Vulgalour Arts - Originals For Sale

[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

[vulgalour]

That's part of the problem.  Just because everyone does it doesn't make it right or legal.  I do agree with the protection of original content, as an original content creator it's something that, theoretically, protects me.  I cannot therefore willingly be a hypocrit about it just because a company is bigger than me.

 

I'm hoping this has made people aware of the legalities of this.  A lot of the merchandise you see with popular classics on, even the stuff produced by bigger companies, isn't actually legal and most folks don't even realise it.  The other nastier side of this are companies like Zara who take the designs of independent artists and, often without altering them at all, sell the designs in their stores and never credit the artist.  Those artists that have tried to get legal representation and compensation for this theft of their work simply don't have deep enough pockets to fight their corner, much less the time needed since they're obviously working full time to create more stuff to sell.

 

I don't want to knowingly contribute to a problem that many fellow artists face.  I cannot in good conscience condemn a company of art theft if that's the very thing I'm doing without realising it.

 

I do try my best to be professional and ethical in my work, even with the most trying of customers (thankfully rare).  It's not going to make me lots of cash, but at least I know I'm being a decent person and honestly, being a decent person matters more to me.

[barefoot]

If it's any help, this is a website that has the full approval of VW. All of this complete tat is officially sanctioned.

 

https://www.campervangift.co.uk

 

So presumably you only have to speak to the correct person & you can be put on the approved list.

[vulgalour]

Asking permission is the plan when I've finished drafting up my basic template to send to the various manufacturers that may have a problem with this stuff.  And yeah, I'm being a bit soft, but experience has taught me it pays to be over the years.  Ignoring a problem or pretending it's not a problem has never, ever, ended well.  Worrying about stuff has always seen it sorted.  If I get permission I'm sorted, if I don't I know what to avoid.

 

I might seem to over-react a bit here too with replies on the scale of my response to the issue, that's because I'm getting info and advice from other areas and people too, so I'm learning stuff between replies here and learning just how bad things *can* and *have* got for artists in a similar position to me when they've ignored the issue.  I'm also learning how little of a problem it is when an artist has put a hold on things, investigate and addressed the problem.  In some cases, the artist has done quite well out of it so I'm hoping that's the outcome here.

 

As has been pointed out, if my work is good enough that it's been flagged, that means I'm doing good enough work to actually be noticed.  It might not be true, but it's a nice way of looking at the quality of my work.  Silver linings and all that.

[Saabnut]

If it helps at all, I can comment on one manufacturer. Saab Automobile is defunct but SAAB is still going making planes and underwater vehicles. Just before the automobile side collapsed, I asked them for permission to scan and display their old brochures on my site UKSaabs. They sent me an email saying I could do whatever I wanted. I kept the email, so I can extend that permission to you There is no one left from Saab Automobile to argue the point anyway!

[DodgeRover]

Asking permission is the plan when I've finished drafting up my basic template to send to the various manufacturers that may have a problem with this stuff. And yeah, I'm being a bit soft, but experience has taught me it pays to be over the years. Ignoring a problem or pretending it's not a problem has never, ever, ended well. Worrying about stuff has always seen it sorted. If I get permission I'm sorted, if I don't I know what to avoid.

 

I might seem to over-react a bit here too with replies on the scale of my response to the issue, that's because I'm getting info and advice from other areas and people too, so I'm learning stuff between replies here and learning just how bad things *can* and *have* got for artists in a similar position to me when they've ignored the issue. I'm also learning how little of a problem it is when an artist has put a hold on things, investigate and addressed the problem. In some cases, the artist has done quite well out of it so I'm hoping that's the outcome here.

 

As has been pointed out, if my work is good enough that it's been flagged, that means I'm doing good enough work to actually be noticed. It might not be true, but it's a nice way of looking at the quality of my work. Silver linings and all that.

Was it a cease and desist notice? A friend also

received one from a company that could only have found his site by web trawling the company name (it was mentioned as compatible) I think a lot of these things are done electronically with no human input, a conversation with a human at that company may be helpful if they give contact details.

Isn't your art bespoke at the request of the vehicle owner or is it another line that is causing issues?

[Craig the Princess]

It's a real shame Vulgalour as your work is very, very good.

 

I'd agree that doing bespoke artwork inspired by a vehicle is many leagues apart from the art thieves, but if you don't feel comfortable then that is your choice.

 

I think the BMIHT at Gaydon hold the historic BMC/BL copyrights (and can detail the existing holders of required) so you may get authority even though Rover went bang.

 

Hope you can work something out.

[New POD]

If it's any help, this is a website that has the full approval of VW. All of this complete tat is officially sanctioned.

 

https://www.campervangift.co.uk

 

So presumably you only have to speak to the correct person & you can be put on the approved list.

My mate is on talks with this lot to supply them with bars.

 

I'll upload a photo later when i am not on my phone.