Copyright on personal use
Ron Edwards:
Hi everyone,
Full disclosure: I asked Tim to weigh in because he is a lawyer, and Tim, I appreciate that you did so. Regardless, this forum is not a venue for formal legal advice, and everyone posting should be careful not to cross the line. Although most of it so far has tried to emphasize, "talk to someone professionally," threads of this kind are inherently problematic.
So where to go from here? Probably away from internet sources beyond informational links. Let us know what you learn, and the thread can become a benefit to everyone.
I'm not closing the posting, but the question does arise as to whether further discussion is actually necessary. If anyone really thinks so and is not merely tossing in an opinion because they happen to have one (what a surprise), then that's OK.
Best, Ron
Vordark:
I wanted to echo something that Tim said and draw more attention to it. You would be shocked (shocked, I say!) at how much there is out there in terms of public domain images. Given I'm poor and just starting to think about actual products and artwork to go along with them, I've had to consider public domain images pretty much exclusively. Combined with judicious use of tools like GIMP, I'm sure a lot of the questionable art you have could be replaced with nice, shiny, legal art.
As said earlier, any Google search for "public domain images" or "public domain art" will likely give you metric crap-loads of results, but a good place to start might be Wiki Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Going with strictly public domain art neatly sidesteps the whole copyright problem and while you might not be considering wide publication of your stuff, if you use public domain art today, there's no need to edit things out tomorrow.
Just my own two cents.
ModusVivendi:
Besides the legal point, images lifted from the web are 72dpi and print needs 300dpi. It will look awful printed.
hoefer:
Touche!-
72 DPI can be changed to 300 DPI with some Bicubic Up-sizing, a little Gaussian Blurring (I like a nice .5 to .9 setting) and some Dimensional Downsizing (get an image that's big and shrink it down -AFTER doing the other adjustments). -I wouldn't say I like having to do this, but it does work and I have printed it at a POD printer and not been able to see significant differences between the 72 DPI image that was adjusted and ones that I scanned in at 300 DPI off the bat. But again, starting with a larger image and making it smaller (like 85-90% of the original) is crucial! So there you go, if you go that route.
Louis Hoefer
www.wholesumentertainment.com
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