Vulgalour Arts - Commissions OPEN and a Vauxhall Tigra Prints and Original

[vulgalour]

It's copyright and trademark infringement.  I don't want to go into the particulars of which manufacturer or pieces of artwork this involves at the moment and I'm looking at other avenues than CAB.  CAB are a good starting point, they can sometimes offer a direction to look in.

 

It's nothing serious yet, and I want to keep it that way.  I doubt I can actually afford to hire a legal professional for advice on this one and for what I earn from car artwork, I'm as well just dropping it if I have to play things super safe.  For now things are just on hold until I can find someone that knows about this.  So far all I've had is very vague "well so and so did this" type advice that merely muddies the waters.  I want a clean "you can't do this" sort of guidance on this from someone, which may not be possible since it's apparently a fairly muddy area when you take into account international markets.

[Ian_Fearn]

Whilst this won't help you.... Earlier this year I was admiring some automotive artwork (VW campervan) in a small-time gifty type shop in some out of the way backwater. I'm no art critic but I thought it was really good and not typical scene stuff. The owner of the shop saw me admiring it and told me the story.

 

The lady that had painted it had been contacted by said company and been seriously threatened with legal action which had obviously had really upset her such that she was never going to produce automotive art again. What a flipping joke. The campervans painted were split screens. Out of production for years and surely of little/no commercial value to the OEM?

 

With all the knock-off shite that comes out of the far east they decide to go after an innocent person probably making less than minimum wage on every painting she created.

 

Anyway, best of luck with your artwork. I hope you can find a way through this.

[dollywobbler]

Copyright, trademarks, etc. and the infringement thereof have led to an encounter with a large automotive company.  I'm not in any trouble, and I'd like to keep it that way, but now I'm a little confused about the legalities of produced car artwork.

 

It was my understanding that a totally original artwork of an already existing product - be that a Ford Ranger, or a can of Campbells soup - was permitted and that reproduction of the same even for profit was not a problem, especially so if that item was no longer in production.  However, it appears it gets rather complicated and on trying to self-educate about copyright law I'm more confused than when I began.

 

For the time being, that means car artwork for profit is on hold until I can clarify this.  I do not want to be doing anything illegally accidentally.

 

The prints in my shop shall remain where they are for the time being as even though this is where the problem has arisen, there's no point admitting guilt if I don't know that I'm guilty of anything, especially since it's only one company that's got an issue with my work so far.

 

I'll be visiting Citizen's Advice Bureau to get some clarification if possible, or at least some direction, but it seems this particular angle is specific and messy.  If it proves too difficult to keep things on the right side of the law I will stop producing car artwork for profit.  It would be a shame if it came to that, and it probably won't, but I want to keep everything above board.  I'm too small to fight any sort of corner on this and it's not the main portion of my income, so I can (grudgingly) afford to let it go if I have to and focus on other aspects of my work.

 

It's Porsche isn't it? I've had this before! They are very protective.

[vulgalour]

I'm not going to confirm or deny who it is, I'd rather folks didn't try and guess.  I'm just letting folks know this is a thing that has happened and looking for legal information to protect myself and my work going forwards.

[Mr Lobster]

I've known VW are very protective of their copyright too.   A few years back they had a big go at anyone and everyone using Beetle / Camper images without a licence on stuff like tea towels, mugs and all that sort of thing. That.s why you tend to see a lot of unlicensed VW stuff doesn't have an actual VW logo on the front.

 

Most manufacturers are reasonably sensitive about their copyright and logo being used though - they get a decent income from licensing manufacturers who want to use that image etc so if someone uses it without a licence they can get a bit litigious. Some more so than others, Ford are pretty happy to licence more or less anything, VW very much less so.

[Jim Bell]

I copied off Tony Tenniswood in our GCSE Geography exam. He did his best to obscure his working out like a prize prick.

He passed and while I failed, I think the moral victory is mine because if youre a good person, you really should help your friends out when theyre too lazy and hungover to do their own work.

Hes a teacher now.

Hope this helps.

[dollywobbler]

I'm not going to confirm or deny who it is, I'd rather folks didn't try and guess.  I'm just letting folks know this is a thing that has happened and looking for legal information to protect myself and my work going forwards.

 

I'm not sure there's much you can do. Some manufacturers are just VERY touchy about this sort of thing. I was trying to sell a picture of a Porsche 911 I'd taken at a show - a really nice picture showing the car off rather well I thought! I got told that wasn't allowed. Which is pretty bloody stupid I reckon. I wasn't selling a knock-off picture of a knock-off Porsche!

