Is it illegal for me to provide profile layouts with pictures of celebrities or popular characters?

Question

I want to create a layouts website like http://glitter-graphics.com/myspacelayouts?categoryID=184
My website will also have some advertisements on them so I can make some money. Is it illegal for me to create layout with pictures of celebrities or popular characters like mickey mouse or donald duck?

Answer 1

Celebrities and popular characters, not necessarily illegal.

If you personally shoot the pictures of the celebs, or if photographs are offered for posting on web sites (read the rules where you want to get the pix before posting) by the copyright holder, then you may put them on a web site. You can not use any photographs taken by other people unless you secure either a license (permission) to use from the copyright holder, or obtain the copyright.

Popular characters are a different. They are owned outright by their creators , the company they work for, or to whoever they have sold the rights. To use a picture of a popular character, you must have the permission of the owner of the copyright.

If you violate copyright law you may be subject to legal action that can be very costly.

The MySpace layouts have some celebs and characters on their layouts because they secured permission to do so. It can be done, as seen there, but it also is usually very costly.

P.S. Disney is not lax. They are always on the watch for the illegal use of their characters.

Answer 2

Yes, of course it is.

Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are copyright of Disney, you can't just steal their characters and slap them on products you want to sell.. You'll be sued in a heartbeat.

Same goes for anyone elses image. Celebrity or not. Unless you get them to sign a contract first.

As for myspace, well.. It's up to the person/copyright holder to track down any infringements and do something about it. In most cases, where it's small, something like a myspace page, you'll likely just get a letter from a lawyer telling you to take it down, assuming the copyright holder/person in question even bothers to do something about it. However, if you are selling the layouts in large quantities, then you'll likely have someone after you for damages and have to pay them.

Some lesser known celebrity is probably never going to find out if you just use their image on your page. If you start selling them, you might have a problem. Disney on the other hand will be all over your rear the minute they find out about unauthorized use of any of their stuff, as they have to defend their copyrights every chance they get, since they have a lot at stake in the image of say Mickey or Donald.

Answer 3

it is illegal for you to create layout with pictures of celebrities or popular characters like mickey mouse or donald duck
do it as soon as possible.

Answer 4

If you are based in the United States, this probably will not fall under "Fair Use" pretense, as cited in my sources. I was surprised to read up on the Stanford website that you are able to put whatever you want in your profile but you will not be held liable for it directly, but the actual web host that you use (unless you self-host) will be held responsible.
I'd think Disney is fairly lax on their "oh god don't show our character images on your website we hate free publicity" campaign so you could probably sneak past the detectors, but I'm not condoning it!