copyright question

[David Rogers]

Copyright will extend to any ‘unique’ features such as logos or ‘enhanced’ features.
If the logo existed before the van was done…nothing the sign company can say or do.

You can’t copyright a standard font as the designer of the font owns that.
Neither can you copyright a set of words in any particular order or layout unless they form part of a ‘design element’.

In other words – if a layout is purely text based with no logos that were designed by the sign company – feel free. Nothing anybody can do.

But to be aware that something as simple as a word with an underline can be a ‘design element’ when forming part of a logo.

Over the years we’ve all ‘replicated’ vehicles to a greater or lesser extent…I wouldn’t be overly concerned about any backlash.

Copyright is a funny thing – you can’t plead ignorance although the original designer will contact the company as THEY used it without consent…not you.
Having personally been involved in a big copyright scandal involving a global fast food chain & a small local restaurant it’s the USER they go after they didn’t care that I made it.

Well, that’s my take on it…

Now pop over to the ‘say hello section’ 🙂

Dave

[Martin Gray]

my views on this are much and such as Davids. we do alot of repair work. and as such have to copy designs/logos etc. my view is that the person that designed the layout charged his time and the customer paid for it. hence the customer now own that design. and can ask anyone to reproduce this on old or new vehicles.

Martin

[Stephen Morriss]

Martin, the original design company (not the employee) of any design element hold copyright unless they have expressly passed it over to the customer.

So any logo’s you do for your customers are your copyright unless you’ve passed copyright to them (usually in writing)

Copyright is implied as well, you don’t need a c symbol next to it

Having said all that it can be quite hard and costly to prove it all.

Steve

[Warren Beard]

sorry to divert from your specific question but while on the copyright issue I was wondering about the likes of istock? I’m sure many of us use it, do you only buy the standard licence as in the T&C’s it says it’s only for personal or business use up to 499 999 impressions which means you can’t use it for others or when they say business does it mean any bodies business?

Also recently found out that none of the licences allow you to use the images for selling products etc online.

[Jason Davies]

You can use the images to form part of your identity and within headings etc on websites?

Jason

[Peter Normington]

quote Warren Beard:

sorry to divert from your specific question but while on the copyright issue I was wondering about the likes of istock? I’m sure many of us use it, do you only buy the standard licence as in the T&C’s it says it’s only for personal or business use up to 499 999 impressions which means you can’t use it for others or when they say business does it mean any bodies business?

Also recently found out that none of the licences allow you to use the images for selling products etc online.

Basically you have to stay within the terms of usage you cannot re-sell the image in digital form, but you can sell it as hard copy, number of times depends on the lisence I have asked istock to verify in simple terms, will post the answer when I recieve it.

Peter

[Warren Beard]

quote Peter Normington:

quote Warren Beard:

sorry to divert from your specific question but while on the copyright issue I was wondering about the likes of istock? I’m sure many of us use it, do you only buy the standard licence as in the T&C’s it says it’s only for personal or business use up to 499 999 impressions which means you can’t use it for others or when they say business does it mean any bodies business?

Also recently found out that none of the licences allow you to use the images for selling products etc online.

Basically you have to stay within the terms of usage you cannot re-sell the image in digital form, but you can sell it as hard copy, number of times depends on the lisence I have asked istock to verify in simple terms, will post the answer when I recieve it.

Peter

My dilemma is that I wanted to set up an online store selling wallpaper etc but obviously need some designs to sell, the istock conditions state that none of their licenses allow you to use on a website for print on demand products which these obviously would be.

Then the digital sales issue, if I buy an image to use as part of a logo design and then sell that logo in digital format am I breaching the conditions?

Some are clear cut but some are just confusing 😕

[Jason Davies]

Warren as far as I am aware, you can purchase the artwork to use as a ‘one-off’ but cannot produce in bulk, this is where the extended license comes in. So your wallpaper may prove to be a problem as you say. Look at the William Morris stuff, I’m glad that it is protected so well as it would devalue the work to such a great extent if anyone were allowed to produce this.

By rights Martin you should pay the designer/company of the logo if you were reproducing elements of it, even after crash damage.

[Warren Beard]

quote Jason Davies:

Warren as far as I am aware, you can purchase the artwork to use as a ‘one-off’ but cannot produce in bulk, this is where the extended license comes in. So your wallpaper may prove to be a problem as you say. Look at the William Morris stuff, I’m glad that it is protected so well as it would devalue the work to such a great extent if anyone were allowed to produce this.

By rights Martin you should pay the designer/company of the logo if you were reproducing elements of it, even after crash damage.

