringement was, but I learned very quickly.

To me, copyrighting a picture of a bird is ridiculous, since it's a freaking bird.. Or copyrighting a picture you took of someone... Yeah, the picture is going to last forever, but the person that's in it will eventually die. And it's only worth money if your subject is famous. I wonder if I can copyright Drew, so that anything he makes is automatically mine?

Ok, I'm rambling, I'm going away now, I just wanted to say I wasn't fingerpointing at Drew...