[red5]

I'm not sure there's much you can do. Some manufacturers are just VERY touchy about this sort of thing. I was trying to sell a picture of a Porsche 911 I'd taken at a show - a really nice picture showing the car off rather well I thought! I got told that wasn't allowed. Which is pretty bloody stupid I reckon. I wasn't selling a knock-off picture of a knock-off Porsche!

 

This indeed. it varies hugely from (in this case) manufacturer to manufacturer. A local manufacturer rigorously defends their Logo/Badge/Silhouette - any use of any of it is by formal agreement only.

[vulgalour]

That's where it gets fuzzy.  You own the photograph, but you don't own the Porsche (even if you own the Porsche) so while you're allowed to sell the photograph you're not allowed to sell the image of the Porsche in it.  Except for when you are.  Which you should be allowed to do because it's a photograph you took and is therefore original content.  Except it contains someone else's work, so it isn't.  But then what about the company that made the lights on the Porsche in the photograph?  The tyre manufacturer?  The architect of the building in the background?

 

It's a mess.  It's a big fat legal mess. Regardless of how big and small the parties involved are, permissions and image ownership and stuff is horribly complicated and more often than not people have no idea if they're legal or not.

 

Then there's the other thing.  If I did a picture of a Lada and they told me I wasn't allowed, I could just say it's a Fiat, and if Fiat didn't like it I'll just say it's an FSO... I could just leave all badging off and let them fight amongst themselves.

[dollywobbler]

Tell them it's a Covin Turbo then. Sorted.

[Christine]

/\   Coffee down nose    

[Dave_Q]

Hm. To start with, I am definitely not a lawyer.

 

IMO its a pretty shitty trick to go in all legal on the "little man" as they know most people will just give up rather than risk a legal battle.

 

I've not been able to find anything online about this specific situation, but I very much think that your use of the Joe Bloggs car company's IP protected image would be covered under fair use. Its not one of the very specific uses that are covered by the UK legislation, but it does pass one of the key tests, in that your use of the copyrighted content (presumably a car shape?) does not impact on the market for the original. You also haven't used any more of their "property" than necessary to create your work, and you're not trying to pass your creations off as official merch.

 

I honestly can't see that any court would find you have infringed a copyright by doing a drawing. In your position I would write back saying that you believe your use is fair dealing, and invite them to take you to court if they feel it necessary. I doubt they would and if they did you wouldn't be in there long.

 

I do work with a guy who deals with copyright/patent stuff, very much on the technical rather than art side, but I'll ask him what he thinks and let you know.

[Zelandeth]

Honda are buggers for this.

 

They've hit both me and one of my friends with takedown notices on Flickr and Deviantart respectively for photos we'd taken at the Detroit Auto Show. Not even selling prints or anything...just there, shared for folks to see. Nope...not allowed according to them!

 

It left us both with our feathers rather ruffled and swearing that we'd never buy one of their products ever again in future.

 

Being autistic it actually left me quite shaken up, and was basically why my dA page has been dead for several years now.

[castros_bro]

I think your particular can of worms need to looked at in context.  One person using an image of a vehicle gets a "desist" letter from a large corporation, only one of these parties has a vast budget and their own legal team. Keeping things quiteish and taking a low profile whilst looking for information,  a legal opinion is fine but is still only an opinion and with solicitor rates start at say 200 (other solicitors rates are available) an hour so you'll quickly be a lot poorer.  Good luck.

[Felly Magic]

Do everything via a third party in China, copyright means bugger all over there

[pshome]

Go and ask the manufacturers for permission. When i started my 504 site, i sent an Email to the Peugeot press office explaining what i intend to do,
They were very friendly, checked with legal and granted persmission to use all their copyrighted materials on my site. Didn't cost a penny.

Outcome will certainly vary, but i would assume that a fair number of manufacturers will answer and most will grant permission.

[barefoot]

I know that VW won't let you use the VW logo on the front of a VW mug/ashtray/tea-towel,

which is why you generally see VW replaced with the CND thing.

VW are also very protective of the two tone swoop at the front of the split screen van.

 

My advice would be to continue exactly as before, but no longer illustrate the products of the manufacturer which has taken umbrage.

[Des]

I'm not going to confirm or deny who it is, I'd rather folks didn't try and guess. 

 

Quite right, it's not a competition. I think we all know who it was anyway. Now I wonder if their logo was re-arranged back into the swastika it evolved from would they be so hasty to bitch and stake their ownership claim, the snarky fuckers. 

