[DirectPixel]

Originally Posted by Decado

Just my two cents - Artwork is protected, but that doesn't mean someone can't recreate sometihng with their own twist on it. I point outto you the case of Jack Vettriano (i believe that is the correct spelling) Who painted and sold paintings which were copies of the paintings in "learn to paint" manuals etc. Perfectly legal, as it was all his own work, even if it was similar, or indeed the same, as this other work. Unfortunately doing your own take on something is NOT a derivative of it. If everything was done on his own, then just because it bears resemblance to another style doesn't give the owner of that other style copyright over it.

If it could be shown that the images were simply recreations of the original images then yes it would be in breach of copyright. If they were created from scratch then no, it wouldn't.

Well, if you are going to cite the case of Jack Vettriano, then I might as well explain UK's copyright laws (The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988), which clearly states that inexact reproductions of another's work may or may not be infringement, depending on its degree.

Jack Vettriano's case was unique in that it involved paintings. The specifics of the case involved him allegedly copying figures from "Illustrators Figure Reference Manual", a book. In particular, there were figures in Vettriano's painting "The Singing Butler" which were almost identical to figures depicted in a photograph contained in "Illustrators Figure Reference Manual".

The outcome of the case was decided in favor of Jack Vettriano not because his copy of the painting was his own creation. It was decided in favor of Jack Vettriano because by placing the figures from the "Illustrators Figure Reference Manual" in a beach, and arranging them in relation to each other and changing elements of the models such as their clothing or their poses, "it was arguable that Vettriano has created a narrative and an atmosphere that did not exist before in the photographs and therefore he has not breached the copyright protection afforded to the manual."

If it could be shown that the images were simply recreations of the original images then yes it would be in breach of copyright. If they were created from scratch then no, it wouldn't.

You'd think that is true. However, copyright law does not care about how the product was created. If you opened up Adobe Illustrator and recreated the Coca-Cola logo from scratch, it will still not be yours. Express permission must be obtained from the copyright (or in the case of Coca-Cola, trademark) holder before such creations can be displayed publicly.

Or a better example. Let's say you borrowed a nice book from the library. You read it, and loved it. This doesn't mean that you can open up Word and type up the entire book (starting from a blank page) and sell it, or even claim it as yours. You are not afforded any rights just because you copied (or created from scratch) something that looks exactly like something already copyrighted.

(Seriously. You're trying to explain copyright law to a guy that lives and breathes law textbooks practically 24/7. )