Would I be violating any copyright laws ......?

Question

If I were to print images from the internet.........use them as stencils and transfer those images to the item of my choice such as a t-shirt's, pillow cases, hand made purses?? And is it only a crime if I in turn were to sell the items??

Answer 1

First, may have an a potential copyright infringement on your hands, but it would at worse be civilly actionable, not "criminal", ie you could not be arrested for for it because you are not creating a counterfit, but rather might be making an unauthorized transfer of a copyrighted work to another media.

There are 6 primary factors involved that a judge would look at:
1. Purpose and character of the use. (Are you using it for personal, parody, or commercial use?)
2. Nature of the copyrighted work. (Was the work sold, what is the picture of?)
3. The amount and substantialbility of of the portion used in relation to the work as a whole. (if it is not readily recognizable as the original, you are probably safe; if it is clearly recognizable, even if it makes up less than 1% of your end product, you can be held liable)
4. The effect on the copyrighted work's potential market. (is your use in competition with the coyrighted work?)
5. The effect on the value of the copyrighted work. (did your use lower the value of the original rights holder?)
6. If you were determined to have infringed, the single most import factor in deciding judgement is whether or not the copyright was registered. If it was not, then you could be required to forfeit profit, pay Copyright Owner Losses (ie, a use fee), and attorney fees. If it was registered in a timely manner you could be ordered to pay not only punitive damages, but up to $150000 in Statutory Damages, per instance. Statutory damages are the easiest to receive if someone infringes on someone elses copyright.

Ask First. If you think you have a market, make a business plan and offer to pay a license per item sold if neccessary. If you won't be selling it, or are only planning on making gifts for personal use out of it, they may let you. Remember, if you ask first, the worst that can happen is that they say no.

Answer 2

Depends on if the image is copyrighted.

Not trying to be a wiseguy, but in the digital age there has been a rise of open-source thinking that has been applied to more traditional media like visual images. This is sometimes referred to as the "copy-left" movement. (Witty, no?)

Your #1 safest bet is to ask the own or the image for permission to use their image. They may say yes.

Your next safest bet is to use only some of the image, or part of it. For example, if you enlarged a small segment of a picture for a "pop-art" effect, you might have *some* claim of fair use. Note however that the fair-use doctrine is not a clear cut test and you could end up losing that defense.

You can also use old images. Copyright expires, so certain historical or archaic images (like old pictures of Washington, Lincoln, etc.) may have passed out of copyright protection and into the public domain.

Technically, the question of if you sell the item or not is immaterial. The violation of copyright occurs when you reproduce, rebroadcast, copy or otherwise recreate the protected material without permission of the copyright holder. In reality...if you make a pillow case for a friend and you're not selling thousands of them on Ebay, what are the odds (1) that the copyright holder will find out and (2) that they will care?

Lastly, if you BUY a licensed copy, and use that copy in your art (example: I buy a t-shirt, and incorporate that actual t-shirt into a pillow or handbag) then you are in the clear for that one piece. This is called The Original Purchase Doctrine. However, you would have trouble if you then copied that work. Point here is onc eyou buy a licensed copy, whatever you do with it, other than copying it, is generally ok.

Answer 3

I'm pretty sure that if you were to just print a picture and hang it on your wall that would be okay. Probably okay to put it on your iPod or screensaver too...If you transfer a picture of Simon Cowell onto your pillowcase, I don't think anyone will care. If you sell many of those pillowcases online and make thousands of dollars, that's going to be a problem.

I do believe, though, that most websites containing copyrighted material (images) have notices (at the bottom of the page usually) -- Generally they say "all right reserved" or some such. That means someone owns the images and/or content, and you must ask for permission to use it.

SOoOOOOoOooooO, if you were to sell anything with an image, or use someone else's words on a product you sell, it would be against the law.

But there is hope! If you want to make T-Shirts, or hand-bags, or whatever, with someone elses copyrighted design, you could ask the person for permission. You could get images from Public Domain websites, or you could design your own.

This is a tricky legal area, because of the Internet and widely available printers, etc. If you are planning to sell items with someone elses image on them, I would be very careful.

Good luck!

Answer 4

no. replicating clothing items is a copyright infringement. using an image without authorization is copyright infringement.coping data or music onto a CD and giving it to some one else is a copyright infringement. look it up different products have different laws.

Answer 5

100% a criminal offense of Copyright infringement

and the 10% change is an urban legend. its false and could get you into more trouble. ( http://www.keytlaw.com/Copyrights/top10myths.htm#modify )


You can parody an image (ie mickey mouse swearing) but you can't take an image and outright just put it on something and sell it.

Answer 6

Yes! Against the law if you sell them. If you gave them away for free you might get into trouble, but not much!

Answer 7

as long as you change it by 10 percent or more its not. that can be accomplished by changing the colors alone! subtle details make all the difference too

Answer 8

I would like to know too!