Hi All!
If I want to write on something e.g. Mickey Mouse but there’s no free use image of Mickey Mouse that I can use in my article, would it be okay from legal and/or ethics point of view to take a picture myself of let’s say a Mickey Mouse figurine that I own and use that image?
Sorry if the above sounds silly but just want to do the right thing here.
Thanks! 
Regards
Req
I am not a lawyer and I do not know if this is accurate, but…
Excerpted from the American Society of Media Photographers’s Trademark FAQ
In other words, there are two separate but intertwined issues: 1) licensing the photographer’s copyright and 2) legal use of the trademark depicted in that photograph.
You can take photos of trademarked items as often as you wish without permission. The only restriction is if you tried to use them in a commercial context (e.g., an advertisement). With what you describe, there are no issues to worry about.
As for the specific issue of getting a picture of Mickey Mouse, take a look at the Wikipedia article on him. It’s illustrated with a public-domain image.
Slightly different from what the OP was asking, but the thread title reminded me of a story that was on the local news a couple of days ago.
A woman posted a picture of her family on her blog 2 or 3 years ago. Recently she went to the local IKEA store and found some of the picture frames for sale with her family’s picture in the frame.
IKEA’s defense is that they bought their pictures from a private contractor and had no idea the guy didn’t have rights to the photos.
Do you know what happened?
I’ve always wondered about this. What DOES happen when somebody sells you the rights to a photo they didn’t actually own?
What was reported is that IKEA stopped selling the frames on request of the family, but no word on whether any legal action will be pursued.
The tone of the news story was that you need to watch what you post on the internet because legal or not anyone can copy your images, and the law hasn’t caught up yet. They had an “expert” come on and say you can do things like put a watermark on your photos, or post them in low resolution, so they look terrible when they’re enlarged.
Link to story:
I’m not a lawyer, but do work in the world of image usage (graphic design). There are different rules regarding editorial and commercial use. If your article is regarded as newsworthy and not for your own commercial enterprise, then it should be ok. Think of Mickey like Obama - if you wrote an article about Obama, it would be fine to find a photo of him and use it (provided you paid the person who took the photo). But if you wanted to use that pic on your own brand breakfast cereal, not ok.
Thank You @Reply, RealityChuck, Dewey Finn, FatBaldGuy & SanVito for your answers. Have been researching too and my understanding is (in the USA) at least, going by the guidelines you have outlined and balanced against the Fair Use law non-commercial, personal or informative use of images/representation of copyrighted material should normally be ok in real world situations.
I personally suspect that in many instances online the definition of Fair Use are liberally interpreted due to the difficulty in actually enforcing the rights to images.
Okay now I7m gonna get busy photoshopping horns to pictures of politicians! 
I just want to repeat, for clarity, that copyright and trademark law are two completely different beasts. Copyright determines who can duplicate an image, which is a non-issue for you because you’re taking the picture yourself. Trademark law, on the other hand, tells you what you’re allowed to do with someone else’s mark, no matter who takes the picture. Make sure you research both and understand the differences before doing whatever it is you’re going to do. Specifically, copyright and trademark have completely different fair use doctrines.
Note that, in this context, “commercial use” is quite specific and probably not what most people think. See here for a good explanation.
And if you’re seriously talking about photoshopping celebrity pictures, you also have to consider libel laws.
Seriously, there’s a reason lawyers are a ruling class in this country. Nobody can realistically expect to be 100% free of crimes or civil liabilities without the help of one.
True story from real life (in a Swedish setting). While I was working at the Swedish international book and library fair an acquaintance took a couple of photos of me in connection with having a talk about visiting the National library and go through the newspaper and magazine collections to see what pictures of his were published without his consent. A colleague of mine, who edited a newsletter, thought they were nice and decided to use one of them. She asked me how to get in touch with the photographer, but had to send the paper to the printers’ before she had talked to him.
Next year at the fair I was talking to her on the phone when I suddenly spotted him walking up the aisle. To my relief she had managed to get in touch with him and arranged the fee.
True, but remember that parody is protected as fair use, and that libel against public figures requires malicious intent.
This is not generally true. For one thing, who took the photo is irrelevant; what matters is who owns the copyright to the photo. The copyright holder may or may not be the photographer; in some cases there may be no copyright at all. Second, merely paying someone doesn’t give you the legal right to use their copyrighted work. They need to grant you a licence to use it for a particular purpose, and this licence may or may not cost money.
Yes, but does the OP know what “parody” and “malicious intent” are? Horns on a celebrity? Fine. Mickey Mouse in costume beating up a parkgoer, passed off as a true story about Disney’s evils? Probably not.
It’s hard to know, from the information given, whether the intended use is “probably ok”, “definitely not ok”, or somewhere in between.
reqinfo, do your research, and if in doubt, consult a lawyer or at least a media professional. It’ll save your conscience at least and may spare you a lawsuit at best.
Actually what I have in mind are articles for sites such as cracked.com where facts are blended with humor and interspersed with images about the subject on hand. The fine line between libel and parody may be determined on the amount of cocaine the lawyers involved have consumed.
Found more info here which I think I could also use:
http://www.wipo.int/sme/en/documents/ip_photography.htm#1
I’m betting all $150 of the kids’ higher education fund on lawyers specialising in Internet laws being in the top 20 lucrative profession in the future!
Thanks for this idea too!
In more detail, the copyright owner can decide on whatever criteria they like whether or not they let you use their work. The most common arrangement, of course, is “I’ll let you use this work if you pay me $X” (and even there, the owner can choose any value of X they want), but you could also have “I’ll let you use this work for free”, or “I’ll let you use this work if and only if you put a link to my website in the caption”, or “I won’t let you use this work under any circumstances whatsoever”, or whatever else the owner likes.