[Clipart] clipart Digest, Vol 60, Issue 46

[John Olsen]

On Mar 25, 2009, at 2:18 AM, clipart-request at lists.freedesktop.org  
wrote:

From: chovynz <chovynz at gmail.com>

> I can't comment on Obama as I dont know US Govt rules on PD and  
> presidential
> figures.


First, people's own images are not copyright issue ,but privacy  
issue.  Public figures do not have the same rights and thus images of  
them are generally protected

>
>
> I'm not an expert on copyright, and I am not a lawyer, however I did  
> study
> copyright in University on my Advanced Diploma in Design and  
> Multimedia.
> About the other Darth Vader pictures, after reading Lucasfilms  
> copyright
> statement I can tell you that unless they got permission to use him,  
> then
> they probably are breaking copyright......I feel that maybe some of  
> my comments are or might be taken the wrong way,
> so I'll clarify that now. What I'm doing is being a "devil's  
> advocate." I'm
> being hard-nosed about it because, especially in America, I've seen  
> people
> get sued over the stupidest little thing.


I have never heard of a case of someone being sued straight out and I  
work in a field that blatantly steals images and logos for their own  
purposes ( action sports like surf and skate).  The standard procedure  
is to send a cease and desist letter requesting the immediate removal  
of an image.  Even the most rabid copyright protectors like Disney do  
this.  Nicu's image is a Nicu drawing inspired by the Star Wars  
world.  No one would confuse it with the actual Lucasfilm art.  BTW,  
we have actual Lucas film images here in the library - those images  
were specifically placed in the PD in the USA as drawings for Star  
Wars patented toys.  All images used to support a patent claim in the  
US must be placed in the PD.

That brings me to the point about "especially in America" and US Govt  
rules.  In the US ANYTHING produced by the government that isn't a  
security issue is the property of the citizens of the US and is thus  
placed in the public domain.  So many of the images here were produced  
with our tax dollars and we Americans can use them as we want.  This  
is very different from countries like Australia where the govt.  
specifically retains copyright on all of its work.

John Olsen



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