To ask if this is illegal?

[PenguinBear]

Just want to know where we stand. I don't want to give exact details but will give as much info as possible.

A minor celebrity posted a picture online of something they had made. A public site with an open page where anyone can view it (without having to follow/like the page).

If someone were to save the picture and then have the same thing custom made, would this be illegal?

No-one has posted her actual pictures publically (only sent them to the artist) although they have posted a picture of their item online (an exact replica of the item).

This person has found out and has written a big rant saying that it is theft and people need her permission to use her photos. Quite a few people have done it since the picture was posted last year.

Has any crime actually been committed? She has said she would have liked people to ask permission before using her photos for any purpose. Tbh, It didn't even cross my mind to ask permission, she never replies to 'fans' although I have gone right off her now.

No I am not selling it, it was made for my dd and of course she plastered it all over her twitter and tagged the celeb, hence how they saw.

I have made dd delete every picture of the item (even though they were her pictures of her item) not the celeb's. Although other fans of said celeb commented 'this looks just like XXs etc'.

That's exactly it softlysoftly.

If only we'd done that Plumpcious. I sent actual copies of the photo, (which has been copied to the comp and saved) via email to the artist.

I was thinking it would be a pram as well Random

I'm still not quite sure what happened.

Your DD saw a picture of a celebrity with something that she had had custom made and wanted one the same.

You commissioned someone to make one for her, as did others.

Did you commission the same person who made the item for the celebrity to make yours or did you commission a different person to make it?

Is the celebrity complaining because you all have the same item or because you all used a picture of her to commission it?

Was the picture of her a private picture, even if she tweeted it, or was it taken from a magazine or suchlike?

Is her photo that you copied subject to copyright? I thought the person who took the photo has the copyright.

All photos are copyright the creator unless that copyright is assigned to another. They don't need to register it. So taking a photo, whether downloading off the web or by snitching it from a family album, is theft.

If you have been reproducing that photo, it's wrong.

She doesn't have rights in the original design, but she does own the photo. Delete it.

(It is possible to assign a photo to eg a Creative Commons licence, which means it can be copied by others as long as they always keep the ownership info with it. And uploading to some photo sites without reading the small print very carefully can lose you the copyright, as the site owners will grab the rights, including the right to sell your work to others.)

If PenguinBear wanted s/o else to look at an online image, she should have copied the URL of the web page and referred them to that. Just because you can right-click and take an image, doesn't mean it's legal. Taking anything off the web without permission is theft, simple. Keeping the URL is legal.

But if your DD took her own photos, of her own item, that isn't theft- the copyright on those photos belongs with your DD.

You saving the original image was theft though, presumably, sorry.

You having a duplicate made is ok, as the original artist made it, so it's her work presumably.

I didn't realise it was theft. I wrongly assumed that once it was a public image it was okay to send to artist. I now know this was incorrect.

At no point did dd actually publish an image that the celeb in question posted.

I have no idea if this is any way linked to mn, but a comment has appeared under the celeb's rant telling her that they are probably just kids and didn't mean any harm in using her pics.
So thank you if that was you!! could just be coincidence or your search knowledge of sites like twitter and Instagram is way beyond mine!

It's not theft. It's just like cutting a photo out of a magazine and giving it to a designer and saying, I want one like that.

Hmm, I'm intrigued as to what item it was.

I'm also going to suggest Jordan and one of those castle beds. You commissioned a joiner to reproduce the item. Am I close?

I can't see what you did as being an infringement on copyright although the celeb does own the photo so you're not allowed to pass that off as your own but I don't think that's what you've done from what you have said.

This is a load of nonsense. If what softly softly says is what happened then the celeb doesn't have a leg to stand on no matter what she says or how many threats she makes. Copyright law exists to protect peoples financial interest in their own products. If there is no loss, there is no issue.

Biscuit you cannot copy a photo without the permission of the copyrightholder (usually the person who took the photo).

To do so is breaking the law, although I think there's something about a 70 yr rule. Think it's out of copyright after that length of time.

How does it work then when magazines/online newspapers build whole articles around tweeted photos and copy and paste them in to the articles? If you tweet/Instagram/Facebook etc a photo do you lose the copyright?

recent case on the matter

But I think this was very different to the op's case as the photos were used for commercial gain.

If you tweet/FB/Instagram a photo you do NOT lose the copyright. You may (depending on the terms of service of the site) give a license for certain uses, and in practice it can be hard to police who copies it, but the person who took the photo still has the copyright.

The newspapers/sleb mags that build stories around such tweets, etc do it in a couple ways:

1. Obtain permission of the copyright holder, maybe for a fee.
2. rely on a fair use exception for news. Every bit will, of course,have been run by their lawyers to ensure they're on the correct side of the law on this. That doesn't mean you can necessarily do it.
3. cross their fingers and hope they don't get sued.

This thread is useless without details

But if we're talking copyright in terms of intellectual property, surely the celeb has no grounds for complain because they didn't design the actual item. They had an existing design customised, which I don't think is the same thing.

Pamish and Araminta are correct (I work with intellectual property rights in my profession, though I'm not a lawyer). The appropriate thing to do would have been to link to the original photo (or poss take a photo of the photo, but then it gets messy).

The intellectual property rights over the original item created are not relevant; it's the photo as a work of copyright which is at issue. However, as this was for personal use and your daughter and you didn't try to pass off the work as your own, no one in their right mind would pursue it. Especially since you've deleted it.

Just because something is available on the web does not make it public domain. My job would be a lot easier if more people understood that

However

It really depends what celeb is actually getting her knickers in a twist about?

A. Is it the sharing of her photo?

B. Or the copying of an item she had commissioned for herself?

If B, then she's not a leg to stand on. If A then there are some laws but it's not worth anyone's while to pursue it.

Also how can she know you copied and pasted her photo anyway? You could have just as easily shared a URL to the image surely? And that would have had the same effect but without breaking any laws.

Basically, what I'm getting at is... The one thing you may have done unlawfully is something that she is just assuming you did and it feels like she doesn't know what she's talking about and is just mouthing off.

I would ignore and see if she calms down.

Just an initial? Pleeeeease

So if I'm getting this right: Celeb buys something from an artist and posts pictures on the internet. Teenage/child fan sees item and wants one just like it. Parent takes picture from internet, goes to original artist and says I want one too. Artist makes item and sells to parent.

So therefore, wouldn't the original rights to the item belong to the artist who designed and built the item? You can't go to a builder and a say I want a pink pirate ship cubby house built in my backyard then expect that he will never build a pink pirate ship cubby house for another client.

You can't go to a builder and a say I want a pink pirate ship cubby house built in my backyard then expect that he will never build a pink pirate ship cubby house for another client

Could we not make an exception to that, just under these circumstances just in case it caused a mass pirate descending issue. They steal rum you know

Celeb is being a twat.

Celeb is lucky you are on here and being discrete not all over the daily fail with sad face pictures.

Famous similar example from the 1980s.

When Lady Di got married her dress was horrendous designer creation. By that afternoon copies were in shop windows.

No one complained.

More recent example - spice girl tribute/pisstake bands always have a ginger one in a union jack dress, which is a copy.