If in a foreign country, someone was using an american based cartoon to promote a store or a contest for kids, ie a drawing contest, is this considered illegal?
Can you put pictures of your friends on a webpage without their permission?
IANALawyer, but here’s what I’ve read: (Someone should be along to correct me shortly 
)
Copyrights & Trademarks are considered worldwide. Yes, Disney would come after an Ice- Cream shop in New Zealand (for example) for using Mickey Mouse in advertisements without permission. Charlie Chaplin (in America) once sued an actor (in Germany) who was billing himself as ‘Charlie Aplin’.
The pictures thing can be a little stickier I think. Generally a photographer has the right to do with what he/she pleases with a photo he/she has taken. There is some fine lines I think if the photo was taken via illegal means (entering someone property without permission, fo rexample). If the photo was taken in a public place (say a nude beach in the case of so many paparrazi photos), then there is little the person being photographed can do; there is a certain level of reasonable expectation that photographers can take photos in public places without needing the permission of the subject.
I think I’ve seen it go both ways (in favor of the photographer or subject) when paparrazi photo cases go to court.
Of course, if you have pictures of your friends with barn animals, they may not be able to bring forth charges for you publishing the pictures, but they could probably bring other objections (Slander? Defamation of character?) to a court.
“Considered worldwide” is not really an accurate way to say that. The ability of a person in Country A to successfully bring suit against a person in Country B is completely dependent upon the recognition of the copyrights and trademarks of Country A by Country B.
In other words, Disney complaining to Iran about misuse of its cartoons is not likely to go anywhere. And whether or not it’s “illegal” depends upon which country you are in (as opposed to whether or not it is “immoral”, although moral and cultural relativism are a frequent topic of debate…)
Oh yeah - to answer the OP directly - whether or not it is an act which could be successfully sued over depends entirely upon which countries you are talking about, the nature of the work, the age of the work, etc. It’s too vague a question as-phrased, I fear, to give a definite answer on.
Well, there is a drawing contest in the Bahamas, where kids submit drawings of Spongebob for a contest.
Some stores even use this cartoon for celebrating the Bahamas Independence Day.
Can the store or contest promoters go to jail?
Now here’s where you need an actual lawyer to say for certain. But I am fairly sure (IMO only) that the answer is either “no but they could be successfully sued”, or “no, and they can’t be successfully sued”.
It is unclear whether a child’s rendition of a cartoon character is something that is in fact a copyright violation. It is a tricky matter, depending on the situation or country. One clear acid test would be if reproductions of Mr. Bob were used as the “guideline” or “example”, or were used in advertising for the contest. That would most likely be a no-no.
However, if the contest is simply “Hey kids! Submit your best drawing of Sponge Bob and win a prize!”, then I have a hard time seeing how that sort of highly inexact duplicate work would be considered actionable, but I am not an actual lawyer.
Whatever the case, there is a difference that has to be made between whether or not the potential offense is criminal or civil. The layman’s way of thinking of it is “criminal you go to jail for; civil you pay money for”, although that is not accurate. The short opinionated answer is that most likely, the worst that would happen is a “cease and desist in the use of our owned images of Bob” letter would be sent, and if use ceased and desisted, then no harm, no foul. However, if someone blatantly ignored that hypothetical letter, or was in a position to derive substantial income from the use of Bob in the contest, then the next thing that would happen would be a suit.
But these are only my entirely unprofessional opinions based on experience. In truth, even if there are actual international copyright lawyers here that are able to help you here (and there are a few on this board who are quite sharp), your best bet, if you have a rear concern or fear of this, is to contract with an IRL attorney directly who has actual experience with the countries in question. Legal questions on a message board, even one as good as this, are things which should only be addressed in general and non-case specific terms. I know that may not be the answer you want to hear, but I fear that it may be the only one that can really be given with a level of confidence, yes?
IIRC, the Bahamas has very lax copyright laws and may not necessarily be a member of any of the international copyright treaties (a friend of mine who lives there told me that when he rented vidoes they were usually taped copies from satellite TV, but that it wasn’t illegal in the Bahamas to do that – that was 10 years ago YMMV now).
Also copyright infringement is rarely punishable by imprisonment – it’s usually settled in civil court and one is held liable for damages.
Note: It’s a little different if your “copyright infringement” is something like, oh, say, running a factory that manufactures counterfeit DVDs for sale.
But for the case of the Bahamian promoters above, they could be liable for damages (based on the amount the copyright holder can establish that his/her copyright will be devalued by the infringement) if the Bahamas is part of a legal treaty that will recognize the legal action.
IAAL, so here’s some answer, best way I can formulate it, based on the question:
Q: “If in a foreign country, someone was using an american based cartoon to promote a store or a contest for kids, ie a drawing contest, is this considered illegal?”
A: Contrary to what some of the prior posters said, copyright is not “international” (as an aside there really is no such thing as “international law” as it relates to anything other than war crimes and genocide; everthing else depends on national law and international treaties). So it depends on whether the country you’re concerned about recognizes the copyright of the US cartoon, and (probably more importantly) has a legal system that would actually do something about it. So if it is a Western European country, US copyrights are generally recognized and enforceable; in South-East Asia, less so.
Having said that, whether anyone is going to enforce anything against you (probably civilly, I doubt in your case (unless you’re publishing copyrighted material in a newspaper) the state is going to go after you criminally, if there are criminal copyright provisions in that particular country.
Q: “Can you put pictures of your friends on a webpage without their permission?”
A: Generally, yes. Only potential hitch is: a) if you don’t own the copyright in the picture (i.e., you didn’t take it yourself); b) you’re using your website for commercial purposes, in which case your friends’ rights of publicity/rights of privacy might kick in; c) the pictures of you friends are nekkid pictures, where right of privacy might kick in too. All of the above depends on where you are, too; answers above are based on US law (which varies state-to-state also, so I may not be right for your state).
The Bahamas is (are?) a signatory to both the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention. For information about what those agreements entail, see the World Intellectual Property Organization.
One good indicator of whether a copyright infringement case will be won is whether the violator derives an economic benefit. In this case, asking children to draw a picture of a copyrighted character may not be infringement, but if its suggested that the copyrighted character endorses the store or its products (e.g., used in an advertisement), it would be.
You generally cannot publish pictures of people without their permission. Putting someone’s picture on a website may be considered publishing. Again, economic benefit also comes into play here. If a photographer uses your photo in his portfolio, that’s generally ok. If a photographer uses your photo in a public exhibit, you may be entitled to a money reward.