Copyrights - a new question by a...

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is posting (on my website) a collage including caricatures of cartoon characters (and real people) drawn and colored by my seven year old neice and her friends copywrite infringement or generally uncool. Also, is there a greater text(s) of what is and isn't cool to do on websites? Do you have to have permission to quote authors or is it like a well written master's thesis, with good footnoting. Thanks for tolerating me.

I know this is all a new "wild, wild west" carving itself out. There is no secret handshake.
User 132952 Photo


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There's so many broken copywrite rules on the net, you'd be on the bottom of the priority list for troublemakers. Usually the only people that care are the ones whose content you're using, or the ISP trying to save their butts (and what are the chances that'd they'd even run across your site). You can always just blame your niece. She'd sooner get a slap on the wrist. :P Ok, sorry, I'll let someone else handle the serious response.
User 51909 Photo


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Brian Manwarren wrote:
is posting (on my website) a collage including caricatures of cartoon characters (and real people) drawn and colored by my seven year old neice and her friends copywrite infringement or generally uncool. Also, is there a greater text(s) of what is and isn't cool to do on websites? Do you have to have permission to quote authors or is it like a well written master's thesis, with good footnoting. Thanks for tolerating me.

I know this is all a new "wild, wild west" carving itself out. There is no secret handshake.

Brian - As long as the cartoon characters or whatever are not directly linked in any way to selling a product, then you will not be pressed to remove them.

Under Bristish law, and I think also US, you do not need any permission to quote any author as long as the quote is considered for study purposes. Also you don't need persmission to quote for material that is open source, usually that which is over 75 years (I think). So if you wanted to copy the whole of the original Peter Pan book, you could legally.

Mark
Mark Loves CoffeeCup
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Brian,

For an exhaustive review of what's kosher and what's not on presenting (somebody else's) copyrighted materials on your webpage, try:

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_a … index.html

The whole website (http://fairuse.stanford.edu) is dedicated to the topic.

As to your daughter's caricatures, I'm not sure. You might find something in the site above. I've heard, however, how the Disney lawyers really like to come after people and schools and such that paint pictures of Disney cartoon characters on walls and things.

Happy reading!

Howard
Howard
Mostly just lurking these days ...
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I'd imagine that a caricature of a cartoon character may look different enough to not be considered copying. Perhaps it all depends on how good the artist is then (judging likeness)? Sheesh. "Ok, you're getting too good, you could get in trouble." I do know, if you saw my awful stick figures, you'd say, "That's supposed to be Donald Duck??" :P
User 151451 Photo


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thank you for your responses. actually, it is my neice that I am giving a page on my site to and it was her idea about pictures- i would imagine that there are seven year-olds who have fan pages. She uses Windows "Paint" on her e-machine, though she isn't hooked up to the internet, but she does have her own phone line. Let's see "what was I doing 40 years ago?" anyway, again thank you Brian
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Brian Manwarren wrote:
thank you for your responses. actually, it is my neice that I am giving a page on my site to and it was her idea about pictures- i would imagine that there are seven year-olds who have fan pages. She uses Windows "Paint" on her e-machine, though she isn't hooked up to the internet, but she does have her own phone line. Let's see "what was I doing 40 years ago?" anyway, again thank you Brian

Brian - Just do your stuff, let those creative juices flow and don't worry about being kosher. Lets face it, the big boys have far more than you and me to worry about. The worst that would happen is that someone would ask you to remove something from your site. They won't prosecute, especially if all you are doing is having some fun, they are more concerned about people making money from their hard work, not having a bit of fun.

Just take a look at all those fan sites etc out there, each one has broken a million laws, but being fan sites, they are usually left alone.

So let your niece have some fun and be creative.

Just a little story. A few years back, the Elvis (singer) Estate tried to prosecute someone for using the name Elvis. The estate said that this man was making money from the back of the singer songwriters name and brand etc. Anyhow, the courts chucked it out saying you can not protect a name. So if anyone tries to bug you about using protected material, take it off and create some web pages calling yourself Bill Gates, Walt Disney and as many famous names that you can think of. Petty, but fun.

Mark
Mark Loves CoffeeCup
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In all actuallity all that has to be done to make the image a "nwe creation" is to make changes to it, add something, take something away.

If it is NOT being used for commercial purposes Disney nor Warner Brothers would say a word. I created a logo for the Orange County FLGenWeb site based on the Mickey Mouse character. After creating it, I uploaded it to a webspace e-mailed WDW and asked if it would ok to use the image.

I received a reply as long as I annotate somewhere on the site that the Mickey is the Reg TM of the WDC (Walt Disney Corporation) and there is no commerce on the site tht would be an accepted use as I placed a Micky character inside a banner I designed around him.As long as you do not represent their property as your own creation, and do not profit from it financially generally they wont say a word.

I had a website for years for my Euchre League Cracker Jax Euchre, I did much the same, created a graphic from their logo, sent them a url along with a decription og how it would be used with another url to a representative page containing the graphic and asked permission to use it. Permission was granted. If you do that route, save copies of all correspondence just in case. But in reality, the first thing thay are going to do if they dont want you to use it is to ask you to remove it. If they you comply.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~florange/florange.htm


CoyoteBlue

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