Four increasingly hostile posts in regards to the law?
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
You carry all that info around in your purse... :animwink:
I think I would take my chances that they are not going to come after you for putting an image on your shirt if it was for personal use. I mean first off, are they going to drag you through the mud for a single shirt? Two, how can they prove you made it? "Oh really, this is not an official Disney shirt? I was not told that when I bought it."
Not trying to debate what is the right thing to do, I am just saying I highly and I mean highly doubt Disney or any other company would come after you for that. It is not worth their time and money.
Don't need to carry it around in my pocket. There's this amazing new invention called "The Internet." You might have heard of it. Within The Internet is also something called "A Search Engine." One need only go to Google and input the words, "copyright myths" to have a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips. It's amazing how easily this information can be found these days.
And just because they're most likely
not going to sue you, does not mean it's still not illegal. If you drive five miles an hour over the speed limit, the police are most likely not going to give you a ticket. But they are full within their right to if they want because you ARE still breaking the law. And, continuing our analogy, as any police officer will tell you if you claim not to know something - Ignorance of the law does not an excuse.
Just a follow up on that. Not sure to the answer to this but, if I buy a Disney book and cut the pictures out of the book and then plaster them to a wooden box making a hat box or whatever. Could you sell that box to somebody in either a craftshow or what have you saying it is a box made from a Disney book? You paid for the book, you are not reproducing the image but using the actual image from the book. Say the book cost you $12.00 and you sell the box for $75 to some Disney collector, did you do anything wrong?
That is a serious question by the way.
What a bizarre situation. Buying the book does NOT give you a right to the images for whatever use you want. Every book is copyrighted and generally has some notice about
no part of this book may be copied or retransmitted in anyway without explicit written permisson... Verbiage varies for sure, but the gist is the same. The book is sold with the permission to READ it, not to use it in any other form. So again, unless you had specific permission to use those copyrighted images for a use beyond reading it, you wouldn't be permitted to resell parts of the book in another medium.
One last reply for you. I am assuming your above comment means you cringe at our ignorance. I am assuming you know everything about anything then and if we have question we can email or PM you at any time, right? :wave:
I cringe that so many people continue, in this day and age, to be willfully clueless about basic facts and laws. Seeing as I not only stated I am NOT a lawyer and that I sourced my information accordingly, it's pretty obvious that this is information from experts, relayed to the forum since no one in the forum was providing correct information. (And was, in fact, providing utterly
incorrect statements.)
It's unbelievably discouraging to see how blatantly people disregard the law. Think for just a moment if you took a photo, or made a drawing, or wrote a story and then all of a sudden, you start seeing people using your creation without your permission, making money off selling their bootleg copies, and using the creation to promote ideas and concepts you are opposed to. Wouldn't you be frustrated? Wouldn't you be angry? Wouldn't you wish people respected your rights and the law? Would you be satisfied with people claiming, "it didn't hurt anyone" or "it was just this once?" That doesn't make it any better, now does it? Just because we're discussing a big, multi-billion dollar company doesn't mean it's suddenly okay to steal. You wouldn't walk into a shop on Main Street and just take something, right? So why is it ok to steal their image, put it on a shirt, and worse, possibly even
sell them to other people?
See they have a sense of humor.
I'm sure we all have a sense of humor. A CM however, has no legal authorization to sue you over your copyright infringement and the most they could do is report you to someone who did, so their lack of condemnation is no NO WAY the same as WDI legally approving the copyright usage.
Sorry, I'm with MissM on this. She's on the side of the angels here. Several seem to STILL be thinking that "it's just one shirt so I consider it OK". Where I come from, we have this concept called the rule of law. It's not a matter of degree. Or personal judgement. It's either right or wrong. A matter of principal.
Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you should. Just because something can be accomplished on an internet web site doesn't always mean it's legal. Wait till you upload some great park pic here and a year later find someone copied it for their travel agency brochure that helped drive a %50 increase in their business. You'd bloody well scream copyright infringement/licensing issues then I bet.
Thank you. People always seem to think that their "one small thing" doesn't hurt anyway - especially when it's against a large company. Besides the fact that these things add up,
it's still wrong.
It's quite simple really. Ask yourself two questions:
- Am I the ORIGINAL creator of this piece?
