My New Idea - Any Comments?

[Stitch Up]

I have this idea of taking artwork I find on the internet, usually the first page of Google. I spend a while editing and distressing it for printing on t-shirts and, as the artwork is now mine, I 'licence' its use to others charging 40% of the t-shirt retail price.

Here's a few examples:

From the internet.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v111/datasafe/Stitch-Up/SOS1_zps9a1d5fec.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/datasafe/media/Stitch-Up/SOS1_zps9a1d5fec.jpg.html)

After editing it to make it mine
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v111/datasafe/Stitch-Up/SOS2_zps0e96758b.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/datasafe/media/Stitch-Up/SOS2_zps0e96758b.jpg.html)


From the internet.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v111/datasafe/Stitch-Up/Cymande1_zps851890b2.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/datasafe/media/Stitch-Up/Cymande1_zps851890b2.jpg.html)

After a couple of hours editing.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v111/datasafe/Stitch-Up/Cymande2_zps65f44c1d.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/datasafe/media/Stitch-Up/Cymande2_zps65f44c1d.jpg.html)

What do you guys think? Is 40% of retail selling price fair? Anyone want in?

Cheers

John

[spongerobinson]

Do you really think you can legally do this, without permission from the copyright holders?

[Stitch Up]

Do you really think you can legally do this, without permission from the copyright holders?

Thanks for replying :)

I edited the artwork making it mine, so surely I'm now the copyright holder of my artwork?

[spongerobinson]

Thanks for replying :)

I edited the artwork making it mine, so surely I'm now the copyright holder of my artwork?

Well my opinion personally would be that those images you posted are nowhere near different enough to be classed as your own.

I'm not sure what others would think, but if it was one of my images/designs that you had done that to, I wouldn't be best pleased to see you selling it somewhere, let alone licensing it to others to sell.

[pisquee]

I'm guessing (hoping!) that you're joking and being ironic?

[Paul]

I can smell irony there johny boy!!?? :)

[Stitch Up]

Okay, okay, I've been rumbled :)

This is exactly what happened to me - you could say I was fleeced, £956 I'm being charged. Would you pay it?

To cut a long story short:

I was contacted by a website owner asking if I'd print & drop ship for him:

He supplied me with HIS artwork and we'd fulfil the the orders from his website.
I liked the design of his website so, instead of paying me he'd develop our website.
To busy to create our own products, he put HIS products/artwork on our website - I made it clear I didn't want any copyright issues.
He charged us 40% for Licencing/Commission for using HIS designs.

In September I get 3 warnings for copyright infringements - one very strongly worded.

So I started researching HIS artwork and discovered nearly all appeared on the first page of Google! He's now calculated that I owe him £956 for the use/sales of HIS artwork. I find it an insult to my intelligence yet he still insists it's his -

"I regard files that I have worked on and are not just a pirate copy and there for are "MY" own work. I produce an artistic likeness of something",


It seems you guys, like me, question the validity of his claims.

Would you pay the £956?

John

[spongerobinson]

I had a feeling there was something fishy up with that first post!! :rolleyes:

[GoonerGary]

I thought it was tongue in cheek. He owns nothing so he gets paid nothing. He will be paying your legal costs as you will be suing him for damages. Tell him trading standards will be paying him a visit.

[FlyingAl]

You owe him nothing John, I'm no lawyer but very slightly altering someone else's work in no way grants them copyright, to me this falls clearly under 'derivative works'.

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p22_derivative_works.en.htm

It's perfectly legal to produce new original artwork based on other artwork as long as it's significantly different, this is clearly not the case with what you have shown. This guy doesn't have a leg to stand on.

[Stitch Up]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I made this post just to check whether I was being fair! Sometimes one can get so focused that you can't see the wood for the trees. Your replies have helped reassure me. It seems you're in agreement that what he's done by licencing/charging commission for his artwork is plainly wrong.

Cheers

John

[arko]

...............keep "his" money, photocopy it and send it to him with a few altered details and say it is now "your" artwork and you are keeping it! ...............Im sure he will understand!. You can be rest assured he wont even bother looking in the yellow pages for a solicitor!. As long as he doesn't have access to your website log-in details I think you can safely say you haven't got a thing to worry about! :wink:

[Stitch Up]

The facts are that even with his invoice for £956 he would still owe us money.

One thing I want to avoid is conflict with him. I gave him complete control over our website - he built it! I also paid the monthly hosting fees for his own website + more. At outset I made it clear that I didn't want any 'hookey' artwork on our site, paying a licence fee/commission wouldn't have made the risk worthwhile.

I will add, it's not so much the copyright angle that concerns me, it's more the fact that I was led to believe the artwork was his creation when all along, it wasn't. I could have done what he was doing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no angel when it comes to copyright, I have been known to take the occasional calculated risk in pursuit of making a few quid, but that was completely within my control.

John

[arko]

.....time to change them log-in details mate.......... btw.......... I have server space if you ever get stuck!

[Stitch Up]

.....time to change them log-in details mate.......... btw.......... I have server space if you ever get stuck!

The first thing I did :)

I'm okay with my VPS server hosting for now but thanks for the offer :)