Copyright Issues

grozz

Originally posted on DFW...

I have recently been getting back into doing some art work and have just sold my first two pieces of work :T but was wondering what the copyright issues were surrounding art? I basically search the internet for photos I like and then paint them. What would the deal be if I had a copyrighted picture that I then painted and sold? What if I cant tell if the picture has been copyrighted at all?

Cheers

BWZN93

All images are copyrighted automatically at production, as are writings, music and music. There is no need for a specific proceedure to be followed to copyright these items, the simple production of one of these gives automatic copyright. Some people choose to take further measures however to ensure their copyright cant be argued like posting a pic with thier name on it for instance so it cant be removed.

Technically, to use any of these items then permission of the author is required and you would need to be full and frank with that person, if you intend to take an image of someone elses and paint over the actual image for sale, then the person needs to know so they can reject your proposal or ask for a cut of your profit. If you are using the images as reference rather than an actual piece of the work, then it entirely depends on the subject matter. For instance, if you paint a pic of a photo of a valley, then its fine because that would mean preventing you going to the same place and painting the same image! The aim of the legislation is to essentially prevent someone from taking something and ripping off the author without consent.

There are exclusions however, if the person has explicitly stated that the images are freely available to anyone who wishes to use them for any purpose then you could use them without the permission.

HTH

Jo x

grozz

Thanks for the response.
I dont use the pictures to overpaint or anything, I just use them as reference images but try to get mine to be a very close representations of them. So for that purpose I would say that they are more like the valley theory. Do you think this will be the case? I do try to make things slightly different, like removing a yacht just to add to the picture a bit.

Cheers