- If not, do I have the explicit permission by the person who IS the original creator to use it?
If both are NO, then the little situational details don't really matter.
Oh it's just one shirt or
I'm not hurting anybody or
Disney's a big company and they won't notice or
They're not going to bother with just one little shirt is nothing more than an attempt to excuse breaking the law. You can go around saying,
Oh I was in a hurry or
Oh, I didn't realize the speed limit but see how much good that's going to do you when you get caught.
I guess we just disagree. I think if it is for personal use it is ok.
But it's NOT a matter of personal opinion. It's a matter of LAW. It's either LEGAL or ILLEGAL. Stealing an image and using it without permission falls on the illegal side of the fence.
Concerning copyright law MissM is correct.
However.......
For legal action to be successfully taken damages must be proven either in the form of profit made from the selling of such items or defamation of a brand.
So from a strictly legal sense of the word is it illegal to use a copyrighted image without permission? Sure is.
Will you be contacted by Disney legal for making your own Disney shirt and wearing it to the parks? Doubtful.
Will you be contacted by Disney legal for making your own Disney shirt and selling it on your website? Probably.
Bottom line many laws of this nature IMHO are not to be viewed in black or white but rather shades of grey. Copyright laws were made to protect a company or individual from having property in the form of images, music, slogans etc stolen from them and used for profit by another entity or portraying said company in a negative lite for the purpose of defaming said company or individual. Not to put little Timmy in jail for making a Mickey Mouse shirt for his own personal use.
But that is just my opinion......
This is a common argument though. But it's still a fallacy. Just because they don't catch you, or don't chose to pursue a legal case against you, doesn't mean it's still not breaking the law. Again, to use the analogy, if you drive over the speed limit and don't get caught, it doesn't mean you're still not breaking the law. "Getting away with it" doesn't mean it's legal.
I happen to disagree with MissM only because it could be argued from a different perspective (the majority of what she says is correct). The issue of copyright is all very much a grey area, especially when it comes to using an well known copyrighted image and what context the image is used in.
As an illustrator/artist/designer (etc.) I CAN use any image I choose under the idea's of Free Speech to make an editorial comment as long as the comment is true. I can make a picture of Ronald McDonald dangling cheeseburgers in front of chubby children. It does imply that McDonalds uses Ronnie to entice children to eat their fattening food. While the statement is detrimental to the face of McDonalds corp., it is a true statement and as I was making an editorial comment it's okay.
If you doubt the above statement take a look in your newspaper under your editorial section/views section, everyday there are pictures that put corporations and public figures (most notably right now George Bush) on the grill and let them roast for their decisions, actions and misadventures. There is no asking for permission. There is blatant use of well known images owned by other corporations with no recourse taken. Editorial illustrators do make money off these designs as well it's allowed because it's artistic free speech.
If you wanted to make a shirt that said Free Tigger for yourself, and some friends, I think it could be argued that it is a statement of the times and the situation, and is purely an editorial comment. You are voicing your views. (It doesn't mean disney will roll out the red carpet for you on main street though).
I know that the Graphic Artists Guild and the Illustrator Partnership of America would support most of the above statements as well. I know that because I was once a member.
Now, to make my own shirt!! WHOO HOO!!
I clearly indicated that
parody and
criticism are the protected exceptions included in Fair Use of the Copyright Law. A picture however, of Tigger with a heart is clearly neither parody nor criticism, and thus is illegal.
I'll not apologize for the law. It is what it is and whether you agree with it or not, it's still the law. It's entirely disheartening to see so many people, however, believe that they are welcome to do whatever they want with other people's property. It's in fact, terribly sad. Not "sad" as in "pathetic" but, truly as in "full of sorrow." I would hope that people would be more aware of copyright law these days due to the large focus that's come to things like music file sharing, copying of movies on the internet, and related. I would imagine that people would be more polarized to the issue and the facts of the problem. It's sad to think that not only are people
not aware of the core facts of the problem, but are continuing to be
part of the problem.
To put it simply, if this were your original creation, how would
you want it to be treated? It's the do unto others idea. To ensure YOUR things are safe and protected means to ensure ALL PEOPLE'S things are safe and protected, you know?
-m