I agree some stuff should (and is) protected but just for ordinary run of the mill seamless patters etc are all protected on istock, I’m not sure if there is somewhere else out there that will sell licenses for this type of work, there are so many people doing it online and surely they didn’t all design and create their own portfolio of products available?

[Jason Davies]

Agreed Warren, but thy are breaking the law, I was reading on another forum yesterday that some graphic designers and signmakers are now actively reporting many of these companies. I can see cease and desist orders becoming far more aggresive as this recession bites and good luck to them.

Work needs to be protected, however istock give a very false impression, I think they have developed an over expensive site for what you get and many people purchase thinking that they own the artwork. Unfortunately ignorance is not an excuse.

I think I would rather stay the right side of the law, why don’t you just develop your own or pay a graphic designer to put some work together for you??

[Warren Beard]

Because I don’t think the return on investment is very good if I had to pay a designer for a dozen designs and not knowing if they will even sell 😕

It’s a tough one and wish I had an answer 😕

[Jason Davies]

I agree, unless you already have a site with traffic this type of thing can eat into your time.

I was annoyed many years ago when I realised a similar thing, having shelled out £500 for artwork on a CD e.g Coke, Apple etc the small print basically excluded me from using it commercially.

Knowing what I know now it’s laughable but again nobody tells you this in BIG bold letters when you are buying it, especially when you think you are doing the right thing to remain legal.

All very underhand.

[David Rogers]

quote Jason Davies:

….By rights Martin you should pay the designer/company of the logo if you were reproducing elements of it, even after crash damage.

So when was the last time any of us tracked down and paid for say the artwork for a CAR BADGE, CORGI / GAS SAFE or ANY of the thousands of logos we request in the file swapping forum or download from BOTW…simply…we don’t.

It’s surprising how many of us will replicate a mainstream brand or ask for copyrighted images yet whinge like crazy if one of OUR designs is copied.

I just find it comical.

It’s been covered a dozen times on here – replicating van designs.

I’ve had stuff I’ve done copied nearly exactly when people go elsewhere for whatever reason and likewise – I’ve matched artwork to replace or add to a business. Most sign companies are realists – and expect a bit of give and take within the trade.

It’ll be a sad day that we all start saying to customers "sorry – it’s got a logo in it – you’ll need to get a new one or buy it from the original designer…by the way I’ll be charging you to do a new one…but it still won’t be yours."

As a side note – I bet a lot of those customers that bring in their own ‘existing’ designs on a business card to put on a van or shop sign lifted them from MS clipart or other online gallery…what you gonna do? Call up Bill & ask of you can use his poxy logos?

Dave

[Jason Davies]

I agree Dave, it would be a sad day, however in many cases it would be good manners just to ask especially if you knew who the originator was, don’t you think?

Again it is protecting the trade, look at photographers and the way that they vigorously protect their intellectual property.

It’s almost approved ‘theft’ because it is done so often.

No wonder our prices are being driven down.

[David Rogers]

quote Jason Davies:

I agree, unless you already have a site with traffic this type of thing can eat into your time.

I was annoyed many years ago when I realised a similar thing, having shelled out £500 for artwork on a CD e.g Coke, Apple etc the small print basically excluded me from using it commercially.

Knowing what I know now it’s laughable but again nobody tells you this in BIG bold letters when you are buying it, especially when you think you are doing the right thing to remain legal.

All very underhand.

It’s not underhanded at all. OK, maybe misunderstood by the novice purchaser. Nobody thinks that they are getting 10,000 bits of licensed artwork to use on anything the choose for £500 or even £20 do they? Getting a COKE license will be tens of thousands on it’s own for just ONE product to carry the logo. Same with most corporations – they don’t hand out artwork willy-nilly, it’s all got to be approved per use and in harmony with their ‘ethos’.
Slapping ‘coke’ on the side of a burger van is probably a no-no, They may well SELL it – but the advert will not fall into line with coke’s marketing.

I’m not convinced with it protecting the trade either. If all of the ‘legitimate’ companies agree not to ‘borrow’ each others artwork they’ll just go elsewhere. Prices aren’t down due to copyright theft – it’s down to a plethora of people doing vans for £50 after getting an ebay plotter & a hookey copy of Flexi. TBH I can STILL charge good money for good designs and cover all of my design time in THAT job. Once it’s done and dusted i care not whether it’s borrowed…I got paid for what I did. My logo designs aren’t my babies and frankly – if I’m not good enough to KEEP a customer then I deserve to lose them. Harsh – no, I don’t think so just realistic.

