Copyrights: Images
A webpage brought to you by Michael Hendrick, Tanith Brehmer, Amanda Schlernitzauer, and Mark Touchstone
History
Copyrights protect original works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. This includes photographs, visual art (fine, graphic, and applied), prints and reproductions, technical drawings (maps, charts, diagrams, blueprints), and logos. Some images, such as the logos, are considered trademarks, which are treated a little differently by copyright laws. Trademarks are words, names, or symbols that are used to indicate the source or brand name of a particular product or service. (For more information on copyright laws, visit this website.)
The matter of copyright ownership can become quite complicated. In general, it is the creator of the work who owns the copyrights, and as the copyright owner, they have the exclusive right to reproduce the work, to distribute the copies of the work, to display the works publicly, and to create derivative works. In the event that a work was the product of collaboration, then the creators share the copyrights. In the situation of works made for hire, it is the employer, not the employee, who is considered the author. This includes some commissioned pieces as well. A good example of an employer who orders works made for hire is Disney. In this case, none of the artists are given any specific credit.
The rights granted solely and permanently to the author of a work of visual art are called the "Rights of Attribution and Integrity." These grant the author the right to claim authorship of their creations, to prevent the use of their name being used to claim another author’s work, and to prevent the use of their name to claim authorship of their work if it has been altered in any way, especially if it would be detrimental to the author’s reputation. This altering does not include changes that occur in the work due to the passing of time, the characteristics of the materials used, or the minimal modifications made by a conservationist. These rights do not apply to reproductions or copies, only to the original work. While these rights of the author cannot be transferred to another person, they can be waived by the author in a written and signed document. Again, the transfer of the copyrights does not include the transfer or the waiver of the ‘Rights of Attribution and Integrity.
Also, the transfer of ownership of an image does not imply the transfer of copyright ownership. Buying a painting or a book with photographic images does not mean the owner has the copyrights to do whatever he wants with those images. Despite the transfer of ownership of images or their reproductions from one person to another, there are still some rights that will always remain with the author of a visual work of art and others with the copyright owners, such as getting credit for the creation of the work or the decision of how the works can be displayed publicly.
Copyrights start the moment that a work is in fixed form or finished, however the expiration period starts with the author’s death. In the case of joint authors, the expiration period begins when the last surviving author dies. Copyright protection of images lasts for 70 years after the author’s death, unless the author is unknown, in which case the expiration period will last for the shorter time period between 95 years from publication or 120 years from the date of creation.
Copyright laws prevent someone else from creating works that are too similar to another author’s work. This is to prevent confusion about which piece of work actually belongs to the author. An example of this is in the creation of fan art, where the fans create images employing another artist’s characters. Because of this "borrowing," the author of the original work, that all the derivative fan art was based upon, owns the rights. The possible exception to this ‘mimicking’ would be under the fair use clause.
Fair Use was incorporated into copyright laws as an exception to allow for expressive freedom. This exception includes the use of an image for the purposes of criticism, reporting news, education, or research. To evaluate if the use of a copyrighted image qualifies under fair use, several factors are considered: the commercially-motivated purposes, the educational or informative purposes, the degree to which the image was altered, whether the work was taken out of context, and the effect on the commercial value of the work. (Some examples of this kind of art can be found at this website). As for the purposes of creating derivative works of visual art, as long as the copyrighted image has been manipulated to such a degree where the original work or the author are unrecognizable, the new work should be exempt from copyright infringement. However, just because it may be considered fair use an image in the classroom, in television news, or in a way that doesn’t compete with the copyright owner’s commercial interests, it does not mean that the use of an image will be considered fair use when posted on the internet.
According to Lessig, images on the internet are sometimes considered fair use and sometimes not. This makes it difficult to discern what can and can not be legally used on a website. Several institutions or businesses have explicit policies on how their work may be used and displayed, and can be quite strict in enforcing them. Some of these are:
Copyright laws were originally created to encourage the spread of ideas and creativity, but in recent years, the laws controlling copyright issues have become so extensive that it is having the opposite effect. Potential author’s no longer can easily tell what is allowed under copyright law, so rather than risk getting sued, most just don’t create certain works. The copyright issues are not seen as a gray area, but in extreme terms of the what is best for the copyright owner verses the public good, and so far the law has been grossly slanted towards protecting the copyright owner. Some how our society needs to find a way of evening the scale again.
Lessig argues how we, as a society, need creative works to be entered into public domain so that others may build upon them, thus continuing the creative processes in such a way that benefits society. It is also important that these works are transferred to public domain in a timely matter so that they are still relevant to the period in which they were created, especially at a time where technology enables such a fast paced progress and spreading of ideas. We believe that a shorter time limit should be applied to the duration of copyrights.
Many years ago, it was common to borrow from other authors, and we owe much of our cultural icons to it. As Lawrence Lessig describes in his book Free Culture: the Nature and Future of Creativity, Disney borrowed characters and stories from the Brother’s Grimm; had they not, we would not have the classic Cinderella story that every American child is familiar with today. Disney also based the modern day Mickey Mouse character off of the character in the film Steamboat Willie, Jr. "Disney added to the works of others before him, creating something new out of something just barely old" and then reinserted the newly appropriated works into our culture. Think of all the things we are missing out on due to our overly oppressive copyright laws.
It use to be that copyrighted images had to be displayed with the copyright symbol (the circle with the letter C in the center) to inform viewers that the work was indeed copyrighted. Recently, copyright law said that this was no longer a requirement, but still a recommended practice. We believe the use of the copyright symbol should be made a requirement again. We also believe a rating system, similar to that used for rating movies, should be used for copyrighted materials. Different letters could be used to signify whether the image could be used for personal use only, if a limited number of copies could be distributed, if it is allowed to be posted on the internet. These letters could be displayed immediately next to the copyright symbol. Eventually the rating system would become common knowledge, but until that time, there would be a website informing people of the rating system’s letters and their corresponding meanings.
Ideally, copyrights could be made uniform internationally. This would protect American author’s work from foreigners and vice versa. However, we realize this is a very unlikely possibility, at least for in the near future.
Since many of these images have been posted to the internet without permission of the copyright owners, immediately following the end of class, we will be taking down this website for fear of being sued by Disney.