I realize images on the net are copywrited. What are the ramifications(sp?) of this?
Let’s say I am a sales person and I am trying to get McDonalds to come to our hotel.
So I copy the McDonalds arches from the internet and put it on a presentation TO McDonalds.
Is this a violation? Something tells me it is. But would McDonalds be likely to call us on it?
In the particular example you’ve given, probably the easiest thing to do would be to call up the McDonald’s office and say “I’m preparing a presentation about our hotel to send to you. Can I have permission to include your logo on the material? Can I copy it from your website, or where can I get it from?” That way, if they do have a problem with it, you won’t have just lost a sale.
From what I’m aware of, you probably wouldn’t get sued if they had a problem with it but you would get a letter from a lawyer asking that you discontinue any use of trademarked or copyrighted material. No cites on that, so don’t take it as gospel.
It is a technical violation of the Lanham Act to use McDonalds’ trademark for a commercial purpose, even in a presentation to the trademark owner, but I agree with Kat that it is unlikely that McDonalds would be to worried about it.
Copyright and trademark is a civil violation, not a criminal one. In other words, McDonald’s would have to decide to sue you if they think you’re infringing. There’s practically no chance that they’d bother in a case like you describe.
First of all, the Golden Arches are a registered trademark. They aren’t “copyrighted.” Copyright (not copywrite) is a different issue.
Beyond that, the other posters are correct. Technically I suppose you might be infringing on their trademark, but they aren’t going to care about the sort of use you’re describing.
I do a lot of presentations to customers, and I like to dress them up with the customers’ logo, which I do sometimes grab off their website. Customers always seem pleased you went to the trouble. Calling them and asking can’t hurt though.
We often include a client’s trademarked logo on the cover page of a proposal or presentation. We always ask, and they almost always agree. They usually supply a graphic that’s much better than what we pulled off the net. If they don’t agree, we don’t use the logo and simply have “Proposal for …” on the cover.
While it’s unlikely they’d bother to sue, if any IP attorneys see the presentation, they’re likely to be annoyed and that’s not the mindset you want in your viewers. In addition, asking up front lets you make a great first impression that you’re sensitive to their legal rights and abide by the letter of the law rather than just sliding through.
Here’s two other questions
What about clip art that comes with Microsoft Word or Powerpoint etc? I am assuming that is OK.
And this has got to be very wrong. Pictures from photos of firefighters and police being used to promote rates and specials for the hotel. For instance a mass mailing to Police Dept of special “POLICE” rates. Using a picture of the police or fireman from the internet.
To me that seems like a problem waiting to happen.
I read somewhere (in my Photoshop magazine, I think) that if you alter an image enough so that the original creator wouldn’t recognize it (at a casual glance) then you are not infringing on copyright. Some people disagree with this, but I tend to think there is merit to it. After all, if no one can recognize the altered image as the same, who exactly is damaged?
I have a lot of photography on my website, and one time I found a guy on Geocities who ripped off a picture of mine. It was obvious it was my photo. I couldn’t find an email address to write to, and I never bothered to contact Geocities, but it pissed me off.
However, I confess I have occasionally “borrowed” rather common and oft-photographed subjects and altered them in Photoshop so much that I cannot fathom that the original photographer would ever recognize them. I see no harm in this, and I’m not losing sleep over it. And, I have thought about it - if someone “borrowed” one of my web images and did the same thing (altered it to be unrecognizable) I wouldn’t care.
The clipart that comes with MS Office should be OK to use as long as you aren’t trying to re-sell those images - after all, I’d imagine that’s why they’re included with the software. Sorry that I can’t give you a firm answer based on their license agreement since I’ve erased them all from my hard drive (I don’t need them, so why clutter up the disk space).
Regarding your second question, if you’re sure those images are pulled from the Internet, then, yeah, that’s bad. But would it be possible that these are stock photos that one can buy and use pretty much however one wishes (once again, as long as you aren’t trying to re-sell those photos)? Royalty-free stock photos aren’t that expensive - they run about $30 for a digital file with enough resolution for a 4"x6" print.
Following up on yosemitebabe’s post, Dan Margulis wrote in the Oct. 2000 issue of Electronic Publishing that copyright issues are often decided on four factors that together make up the “smell test”:
[quote]
[ul][li]Is anybody making any money off [the stuff they’ve copied]?[]What’s the level of artistic expression in the stuff that’s getting copied? Copyright law is supposed to protect artistry more than mere recitations of fact.[]What is the “amount and substantiality” of the copying?Is the copyright holder actually losing money here, or merely pride?[/ul][/li][/quote]
Asides from these, copyright and trademark laws are a huge and nasty can of worms and invoked whenever someone with enough clout/money decides to throw a conniption fit (the moral: be nice to McDonald’s or whomever you’d like to attract as clients), as the crazy recent flap over The Wind Done Gone (a parody of Gone with the Wind) shows.