Someone just tried to scam me on eBay.

Heritage, in particular, is very generous with their permission to repost images. All they ask is accreditation.

 

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My avatar is an image of me drawn by my grandson. Is that considered a work of art and protected under copyright laws or is the fact I use it on this forum and put it out there to the public make it public domain?

 

That is a pure "work of art" under all applicable law and is absolutely automatically protected. With that said, I think your grandson might have had help....

 

Personally, I think citing one's source of referenced material always makes any type of presentation better, more trustworthy and, occasionally, scholarly. Using a photograph from Heritage and then giving Heritage photo credit adds gravitas to whatever it is you're doing. I am publishing a historical book (not about coins, sorry) and am using photographs from many archives and resources. Nothing makes me happier than giving photo credit like, "Courtesy of the Trustees Yale University Library." Giving photo credit is smart, the right thing to do, and can avoid nasty legal disagreements in the future. Even in cases when photos are truly in the public domain due to the passage of time, etc., I still try to get "permission" from the original source as a courtesy. Why not? I may just be lucky, but I have never been told "no." Most people are pleased to help and some are flattered that you're even asking.
TheMont, publishing something or putting something out to the public does NOT, in and of itself, make it "public domain". But it's still a great painting.

 

I'm not an attorney so I don't really know the law, but I thought the copyright symbol (a c with a circle around it) or a registered trademark symbol (an R with a circle around it) was needed to identify protected material. I am not including plagerism in this. How did you change my avatar, did you just add another head to it?

 

It's morally wrong to steal other peoples work. Their listing picture is not yours. You just don't want to pay for it and have now been arguing for like 6 pages trying to find technicalities to steal

 

@TheMont - No, a © is not required, as it is inherent in the creation that it is copyrighted, and protected. To use it or not is at the creator's discretion.

@SuperDave 's transformation of your copyright protected image now makes it interesting. By doing what he did, he changed the material to the point where it has a different meaning. We are now entering into a grey area, and there are four factors that determine whether or not his transformation of the image would fall into fair use:

• the purpose and character of your use.
• the nature of the copyrighted work.
• the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and.
• the effect of the use upon the potential market.

If he used the transformed image for commercial purposes, IMO, he would probably not win the argument based on the fair use laws. If he used as as a new avatar, (again, IMO), it could go either way, as that was your purpose of the image. If he continued to modify it, let's say with thought bubbles, additional art, etc., then it would mosty likely fall into fair use.

I thanked @SuperDave through a PM, but want to add a public appreciation for what he's added to this thread. It has made me do a lot of additional research on this area, and I am always looking to increase my knowledge base. Thanks SuperDave!

And to @Marshall, I'd like to apologize for my comment about Beanie Babies. You know quite a bit about numismatics, but you need to realize that copyright and trademark laws, and the understanding of those laws, are not your forte.

Beef

 

I did nothing to that image personally; I found it on a Google Image Search for TheMont's avatar. Now, I don't know which came first, but given the image I found has the whole shirt in an absolutely identical pattern/color, I suspect TheMont's grandson found and used that same image as the basis for his own rather than vice-versa. Which begs the question, "Is the grandson's work sufficiently different to establish artistic license, or did he infringe himself?"

Just an illustration of the point of how murky this whole thing is.

 

I'll let it die the painful death it deserves. If you think you own it, then keep it and I won't buy it or anything else you have to offer. I'll respect your supposed right to use images of american coins which somehow makes them private for some reason. It's not like I've sold any coins or used your precious images anyway. I just can't get my arms around someone else privatizing pictures of my own coins. That seems like they're stealing from me.

 

Not at all. When talking about pictures that you saw to buy the coin, the coin wasn't yours when the picture was taken. Regardless the coin itself and images of it are separate entities.

 

No. But If I can reproduce it and leave it right where it's parked, that should be OK. But you disagree. I just don't understand your point of view.

 

Ebay is not like it was 15 yrs ago. Now there's people out there who just want to screw you. Don't mind gettin' screwed, as long as I get kissed!

 

Have you thought about the (tens of) thousands of dollars in photography equipment, the untold hours of study, and labor that went behind the picture you hypothetically feel its ok you to use with out permission? Do you think it is ok to use someone else's labor for your own profit?

 

You would be breaking the if you used that picture for financial gain. I'm serious!

 

Wow!! So by your logic a guy can take a video recorder into a movie theater and record the movie to watch at home and give to his friends and that's ok, because the projected movie never left the theater?

C'mon!!! Are you really that thick and ignorant? What kind of entitled point of view were you raised to believe?

 

Much, MUCH better analogy than I came up with...

 

I was a Wedding Photographer for years. To protect my interests in any wedding picture I took I had to stamp my company information on the back of every picture I took. That may not sound like much, but I gave the couple at least 150 proofs to choose from. With my stamp on the picture, the stores that sell copies of pictures would not make copies for any of my clients (at least none that I know of), before I used the stamp they would make copies. The pictures were of obvious professional quality, but without the stamp they would still make the copies. I gave them a black and white copy for the newspapers and I had to start stamping that too. Then came the printers with scanners and a few couples made their own copies. This reflected bad on me because they did not have the quality I produced and they did not tell their friends they made the copies themselves.

 

I'm not dense. I simply disagree with you. Now just let it go since I'll CONFORM to YOUR HAVING RIGHTS TO YOUR GARBAGE, even though I disagree with it. I just choose to NOT do business with you. That should make us both happy.

 

Would you sue if they copied a picture they paid for to announce their 25th wedding anniversary? Where's the limit on greed? What if they used it in a book on their life story? Does the object being photographed or it's owner have ANY rights or does the "ARTIST" have superior rights to all?

I just really don't understand where it harms you. If people don't pay you for your time and expertise, that's a different story. But it's not the first time I haven't understood the greedy point of view. To me, it's no harm, no foul. Simple as that.