I want a website to sell commercially available products, in this instance I want to sell some old record albums/tapes/cd’s.
Where do I get the images of what I am selling? Can I go to other websites and d/l their picture? I see this on ebay, where someone obviously is using a commercially published image, so how do they get them?
How do I handle this so they look as professional as possible without doing something illegal in the process?
You cannot use someone else’s images without their permission. You may see this on eBay but it is against their policies and they will pull any auction if they find a seller using someone else’s pictures (even another eBay member’s). This constitutes copyright infringement as it falls under “intellectual property.”
Your safest bet is to take the pictures yourself. You can pick up a relatively cheap digital camera for about a hundred bucks. Get a cheap memory card – 128 megs will take plenty of product – set up a little stage or homebrew light table for product shots and you’re ready to go.
Amazon likely either have a department to take their own pictures, or hire an outside agency to take them. The former would be more likely and cost-effective.
You can also license images from individual manufacturers/publishers, but your specific usage of them will be bound by the terms of said license.
But is this still the case if you simply make a scan or a photo of an already-copyrighted work, such as a CD or record cover?
Simply taking a picture of someone else’s two-dimensional artwork does not, if i understand the law correctly, give you copyright in that work.
I’d be interested to know exactly how copyright law applies in this case, where copies are being made for the purpose of description or showing people what they are buying. Does this, for example, fall under fair use? It might, but i guess it depends how much weight you give to each of the fair use criteria as described in Title 17.
The law is somewhat unclear on this point. Technically, the creator of the cover art either owns the copyright or has assigned the copyright to the publisher or is doing work for hire for the publisher. In the latter two cases, the publisher controls the copyright. Under any of the three, you would think you would therefore need permission to copy the cover.
However, the cover is presumptively advertising for the product, so there is a fair use understanding that those selling the product have a legitimate interest in using the image. Whether this is explicitly covered by the law is the question I haven’t seen good answers to.
My personal IANAL take is that use of a cover image to sell a product is permissible. I do it myself, for what that’s worth, and I’m pretty scrupulous about adhering to the finer points of copyright (if I say so myself).
The law is somewhat unclear on this point. Technically, the creator of the cover art either owns the copyright or has assigned the copyright to the publisher or is doing work for hire for the publisher. In the latter two cases, the publisher controls the copyright. Under any of the three, you would think you would therefore need permission to copy the cover.
However, the cover is presumptively advertising for the product, so there is a fair use understanding that those selling the product have a legitimate interest in using the image. Whether this is explicitly covered by the law is the question I haven’t seen good answers to.
My personal IANAL take is that use of a cover image to sell a product is permissible. I do it myself, for what that’s worth, and I’m pretty scrupulous about adhering to the finer points of copyright (if I say so myself).
Some retailers require that their suppliers provide pack shots for the products; other retailers expect the suppliers to provide promotional samples and fund the photo shoot; for big players, it’s often part of the whole ‘buying power’ deal.