Hi! I was curious about something. If I showed a part of a drawing book as a picture and noted that the content shown is not mine am I still going against the whole "don't duplicate" thing?? I wanted to write an article about something and I wanted to show an example from an art book and show what I did with it. Is that alright? Anyone know?

Thanks to anyone who knows.


~ God Bless ~


~ Moko

5- Search United States Government sites. Many items are public domain and free to use

Two things,

1st - Just because an image is on a gov't site does not mean it is free to use. The gov't buys many images from commercial sites and the copyright still remains with the shooter unless noted otherwise in the image or exif file.

2nd - Many gov't images are not at all free to use, Coast Guard, USPO, Blue Angels, Thunderbirds etc insignia are examples although you get a lot of leeway for editorial use if you take the picture. Otherwise the shooter is the owner unless released to Creative Commons etc.

If you can identify the owner, just ask for permission, you'll usually get it unless you're using it for commercial purposes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

This is a tricky problem, and a good example of the chilling effect of copyright (vs copyleft).

Do you think your use could be construed as eligible under "fair-use" (and assuming you're in the US):

17 U.S.C. § 107
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

There's a couple of things that should be clarified in this response, I think:



Absolutely true, and please be careful when looking to use images from Gov't sites (again, assuming U.S.).



All images produced by US government employees (federal) in the conduct of their duties to the government are free to use without restriction (https://www.usa.gov/government-works). This includes the Coast Guard and Blue Angels (the USPS is a semi-public company with different restrictions), but remember that copyright is different than trademarks.

Also the copyright always belongs to the creator otherwise, regardless of what type of licensing they place on their work (licensing creative commons does not relieve me of my copyright on an image - and in many places you cannot divest yourself of your copyright to works (though you can license very liberally)).

Not trying to be pedantic, just wanted to make sure that this (confusing) topic is not further muddied with misunderstandings.

Actually it is very hard to prove copy writes on images in court and seldom happens. But in good faith you should always contact the original photographer and get permission for any use. That is just plain good manners.

Moved to help

Well I'd be taking a picture of a published page of a book. I'm not claiming rights to the book it's just so I can show what I am talking about...so..? :\

Sounds like it's fair use. You are using it to educate us about your subject (What You are doing). The image is an ancillary item. The work done on the image is the subject.

On another side note, problems like this are exactly why I advocate for the use of liberal licenses whenever you can (and you almost always can). At least Creative Commons by, share-alike (remember non-commercial is not truly free necessarily, so safer to not use it).