This quarter I am happily taking a class entitled Law and the Arts.
Or is it Law of the Arts.
Erroneous.
The class is wonderful except for the tiny unfortunate detail that it sometimes meets on Saturday beginning at 9am. Regardless of the meeting time, our first session was held this past Saturday which is how I came to learn of my past repeated infractions of copyright legislation.
Throughout my undergraduate college career I repeatedly came into contact with the concept of utilizing another artist's images within my own artwork. Most of the time I was doing this because it was something that was required for an assignment. Example: The Destroying the Icon assignment which is given to anyone who might have Ed Midget for Digital Imaging.
The idea behind this particular assignment was to pick a well known and recognizable image and alter it in Photoshop to the point that it is less recognizable in order to make it your own. The magic number that proved that the image had been sufficiently altered was 20%. Always 20%. Why 20%? I had no clue. I just did what I was told.
Digital Imaging was not the only place that this magic number came into my life. There was a certain Andy Warhol exhibit that I worked on, as well as at least one painting class that I took that also included the use of the magical 20%.
Well it was to my utter disbelief last Saturday that I was made aware that the whole 'exemption from copyright infringement by altering an image by 20%' thing is completely false and made up. My professor, a practicing Washington state lawyer, blew 20% right out of the water. He said that he too had heard the 20% rule throughout his scholastic career only to later in life, while practicing law, discover it to be wrong.
I was in such disbelief that I even raised my hand and asked him to restate and even clarify this craziness that he spoke of. He said that he knew that it was hard to believe and even posed the question, "How would you determine what constitutes 20% anyway?"
This was something I had never considered. Had I imagined that there was some sort of certified checklist within the big book of Artistic Image Theft? I had never considered how one might determine the 20% change. I had just always waited for Ed to tell me that my Elvis didn't look too much like Elvis anymore.
Now none of this really matters to me, as I have never sold any of my artwork, and really only utilized another person's imagery for that one particular project and maybe one other that I am pretty sure just found its way to the trash BUT this was something that had been told to me by professors and art professionals that had in turn been told to them as a way to bypass copyright laws. That is such a problem.
I am now hellbent on spreading the word. The word of copyright infringement and the lies of 20%.
There has been some commentary regarding this post on Facebook that I will now post here because of its value to the discussion and my arts education. :) ....
ReplyDeleteAshley Botzis:
ReplyDeletewe definitely need an art & law class at appalachian.
i've had several people ask me questions about copyright law & the only way i could respond was by saying, "uh...i'm not really sure what the answer to your question is because even though i study arts management, i know almost nothing about copyright infringement or art law. sorry."
however,i ... recently saw a book of tricia's, entitled ART/WORK: Everything You Need to Know (and Do) As You Pursue Your Art Career, and i believe there is some solid info on art law.
Brook Bower:
ReplyDeleteTried to post this on your blog but it didn't work.
Very interesting commentary regarding copyright infringement. I find it funny, as I have NEVER in my life even heard of this 20% law that you speak of. I have always heard and even read (somewhere-it may take some research) that you must change an image 60% or more to evade copyright issues. Basically ANY image created since 1909 (and again in 1978) is under copyright for the life of the artist plus 50 years. There are no laws for works older than this as the work becomes public domain after the time is up---EXCEPT in the case of the photographer and his/her copyrights. Copying "master" artists in an educational setting is considered fair use, as you are not out for a profit and are studying techniques by recreating the imagery in the same way the artist would have originally done so.
So to comment on the Warhol exhibition component- it would most likely be considered OK under the copyright act as it is used for scholarly use and research in a non-profit educational setting even though we did not change the work 60% from the original design,
However- can't say so much about Ed's project-- other than it is used for a non-profit educational use. :)
But back to what your professor said- I completely disagree that you cannot gauge a 20% change in an image. That is a silly statement as you could easily set up a simple set of factors that could create an argument for the changes. (they are lawyers-- that's what they do.)
And by the way--really?? This kind of stuff was never covered at ASU????????
I must read more of your blog postings. :)
January 14 at 6:39pm ·
Blair Clark Brown:
ReplyDeleteOoooo I just saw this. Maybe I can copy and post it to the blog. I love it!
Ashley, I think there is a copyright law related class. I couldn't find it on the ASU website but I mean its not like any of us would think to take something like that. I surely would not have.
Brook, I thought I heard the 20% thing from you? Or maybe Cassie, because I remember seeing her adjust the Andy head, that went on that wall, in Photoshop in order to be used for the exhibit? It must have been in Photoshop for some other reason. My bad.
Regardless the 20% rule is definitely the basis for the Destroy the Icon project in Ed's class. Go figure.
My professor claims that there is no 'safe number' of adjustment that can be done to an image in order to wholly evade copyright laws. And I think that he meant as an artist (the one creating/using an image) it would be difficult to gauge the percentage of change within an image. Of course once an image were called into question in a court of law it would then be possible and necessary to decipher whether or not the image had been altered in a proper amount to the point where it did or did not infringe on copyright laws. But initially the one using it would have difficult saying, "OK that looks as though I have altered it by 60%" because there is no available scale or list of rules to measure this by. But after the fact, I would imagine that a court of law would be the place to determine this.
I do remember the 'life of the artist plus 50 years thing'! I had forgotten all about that! I cannot wait to tell him about that.
However, I am not sure about the use of imagery for educational purposes. It came up in discussion that even when creating an educational literary packet, things must even have proper citations. For example there are two people in my class that teach sociology and English at another college here and when they create a packet of articles they are encouraged to go through McGraw Hill Publishing Co. to create it because they will properly cite the packet and not doing so even for the use of utilization within the class could lead to copyright issues for the school and teachers.
However I think in Ed's case it is not as though he is using another person's images to instruct but rather having us use them. I think the problem for me with that is I was under the implication from that project that if I were to leave the school and go into the world as a professional artist I would be able to use this 20% thing as a rule. Not an issue for me, as someone who
will never be a professional artist, but perhaps for the other gazillion ASU students who will.
I think the biggest threat however is profiting from the use of another's image. It is not like anyone was charged money to see the Andy wall, or I sold any of my goofy Elvis pictures. But none of it even seems to come into question until money exchanges hands and someone profits (financially) from the use of someone else's imagery.
Oh this is so awesome! I get extra credit if I write a paper about something we are talking about in class. Thanks guys!!
Brook, if there isn't a law of the arts type class at ASU you should totally teach one. You already know so much about all of this and the new stuff I am learning in this class is soooooo fascinating.
Miss you all, Blair
PS: Sorry Lorelle for using your wall as a discussion forum. :)