Greeting Card Designer: What To Do When You See Artwork Being Copied Without Permission

Article Worth Reading. Here is an excerpt. To read complete article go to blog post.-Kate

What To Do When You See Artwork Being Copied Without Permission

Author: Lance Klass

Recently, I read a comment on Linked In from an artist who was shown a local church calendar that had been put together by people in her area using scans of work by different artists. None of the artists were mentioned by name, no source was mentioned for the artwork, and no copyright notices were on the calendar itself. To her, and to me as well, it's clearly an infringement of fair use and a violation of the rights and property of the artists whose art was used. But is that all there is to it?

Unless one believes that no one has the right to private property, and that you can take and use anything you like that belongs to someone else, there's something obviously wrong here. And the artist who was shown the calendar picked up on it quickly enough.

I don't believe that any major world religion has as a part of its teachings that theft is justified, or that personal property can or should be appropriated by others for their use without the permission of the owner. Thus you might expect members of a church or synagogue or mosque or temple to be even more aware on this subject than people who aren't religious devotees. But as you know, this misappropriation of the property of artists happens all the time.

I think the basic problem is that many people honestly have no idea that they're doing anything wrong, especially if the calendar or decoupaged plaque or card or whatever derivative product isn't being used to make money. And they don't think of art as property. I suspect that's the case with this church group's calendar. Well-meaning people wanted to do something nice for church members, and it probably didn't seem to them that they're hurting anyone. It was probably a lot of fun putting the calender together with artwork that they really like, much like we'd cut pictures out of magazines when we were kids and put them on charts or in scrapbooks or on birthday or holiday cards.

continued.....To read complete article go to blog post.

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Legal Guide for the Visual Artist, Fifth Edition

What To Do When You See Artwork Being Copied Without Permission