Copyright?

[Stumpy B]

I have been voted in as Competition Secretary and as such I have made some new Certificates but it had been brought up by one member that I may be infringing on copyright by using the logos of camera brands as the background.

The logo's were taken from a search on Google Images and the image is used on many blogs

your feedback would be welcome

 

[Just Dave]

I think if its none profit they wont mind you using them, but to be honest that doesnt look a very impressive certificate, maybe adapt a certificate template, to make it look like you got something

Edit can we have a link to your Blog please

 

[big soft moose]

your mate is bang on correct - the brands will all be copyright to their various companies and ripping them off google images is a clear violation of copyright - of course its debateable whether in practice anyone would care , but if they did you'd be right up yon creek with nary a paddle in sight

also in my opinion at least the design is crowded and naff looking - imo you'd be better off with one clean image as a background - preferably something you own copyright to

 

[Just Dave]

They are all copyright but would they bother to do anything its obviously not for profit and a light-hearted certificate of achievement, mind you if someone used one of my designs/images I wouldnt be happy,

 

[Metal God]

More than likely is the logos you have used are registered trademarks and you can't use them unless you have permission to do so. Chances are they won't mind, but there always is that chance that one of them may object.

 

[Photodiva]

also in my opinion at least the design is crowded and naff looking - imo you'd be better off with one clean image as a background - preferably something you own copyright to

Inclined to agree. Choose a nice, textured paper (not your standard photocopy 80gsm stuff) and get someone with a modicum of design experience to put one together. Failing that, use Microsoft Publisher and use their offerings.

 

[graphilly]

As others have said they belong to their respective companies. I also don't think that you will get into trouble using them but I don't think it is a very professional attitude to adopt - just taking stuff off of the internet to use.

As a club and as competition secretary you no doubt have rules that stipulate something along the lines of 'all elements of an image entered for competition should be the members own work'.