Is it legal to take a company's product images and use them on a graphic or article? (In Canada) --- To be specific, I am asking about fashion/clothing companies like Target (http://www.target.com/gp/search.htm...90&ref=sr_bx_1_2&field-keywords=stripe&page=4), Dior, White Trash, etc. I want to take the company's product image(s) and use them on a graphic. On Target, there is a particular part of the copyright notice that has caught my eye; this is an excerpt http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/page.jsp?title=terms_conditions: The Content of this website, and the site as a whole, is intended solely for personal, noncommercial use by the users of oursite. You may download, print and store selected portions of the Content, provided you (1) only use these copies of the Content for your own personal, non–commercial use, (2) do not copy or post the Content on any network computer or broadcast the Content in any media, and (3) do not modify or alter the Content in any way, or delete or change any copyright or trademark notice. There is a similar notice on the Dior (http://dior.com) website. Does the bolded part (1,2,3) apply to product images also?
Unless you have permission to use an image from the copyright holder you run the risk of infringing their rights and as such they would be entitled to claim compensation from you. Copyright law does allow for "fair use" but it is very much the case of having to do what you want and letting the courts decide if they think it was fair use or not. Easiest thing to do is to simply contact them by writing and ask if you can do what it is that you want to do. Most, though not all, companies are actually fairly reasonable about these things.