Copyright on digital image and possible share of profits

snit_girl

Hi all, I went to see a local band last night that are small but quickly gaining recognition and for the first time they were selling merchandise. When I had a look at what they had I saw they are selling t-shirts with an image I took of them at one of their previous gigs. TBH I only took it on my phone and edited it with an app but it turned out really well and I posted it on my facebook, this is where they must have taken it from.

Anyway, when I asked a few of the band members about it they just shrugged and said they didn't know where it came from, it must have been one of the others, and I eventually was given a free t-shirt. What bothers me most its that nobody even asked to use it (I also found out they also stand to make a £300-£500 profit on just that order if they sell it all)

Does anyone know where I stand on this? Are they right just to take it?

fwor

No - you own the copyright, not them.

Do they use the photograph anywhere else - such as on a website/ facebook page, etc? It's quite easy to show that it's the same as your original if you can catch them using it in digital form, and probably not so easy from something that's been printed on a T-shirt.

It may be worth just writing to them and making the point that you would like to be paid for them using your work - possibly wording it as a "Letter before action" to make it clear to them that you are not just going to forget it.

vax2002

Read facebook T+C you have given your copyright away "When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and
direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in
order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content
on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you
automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you
have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable,
perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide
license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly
perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in
whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any
purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion
thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into
other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize
sublicenses of the foregoing."

So they have breached facebooks copyright, in short, dont post anything you want to retain copyright to on any social media site, you may even see your image used worldwide and get nothing in return.

neilwoods

If you had just taken a picture of them and did no work at all to the photo, then answer may have been no, as there no copyright of the human face or body. But because it has been altered by you, then it would be classed as an original piece of work and be subject to intellectual property.

What program do you to alter, as many will allow you to embed digital watermark's these days, making it easy to identify who it belong's to.

texranger

neilwoods wrote: »

If you had just taken a picture of them and did no work at all to the photo, then answer may have been no, as there no copyright of the human face or body. But because it has been altered by you, then it would be classed as an original piece of work and be subject to intellectual property.

What program do you to alter, as many will allow you to embed digital watermark's these days, making it easy to identify who it belong's to.

WRONG

no matter if you take a photograph then the copyright belongs 100% to the photographer, unless you are commissioned to take the photographs for a paid fee for the usage of the photographs.

this is why a lot of concerts/theatres will not allow you to take photographs as if you do take a photograph and then sell that photo then whoever you took the image of has no rights against you.

snit_girl

the band are using it on facebook as their profile picture. I actually would have let them use it if asked but I guess I'm just a bit put out by showing up at their gig and seeing it on the t-shirts then hearing them boast about the profits, which I know they will just out right back into the bands merchandise or studio time

texranger

snit_girl wrote: »

the band are using it on facebook as their profile picture. I actually would have let them use it if asked but I guess I'm just a bit put out by showing up at their gig and seeing it on the t-shirts then hearing them boast about the profits, which I know they will just out right back into the bands merchandise or studio time

next time before you publish any images online in FB etc. use something like paint.net (free) and watermark your images with © your name YYYY making it large enough to cover the image but just enough contrast to be able to see the notice

fwor

vax2002 wrote: »

Read facebook T+C you have given your copyright away

True - but to FB, not to the band (as you say later).

Interestingly (if you're into that sort of thing) you are probably in a stronger position than otherwise. Because you edited it, what you've given away on FB is a "derivative work" version of your original, which presumably you still hold the copyright to. If you were to re-edit it to look almost identical to the one that you gave away on FB, you could offer it to the band as an alternative to one that neither or you now own copyright to.

But if I were the band, I'd just hire a photographer to take some shots of their next performance and use those instead!