Hi, I was contacted today by one of my clients that is in a niche industry. We designed his website about a year ago and he has told me that one of his major competitors has stolen one of his copyrighted images from his website. My client then enquired legally to see what he could do about this and guess what? He was told "because the image had been altered then it was not the same image anymore and there is nothing that he could do". Is this true or should he find a different legal rep? If this is true then it opens up a massive loop hole in the whole copyright issue.
I beleive it depends on the extent to which the image was altered. If a certain percentage of the image has been changed, it is no longer the same image.
Do you know what percentage and how is this measured? What if you still can tell that it is the same image?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright "or creating derivative works which copy or mimic" I think the key here is that if you truly own the copyright... (which a lot of people only think that they do) then you, your artist, or photographer created the graphic in question... You may have grounds for contacting a lawyer" On the other hand... if you just picked up the graphic from one of the many stock photo shops.. and didn't purchase "exclusive" rights which norm costs $xxx if not $x,xxx .... It would be my belief that you have no grounds to stand on... but could still find a "Intellectually Property" lawyer and ask...
Copyright covers derivitive works as well. As in you can not make a derivitive work from copyrighted material. But what defines that? That is a legal question which depends on your skill in proving that the image is close enough to your original that it could not have been created otherwise. I wrote up some good info on copyright law here: www.jaredmore.com/internetlaw
Then IMO and borne out by the above quotes I would think your client has an excellent case if he chooses to pursue it. Most likely all it will take is one letter from a lawyer delivered by certified mail to end the matter. I should add one thing. There is a loophole of sorts in the copyright laws for what is called "parody use". That is where the image or work is altered enough that the copy would be considered a parody of the original.
If I get this correctly, you can go to anyones website and steal there copyrighted material, alter it enough and this is legal!! How much is enough and how is this measured?
Thanks for this. I have just finished reading it and you learn something new every day. I will also pass it on to my client if that is OK with you.
You have had some good replies from the folks here on the copyright law.. I wanted to add that if your client can tell that that 'altered' image was one that ripped off from his site, I don't think the image has been 'manipulated' that much.
I can't really define it for you. This type of case usually winds up in court and the judge or jury decides. This article says it far better than I can. I found that article and 511 other links on the same topic at Google with this search term. Try not to go blind reading all those.
aslong as 51% of the image is changed you cant do anything about it inless your lucky alot of ppl know how to get out of copyright laws now thats why u dont hear many ppl geting sued over it any more because aslong as 51% of it is changed u cant be sued its like scripts u could have a script and name it idk and i never new u and i make a script called idc but the codeing is the same you caant be sued you need to prove he got the image from him and not some were else and its hard to do now because ppl play smart just remove the image and make a better one its better then worrying about leagel matters trust me
??? jrd1mra is right on target. If an image is copyrighted, then it's end of story. Creating a derivative work - modifying that image and no matter how small - it is still a copyright violation. Now how do you know that the competitor has modified your original image? It's hard to say whether the competitor may have committed a copyright violation without knowing more about the details of the images.