AboutChristopher Quereau Expertise Owner of a Creative Services firm in Northern New York. Available for questions relating to the business of design, client relations, billing, design startups, employee management, production, brand and print development.
Experience GrafiQa has a combined experience of over 30 years. Our client list is extensive. We have developed brands for companies across the state of New York. Visit www.grafiqa.com to learn more about what we do.
Question "I have a general question regarding copyright.
I am a photographer and collage artist.
I wanted to know how I stand regarding the kind of collage art I intend to produce.
If I take my own photograph of an item (ill use an example of something I'm working on now) a toy figure of an animal of which I know is in itself copyrighted (ie:the design of the figure no company logo) and use my photograph of this in a work of art which has other images elements in it created by myself of which I then intend to license the work of art for sale to publications. Would this be legal or a breach of copyright."
I suppose what I am saying is, if I take a photograph that has a product in it and that products design is copyrighted would I be allowed to use that photograph to produce a collage/work of art I could license and sell. As I understand I own the copyright of the photograph because I took the picture.
Answer Hi, first off sorry for the delay on response.
1. I'm not a lawyer and you should consult one - My knowledge in this subject is about ten years old - however from what I remember if you change a copyrighted item in at least 3 ways for artistic purposes then you can resell the item - the important items here are "for artistic purposes" and "3 ways" so a change in sizes, color, shape, etc would work. This is something you should definitely ask a lawyer about - the bottom line is if someone wants to sue you it does not really matter what the law says only how good and expensive their lawyers are - so I always avoid copyrighted material.
