Drawing a picture.

I'm wonder if it is legal to copy a photograph by hand drawing or computer
manipulation so the subject on the picture will be barely or will not be
recognized ?




Andy

Andy wrote:
> I'm wonder if it is legal to copy a photograph by hand drawing or
> computer manipulation so the subject on the picture will be barely or
> will not be recognized ?

In America, yes. There is a threshhold of manipulation beyond which the
new product can be classified as a "derivative work." While it is up to
the courts to determine, on a case-by-case basis, what constitutes
derivative work, it should be fairly anecdotal to the layman. Making a
photocopy of a piece of art is copyright infringement; photocopying it
1,000 times until it's a sea of muck is derivative work.

Hand-drawing a photograph is a murky legal subject. Making an exact
reproduction of a work in any way is technically copyright infringement,
unless you can prove to the court (and likely to the original artist)
the independent value of your new work.

Andy Warhol famously reproduced the Campbell's soup can as a silkscreen
print, parodying mass production. To my knowledge, Campbell's didn't sue
Warhol for this.

Creating a pencil drawing, however, in Chuck Close style, totally
duplicating an artistic photograph taken by someone else, would probably
not go unpunished. Ultimately the merit of your work would be judged by
the copyright holder whose image(s) you copied; they may choose not to
seek recourse.

--
Aaron
http://www.fisheyegallery.com

"Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems
good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the
rest." -- John Stuart Mill

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 11:43:37 -0500, Aaron
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Creating a pencil drawing, however, in Chuck Close style, totally
>duplicating an artistic photograph taken by someone else, would probably
>not go unpunished.



December 7, 2006, from Lloyd Erlick,

It's routine for art students to labor many
hours making their best copies of famous
masterworks. The 'art' might be in seeing how
far one could go in this 'duplication'. Not
really something that should be punished ...

I think the real crux is whether the
plagiarized work (or duplicated, or forged,
any word like that) is used in a crime. If it
is held out to be an original made by the
actual artist, or if the forger represents as
an original by himself, or some such thing.
The use determines whether there is a crime.
The mere creation of the 'duplicate' is not a
crime.

Spend twenty years reproducing the Mona Lisa
in the most minute, accurate detail
(microscopically accurate brush strokes,
chemically accurate pigments and substrate,
the whole bit). You'd have a wonderful and
probably financially successful exhibit as
long as you advertised it as it is. Sell it
by claiming you found it in an attic and it's
an original that predates the famous one in
the Louvre ... well, there may be suckers
born every minute but that sounds unlikely to
make any money.

regards,
--le
________________________________
Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto.
website: www.heylloyd.com
telephone: 416-686-0326
email: (E-Mail Removed)
________________________________
--