Copyright & CMC mount designs

[Vix]

I've just been looking at some of the latest mounts created by Gunnar owners on the Gunnar website, which has got me thinking.......

...If producing mounts on any cmc with images of celebrities and logo's surely wouldn't they be subject to either copyright or licensing. Has anybody heard of any problems regarding producing such mounts for sale? Afterall I am assuming that most of the images used will have been produced from photographs of celebs which will be subject to copyright.

The reason I ask is that I'm seeing more and more of these designs coming onto the market with the advent of more cmc users and they do add impact to the finished job, but I personally would hate to find myself been sued for breach of copyright / licensing infringements if I were to produce any.

It would be interesting to hear what others out there think.

[JFeig]

The first thing that comes to mind are sports teams (professional and universities) as well is Disney. I have seen stories about them; but, have not heard of any real legal action for ones and twos.

[Merlin]

Vis
Check Search facility for 'copywrite'
came up with this:
http://theframersforum.com/viewtopic.ph ... ite#p43115

[JamesC]

I would definitely think twice before copying logos or trademarks for general sale (unless you pay a licence but unless you are mega rich you won't afford it to begin with on big names)

When it comes down to recreating likenesses of celebrities you are probably in safer territory. They didn't "create" themselves so have no copyrioght in their own image. Whether they own their own "image rights" is a bit of a hot potato and grey area, you could probably find lots of newspaper articles on this from the last 5 years if you googled.

Then whether the European Convention on Human Rights gives the a right to a private and personal family life and so on (more relevant to paparazzi than you).

Probably if you cut out the Scarface image you are breaching copyright though and would get in trouble if found out. There will be copyright in that photo of the celebrity for example most likely.

If you are modifying it beyond immediate recognition again you are safer - but to make an adaptation of an original (e.g. a parody of book) still potentially breaches copyright and may even be more likely to upset the copyright owner into taking action.

That's my two penneth, I do have a degree in law but struggled to find it interesting.