[Clipart] Librarians be aware of http://www.freeclipartnow.com

[chovynz]

Good reply. Well thought out and countering. Thanks Nathan.
It does address the copyright (lookalike) issue, for copyrighted works.

What I was referring to in my case down below, was that since the images 
themselves are public domain, and since their site uses jpgs
I don't see the copyright issue in action , if we redraw the public 
domain clipart as svg's. Jpgs are incompatible with OCAL's library, 
therefore we aren't using their images at all.
We are using originals that look like their clipart, but are actually 
not their clipart. On many of their clipart, people actually have to 
draw them by hand since the resolution of the jpgs are so low.

Or are you saying that Public Domain works can't be redrawn either, and 
your arguement still applies, even though these are not copyrighted images?

Cheers
Chovynz


On 22/06/2010 9:32 a.m., Nathan Eady wrote:
> chovynz<chovynz at gmail.com>  writes:
>
>    
>> One thing I think we need to consider when talking about all this
>> clipart, is the medium as in use.  OCAL uses svg. FreeClipartNow
>> uses jpgs. Two different formats, and I consider ours to be
>> superior.  So that may negate their exceptions anyway, since they
>> are different works in themselves, I believe.
>>      
> IANAL, but to the best of my understanding, that's completely totally
> utterly irrelevant.
>
> Redrawing an image does not automatically free it from copyright.  If
> it's a copy, it's a copy, regardless of whether you make the copy via
> photographic reproduction, tracing, copying by eye (if you have the
> skill to do that), or by some other means.  It's still a copy.
>
> Remember, copyright law is older than computer filesystems (and
> photocopiers and even camera film) and was based on the older,
> standard English definition of the word "copy", from back in the day
> before computers.  Consequently, the definition of "copy" when it
> comes to copyright law is not "made from the same bits" (like "I
> copied the file from my home directory to yours").  When copyright law
> was first written, copying was done by hand, and the law reflects
> that.  Under copyright law, if you're looking at the original and
> drawing your image to look like it, that's copying.  (If you use a
> computer to make a perfect pixel-for-pixel copy, of course, that's
> also copying.  It's copying any way you do it.)
>
> Now, if you look at half a dozen images of squirrels, just to get a
> general idea what squirrels look like, and then go draw your own
> squirrel image that doesn't really look like any of the ones you
> looked at (except insofar as it looks like a squirrel), then that's
> okay.
>
> And yeah, the line can be blurry, but if it's obvious at a quick
> glance that your image is clearly a redrawing of the original, then
> you're not on the blurry line at all.  At that point you're very
> definitely over the line, on the "clearly need permission" side.
>
> "This is in SVG format, and that one was a JPEG" means absolutely
> NOTHING to copyright law.  Heck, it doesn't matter if the original is
> ASCII art and you sponge paint it on a T-shirt; a copy is still a
> copy.  If it looks like basically the same drawing as the original,
> then it generally is considered to be a copy.  You wouldn't argue,
> "but sir, I didn't shoot that man, because shooting is with a gun, and
> I used a bow and arrow, so I'm innocent."  The law doesn't care *how*
> you accomplished it, and copyright law also doesn't care how much work
> you put in (compare Bridgeman vs Corel).  Copyright law is concerned
> with whether the one work is substantially the same expression as the
> other.  If you want to create an original work, you have to actually
> create an original work, not copy somebody else's.
>
>