[tooSavvy]

.... Just finished reading 'the man in the white suit' and Stig boy had a sneaky laugh (relevant here to 'corporate image management') as a whole racing team artic was hoisted on air jacks to get the Goodyear tyre logos to harmonise!!

 

#uckemm

[plasticvandan]

stick to doing pictures of cars by makers that no longer exist,its a pretty long list

[steveo3002]

stick to doing pictures of cars by makers that no longer exist,its a pretty long list

all the english makes for instance 

[New POD]

Please do this:

Ask them to confirm what royalties they require from a 6 Quid tee shirt?

They will say "We don't want your money"

Then tell them you will give 50% of your profit to a cancer charity?

When they refuse go on social media with .......named car company..

....... refuses to support cancer*** research charity fund raising.

 

See if it goes viral.

 

****other causes are available.

[vulgalour]

I've managed to find some more information on this by link hopping and the like and came across a good article on Intellectual Property (IP).  I have a better understanding of what I could be in infringement of but not exactly what's caused it with the offending articles.

 

Basically, if I didn't make the thing I'm drawing, I can't make a drawing of it.

 

I'm actually okay with that.  I don't especially want people to take my original characters, etc. and make money off prints and such of them even if they've created the work themselves that they're reproducing.  Regardless of the business size you cannot really have one copyright rule for the small guys, and another for the big guys, that isn't fair.

 

Rather than finding out what I've done wrong, what I have found out is how to avoid doing it wrong in the future.  Essentially it all comes down to permission and I've been using the image of a company, their brand, without permission and that's what causes the problem.  Yes, a lot of artists do this, and a lot don't know it's wrong (myself included until recently).  Some do know it's wrong, and don't care, because they know most of the companies simply will not pursue them.

 

Going forward, what I need to do is contact the companies whose vehicles I would like to create and get permission from them (as suggested above, in fact).  If permission isn't granted, I blacklist that company and don't produce original artwork or vehicles for printing or commission.  That is the fair and legal thing to do.

 

Obsolete manufacturers are more difficult.  Even though the manufacturer may not exist, someone may still own the copyright to their products and finding that out can be difficult.  So again, if permission cannot be granted, do not draw it.  That means even obsolete content is technically not permitted.

 

Now for the grey area.  If your image depicts a recognisable vehicle but has no emblems or identifying features of that sort, and doesn't use a copyrighted/trademarked silhoutte, you're allowed to do it.  If your image is sort of blurry so it could be something else, you're allowed to do it.  But if you say "this is X" and you haven't asked permission, you're not allowed to do it.  This is where all those shonky slightly off pictures of popular cars come from.

 

TL;DR:  I have a lot of admin to do to make this all legal and I'm not sure if I realistically earn enough from the car artwork to actually waste me time on it so will probably stop.

[loserone]

This is shit.

 

[barrett]

Just ignore it FFS! If a manufacturer specifically tells you to stop, then fair enough, but why get in a tizzy over the 0.000001 per cent chance that somebody out there reckons they own the 'copyright' to the shape of the two-door Austin 1100 or whatever? Just don't do VW Beetles or whatnot and you'll be fine.

[Louise2cv]

Does this mean I have to get my order for one of those fabulous gilbern t-shirts in quick? Or have I missed the boat?

[vulgalour]

If you want one, grab it while it's there.  I'm not taking anything currently in the shop down, I'm just putting a hold on creating new things until I know what's happening.

 

It's easy to say "oh just carry on, who cares?" when it doesn't affect you.  This is part of my career, it's part of what pays my bills, so I'm erring on the side of caution until I know exactly what I'm permitted to do.  It may well be just warning shots or even automated nonsense, but it doesn't pay for me to be complacent.  I have an opportunity to learn what is allowed and to pass the knowledge on to other artists and even customers, and I'd rather do that while I can.

 

Looking at it another way, I don't want to waste my time creating stuff that may not be permitted only to have it taken down before its even paid for itself.  That would be incredibly stupid business practice.

[PhilA]

Flippant comment removed.

 

 

Phil

[JeeExEll]

It's a pretty sad fucking state of affairs when someone 'can't' do a small run of pictures.

Forbidden!!

There are pics and tee-shirts, etc, everywhere of all different makes and models of cars.

 

Badge for the bootlid of the Princess.

[New POD]

 

Forbidden!!

 

 

Badge for the bootlid of the Princess.

verboten