[Peter Normington]

quote Warren Beard:

Because I don’t think the return on investment is very good if I had to pay a designer for a dozen designs and not knowing if they will even sell 😕

It’s a tough one and wish I had an answer 😕

Warren the answer is in your own hands, designers sell their work, you sell yours.
a designer does not know if his work will sell, that is why most will sell a license based on a royalty fee relating to the number of the images produced. ifso facto you sell loads they also share the profits. istock sell there licenses based on this principal.
or that is how I interpretate the t&c’s.
The design is what sells, not the ability to produce it,

Peter

[David Carpenter]

Hi All,

sorry for the delay, thanks for the replies.. very informative and I’ll now think twice about i-stock..

I’ve just got some licensed artwork from America, for some T shirts, as a shop locally wants me to look into doing some stuff to sell.

Question is – do I need to have the name and copyright of his on it, or am I allowed to remove this, I’m not passing it off as my design, just don’t want it on the design..
I’ll have the receipts to show that I purchased them and they will tally with the numbers produced/wasted/sold.. and no copies were made (chat.)

As to the Van, think I’ll just get on with it and worry about it if they have a full one done… they need to see if they like my work etc better first, may just be smoke and empty promises..

Dave C

[Gavin MacMillan]

I always found this a weird, why would anyone get a signmaker to do a logo if the signmaker then claims to hold copyright on it? You could, in theory, do a fleet of vans and then refuse to let them use their own logo (that they paid you to create!) on stationary or website!

I don’t know the law on this but if you charge your time to the customer then they have ‘commissioned’ the artwork so I don’t see how you can claim to have copyright on it? Fair enough, you don’t have to email the files to another sign maker but it the customers brand at the end of the day, not the signmakers.

All fairly pretentious in my opinion.

G

[Warren Beard]

with logo design etc, the way I see it is if the customer pays you for you TIME to design a logo and use it then all digital files belong to you and NOT the customer, however the design does belong to him and anybody can REPRODUCE it at the customers will. If the customer wants the digital files then he pays for them almost like buying a download of the internet. If he has to pay somebody else to re-design the logo because he doesn’t have the files then that’s up to him if he doesn’t want to buy the files from you.

[Jason Davies]

There is a difference here Warren, a number of the replies imply that ‘you’ are reproducing work e.g constructing the technical artwork based upon a customers already originated logo, which many customers produce themselves, which is fine. I don’t think many of us would be put out if someone else ‘copied’ the customers own artwork and our layout, after all as signmakers that is what we do.

However if you add the graphic designer into the equation and you have been asked to design a corporate identity from scratch and that company has been recognised for many years through your intellectual property then that is another case. You own the copyright of the design (unless of course it was part of the original contract) and you are well within your rights to protect that and receive payment for the work. I imagine that you would want full control over the quality of the work being undertaken etc??

The water becomes muddied because our profession is melting into other professions, going back to photographers, I wonder how many of us have reproduced a professional photograph onto canvas, whose responsibility is it to clear it with the photographer??

I believe that we should respect copyright, many companies are happy for you to reproduce their logos onto vehicles who use perhaps a specific brand without seeking permission provided you stick with their colour and size requirements, what they would be unhappy about is you then making these into stickers and selling them off to make a profit e.g 100,000 STP stickers for your local boy racers.

[Peter Normington]

for info This is what istock have said

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your message.

The Standard License is all that is required for promotional usage of iStock images. The Content may be used on vehicles, billboards, and any printed promotional materials in perpetuity.

As for your second question, our License is non-transferable, so basically, usage rights are granted to the owner of the account used to download the images.

There are two scenarios to look at:

a) If you download the images, the license will be granted to you. Your clients can use our images only incorporated into the final design that you provide to them. It would not be possible to use the images on anything else as they wouldn’t have the license to do so.

You can use our images on different projects as long as they are unique designs. Kindly note that the use of our images on templates is prohibited.

b) If your client downloads the image, they can send the file to you so you can complete the project. Once the project is finalized, you must delete the original files. You wouldn’t be allowed to use the images on projects for other clients.

Please, let us know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Stephen
iStockphoto
Client Relations
Toll-free 1-866-478-6251
International toll free 00-800-6664-6664
Ph: 403-265-3062

[David Carpenter]

Hi Peter

Thanks for that, appears pretty reasonable to me.. I’ll look into using it in the future.

One question is that, if the Copyright name date and symbol appear on the design, can I remove them if I’m not passing the work off as mine?

Dave C