using photos as a reference for fine art

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ocheria

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Vanessa
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hey! i was just wondering what you think about people using your photos as a reference for image studies etc for art projects? If someone took your photo and copied it out using say.. graphite pencils, would it still be infringing copyright? I'm not too sure how to view this myself.. any comments? thanks!

edit: OH good grief, I was at the wrong window and posted this in the wrong place. Could anyone move this to where it belongs please? Thank you!!
 
Purely my opinion but I would have thought if they were doing it just for their own personal use then there is not a problem. If it is going to be displayed then it should have a note added "from an original photograph by xyx" . If they should decide to sell it and have indicated that it is there own original work then that would start to infringe your copyright.
 
Technically it's breach of copyright. Copyright is protecting your rights not to have your work copied. But if someone does it for personal use then there's not really a lot you can do about it - any claim would be based on your loss which would be nothing in this case.

If they then decided to sell prints of their work then you'd have a claim. They'd need to purchase the usage rights in order to avoid breaching your copyright. A credit might or might not be given depending on the agreement but for most uses the law gives you a "moral" right to be identified as the author of a work.

"Passing off" the work as their own gets a little complicated because it is and it isn't their work. The exact circumstances would decide the outcome.
 
Thing is, in that situation they wouldn't be 'copying' but using your image as a reference to create an entirely different work in a different medium.

This argument actually came up a couple of years ago in the 'art world' when Jack Vetriano was accused of plagiarism because he painted some his pictures from photos and images in books. My opinion then was as it is now, if he had put tracing paper over an image and made an exact copy it might have been plagiarism but using it as a reference while painting freehand is different entirely.

To show the other side, a few years back I had a big argument with a guy on DeviantArt. He had made a copy of a painting by quite a famous living painter of wwii aircraft art and claimed it was his own work. He later admitted he had copied but that he had done it freehand so it was ok. Except that it was a pixel perfect match with the original which even the finest artist couldn't have done freehand.
 
A guy on DeviantArt PM'd me and asked if he could use one of my photos as a reference for a painting. He wanted to give it to his mum for christmas. I said I didn't mind as long as it wasn't used commercially.
 
Steep said:
Thing is, in that situation they wouldn't be 'copying' but using your image as a reference to create an entirely different work in a different medium.
Click to expand...

It doesn't have to be an exact copy to breach copyright. Look at the current case with the Pepsi Lips ad campaign. The images are similar but by no means identical.

Pepsi's defence is that they came up with the idea on their own and that they weren't aware of the Bob Carlos Clarke shot. If they admit or it's shown that they had used the original as a reference they know they'll be paying out.
 
Yeah, it is breaching copyright for commercial use but ok to hang on your own wall.
I do Graphite portraits usually from photo's and this question often comes up and gets answered the same way everytime on the art forum I'm a member of.
 
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