Legal Advice - Using Images For Photoshop Composite Which Could Be Published

[PDub]

I took some shots at a wedding this weekend where the groomsmen had some Superhero costumes/items on which I was going to photoshop it onto an Avengers background amongst other things.

Now I was planning on giving this as a present to the groom in a frame (probably no issue there), but now an online publication wants to feature the wedding and i'm tempted to give them the edited composite as i think it looks awesome.

Question is, how legal is this?

One of the images (not the one i'm using for the composite, I have one with more people in but the look is similar), the black area i've blended in the Avengers billboard poster into it, added some additional effects along with a load of edits to the foreground of the image.

Link to image....

http://static1.squarespace.com/stat...325/Groom-Best-Men-Superhero.jpg?format=1000w

If you want me to post the photoshop let me know,

Any help would be appreciated as I really don't want to get into trouble!

Thanks.

Phil.
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[Brian G]

I'm no expert, but I would have thought that any composite that involves a downloaded image that is not yours would be subject to copyright.

 

[Richard C. Jones]

+1 to that. I'm basing my opinion on the fact that Canada (my home for the past fifty years) is a Bearn Treaty signatory and based on that and the copyright act our legal reference should be the same. Just to frame this subject a little better, I filed a Copyright Infringement suit against a Japanese owned Oilsands company here in Alberta. They refused to pay me for my logo design going as far to state it was not my work and they had someone else design their corporate brand. There's a real probability that I will go off on a tangent here and tell my life story. So I will do my best to stay on topic with your dilemma.

The short answer is "Don't do it" Even if you alter the images, its still Copyright infringement on multiple levels. There are two rights to the original author of an intellectual property, Intellectual and Moral. Both are in place as soon as the original author creates the work. The intellectual copyright can be transferred under written and signed agreement, a contract. Moral Copyright remains with the original author for life and for fifty years to his estate after the authors death. Moral copyright protects the origin and accredits the original work to the original author. It also protects his work from Infringement from conversion or reengineering to suit the purposes of those with no entitlement. The best Case Law to quote is the Eaton's Geese. The T. Eaton company commissioned a Toronto sculptor to create a bronze of flying Canada Geese. It was displayed in the foyer of the main downtown mall.

The store management decorated the store for the Christmas season and tied red ribbons in a bow around the neck of each goose. Harmless enough one would assume, but the artist took exception and told the store management to remove the ribbons, they refused, he sued for copyright infringement by conversion and won. I also won my case against the Japanese oilsands company for ten times the settlement than they could have paid me with my regular fee....Just sayin!

 

[Denyerec]

If you haven't got written permission to use the Avengers background , you're on squishy ground. However, if the image is being used editorially and not commercially (As in this case) your position is a lot better than if you were, for example, selling poster prints of it to the public.

If in doubt, ask a solicitor who specialises in such law.