http://sldonaldsonfineart.com/art-blog/
“It's Never Been an Issue” is the title of the posting and you should go and read it, cause it's as good as it gets and besides S. L. Donaldson is one of the finest artists working on the South Coast and if you aren't familiar with her work, you should be, so go there and before you leave read the piece.
But to return to this weeks thrilling episode, everything in the article is correct and just as it should be, but do you have to go that far and is there anything you can do to make things simpler? Yes and no.
No, you should make every effort to learn who took the original image you are using as a basis for your art and yes, you should get a signed release from that person to use the image as a basis of your own work.
Yes, if you are making a derivative of the original, in which the base material is substantially changed so that it constitutes a completely new and different work, then you may damn the torpedoes and go full speed ahead.
So what the heck does that mean?
This is what happens when a careless art person uses an image and claims that it is a derivative. It isn't. The images are substantially the same. The original, taken on Ektachrome 64 at F1/4, for a 1/60 with strong back light and no fill-in flash was an attempt to create an effect similar to washed black and white. I liked it then and still do. The right-hand image has been color-corrected to give the flesh-tones a bit more hue and make the image just an over-exposed color photograph. There just is no real, substantial difference between the photographs and if I didn't hold the copyright on both of them I would be seeking legal action if anyone submitted the pinky-toned image for publication.
This is called a copy and is theft of intellectual property. If it was submitted as an original Mycroft photograph, that's fraud.
This is a derivative. The original image has undergone substantial change and the person in the image is no longer recognizable nor is the relationship to the original photograph instantly understandable.
So what does this mean for you? If you paint only flowers and never use buildings or people in your work, nothing. But if you do sometimes use people, places or things which might be recognizable and owned by another artist, be careful. Or do as S.L. Suggests and collect a signed release, or...
Cultivate your resources.
Coos County is lousy with photographers. In fact we have one of the oldest, largest and most successful photography clubs in the West, the Oregon Coast Photographers Assn. Each year these gifted photographers take hundreds of frames a month. Hundreds, did you hear that, they have hundreds of frames of material. So how many do you know?
If the answer is none, get busy. They aren't at all nasty and vicious. You could meet them at one of their meetings or get and introduction from one of their members, or hustle Richard at Second Street Gallery, who is not only a gifted photographer but he also sponsors a photography show and might just know a photographer or two or you could go to the Coos County Fair and discover many of the guys enter their work there.
Because if you meet a photographer and behave nicely they might just give you access to their whole catalog. And with hundreds of frames a month that's a lot of images. And the best part, aside from making new fiends and learning about a different discipline, is if the photographer gives you access they won't be hard to find or hard to convince when you need that release.
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