I need help—I make these things called kissing balls out of greeting cards, calendar pictures, etc. and am thinking of selling them through a local paper goods/stationery store. My concern is that this possibly constitutes copyright infringement—using the work of other artists to make another project. Anyone know if this violates copyright laws?
I would think it does violate the copyright if you’re talking about contemporary works. If you’re referring to images culled from daVincis, Titians or Rembrandts that may be another matter.
Yes, it certainly does.
hrh
(not a lawyer, though…)
You might want to read this case as a starting point.
It’s infringement if the work is still copyrighted.
Basic rule of thumb: anything created before 1924 in the U.S. is probably in the public domain and can be used. Anything between that and the mid-50s may or may not be public domain, depending on whether the copyright was renewed and in force when the law was amended in 1977. Anything copyrighted from 1961 on (IIRC, the original copyright term was 16 years; if I’m wrong, then adjust accordingly) remains copyrighted.
You can try searching the copyright records at the copyright office (http://www.loc.gov/copyright/), but that only lists registered copyrights; you can still be ordered to stop selling copies of the art even if the artist hasn’t copyrighted the work (though you wouldn’t have to pay damages or the artist’s legal expenses).
The court case cited does not apply. The defendant was granted the right to use the art; the issue was whether that right included the right to put it on decorative tiles. If the defendant had never been granted the right to use the art in the first place, they would have lost the case easily.
One of must be missing something. I don’t see any granting of right between the plaintiff and defendant. Could you point out the language that I missed?
So if I’m reading the case correctly, altering the art is really illegal, right?
What I found on Law Girl regarding derivative work:
No. The district cout granted a summary judgment for the defendant, and the appellate court affirmed the summary judgment.
The opinion does not find the work in question to be derivative.
But, the same defendant seems to have lost two similar cases. Munoz v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co., 38 F.3d 1218 (9th Cir. 1994), affirming without published opinion 829 F. Supp. 309 (D. Alaska 1993); Mirage Editions, Inc. v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co., 856 F.2d 1341 (9th Cir. 1988).
Sorry, I misread; I thought they were suing “Deck the Walls,” which had the rights to reproduce. In this case, the art cards were legally reproduced, and you can do what you like with a legal reproduction except make additional copies.
So if you buy copyrighted art from someone and paste it onto something else, this ruling will help. But you’re not 100% in the clear; a judge would have to rule what you’re doing isn’t a derivative work. It’s one thing to put a piece of art in a frame or tile; it’s another to make changes to create something else.
Still, my guess is that it would be hard to make a case for derivative rights if your just pasting an image to something. But you’d better talk to a lawyer before doing it.
If you make copies of a piece of art without permission, however, you’re in trouble. And if the image is trademarked, you’re in big trouble.
Kissing Balls? Sounds like fun…
hrh
Ok RealityChuck. I’ve made enough mistakes today - I didn’t want to add to the tally. 
So, booklover, unless this area of the law has become more settled, your answer is likely, “it depends”.
If you are serious about this, it looks like it’s time to see a specialist.
While the original Old Master painting is pre-copyright, note that the particular photographic expression of a painting is almost certainly copyrighted by the museum or whatever that owns it, or the photographer given permission to shoot it.
That copyright information would be on the greeting card or calendar page that the OP refers to, so using even that would constitute infringement, as I understand the law.
I didn’t know what “kissing balls” were, so I looked it up on google…
:eek:
Yes, I know that the name “kissing balls” has a certain connotation. Unfortunately, they’re really difficult to describe–they look nothing like the kissing balls made out of greenery that are sold online.
Show us a picture then.
“Basic rule of thumb: anything created before 1924 in the U.S. is probably in the public domain and can be used.”
I wondered where that came from, I saw this idea before but the yea was 1923.
My understanding, which comes from The Authors Guild, is that handy is correct and everything pre-1923 is in the public domain.
This page is somewhat overly legalistic, but it gives the latest info.