Copy rights and regulations

[Ravenseye]

Ok i gots a quicky for you all. I painted that picture of marilynn monroe like half a year ago and i have some people that want to buy that as a print now. Um I read up on that seince marilynn monroe was actully born in ny all the rights to her photos were open to the public beacuse california had rules that her photos were under private policys but that was voided once they found out she was really born in nyc. The thing is though im not trying to sell a picture of marilyn monroe im selling a print of a picture that i painted from a photo refrence of marilyn monroe... i even saved the file so people could see the progression incase it ever turned into a thing where i went to court. I was told by a professor that copy rights are only if you use someone elts photo and claim it as your own. Well how about my case is this consider copy right infringement beacuse i dont think it is but i dont want to go on my call without geting some reasurance. Thanks guys.

[Esn]

Find out who owns the particular picture you used. If it is in the public domain, there is no problem. If it is copyrighted in the traditional sense (i.e. not released under some sort of special license, such as Creative Commons - though given that those licenses are recent, it's unlikely), then your painting is considered a derivative work, and the copyright owner can legally prevent you from doing anything with it that s/he doesn't like.

If you do find out that that's the case, I think that the best thing to do would be to keep your transaction very quiet, so that the copyright holder does not find out about it. It costs them money to sue you, and if it will cost them more to sue than the profit they expect to receive, they probably won't bother. Key to this is that your case doesn't somehow become widely known - if the rights owners see that other eyes are watching, they will sue just for the publicity alone, to make an example of you.

Your professor is wrong, though (or you understood him/her wrong) - copyright is not just for "claiming someone else's work as your own" - that's called "plagiarism". Copyright is the right to control derivative works, whether or not those derivative works properly attribute the original source.

Here's a similar case that you might be interested in, regarding that famous red & blue Obama image (that it turns out was based off a newswire photograph):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_%22HOPE%22_poster#Origin_and_copyright_issues
http://painting.about.com/b/2009/01/23/fair-use-debate-around-obama-painting.htm

[Katatafisch]

i think since you just used the photo as a reference its the case of artistic interpretation of someone else's work, in that case you are the owner of the copyright for your pic and dont need permission for the marylin monroe picture. thats what i heard. but theres only a fine line between copying or reinterpreting, so it wouldnt be wrong to make sure if the pic is copyryghted or for open use, or even ask for permission to sell your artwork, that way youre on the safe side but in my opinion it is not necessary

glad youre going to sell some stuff! congratz man!

[Esn]

i think since you just used the photo as a reference its the case of artistic interpretation of someone else's work, in that case you are the owner of the copyright for your pic and dont need permission for the marylin monroe picture

The thing is, "fair use" does not protect "artistic interpretation", which is considered a derivative work. "Fair use" does protect parody (which is why Weird Al can "reinterpret" other artists' songs), but no other "artistic interpretation" is allowed.

For an example, see the recent American court decision to censor that new book that stars the main character of "Catcher in the Rye":
http://questioncopyright.org/salinger_censors

[Ravenseye]

ok now that case with the oboma picture is as close as it could come to what would be stated about the picture but you can clearly see in the image that this guy vectored right over the face of oboma. I on the other hand have the saved file that i put a grid down of an inch by inch over my picture and the picture of marilyn monroe and painted straight from there. I didnt at all paint over the picture of marilyn monroe i did use it as refrence though. So im very torn about what to decide on this. On top of that i fliped my image and put marilyn monroes mole on the opposite side which in a real picture of her the mole would be correct but seince the image was flipped it wasnt correct.