Copyright Questions

[Aerdan]

The site I own (www.castbuzz.com) is centered around fellow Disney Cast Members. I have contacted Disney's legal department, though they are very slow on response, and was wondering if there are public licenses or laws that would allow us to have default icons based off of Disney characters. The company is very protective of its creative properties, however, I don't know all the laws involved when it comes to community avatars.

If anyone has any links I can review, I'd appreciate it! Thanks in advance!

[RobDog888]

For avatars it would probably fal under the Fair Use Rights. Since you are not using it in your site header image and making your site seem as an officially licensed Disney site it should be ok but dont rely upon my word :D Sometimes its best to let them come to you. The majority of the time they will leave things alone as its more of a marketing/advertising thing for them to get more buzz about them.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

What are "Fair Use Rights"?

[RobDog888]

Here are a few good links describing it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
"use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied;"
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html
"one important factor is whether your use will deprive the copyright owner of income."

[Marco van Herwaarden]

The Fair Use described in those links are only in the US laws, nowhere else.

Also is it very limited and will in most cases as discussed in this thread not apply.

[RobDog888]

Well the thread stareter is in Orlando, FL ;)

[Aerdan]

That's a lot of good information, thanks everyone for the timely responses! =)

[R1lover]

Aren't all sites in the USA??? :lol




j/k


That's all we American's have to be concerned with if we are operating out of the USA. :)

[iogames]

This Topic about Copyright Laws keeps amazing me here in vB.org

p.s. You should stick to the law and request permission