WIBU to print an artist's work at home?

[zatarontoast]

Asking as I really don't know if this is appropriate or not. I follow an artist on Instagram who does oil paintings and I really wanted one so enquired about the price. At £500 for a small size it is way beyond my budget or what I could justify in spending. But... I still want one. She doesn't do prints, so I was thinking I could print one off at home for my own use. I don't know much about these things so don't know if this is considering stealing or is just a no-no in general? My rationale is that she isn't losing by me doing this as I wasn't going to buy it anyway.

Only last week I saw a picture that I really liked If a dog with some writing down the side
I spent most of the day trying to find It online it but it was either not a available on Amazon

So Isaved the picture and sent it off to be made as a canvas picture
Really pleased with the result
I would have happily paid for it had I been able to buy it

I have several friends who are artists (painters, photographers, musicians, tattoo artists, illustrators) and you wouldn't believe how often they are asked for freebies, or to work "for the exposure", or for discounts just because people don't value the time, effort and expense that goes into a piece of art.

If you want to support an artist, pay what their work is worth.

OP, you also mentioned taking images from the internet for homework, etc. I teach in a university and when I'm putting images on slides I have to use stock images licenced for the purpose or the university can get into trouble. Whoever took a photo owns the rights to it so you can't just lift it from the internet without crediting them.

I want is not a justification for stealing.

Would you walk into a shop & steal a Gucci bag because you want one but you're never going to pay that much for one?

It's basically the same thing.

Part of being an adult is understanding that we don't get everything we want.

what is the difference between me printing off a picture from the Internet of a desert for dd's homework and me printing off the same pic to display in my house? I'm not being goady, genuinely trying to see the difference. I could say both are educational.

You aren’t part of an educational establishment such as a school or college. The law allows ‘fair use’ for criticism/review as they essentially promote the work (hence photos in e.g. magazines of art), and it allows for the purposes of education. This means formal education such as in a school, not you arguing you’re educating yourself.
Anyway, copyright law exists to prevent artists being done out of money for their work. You are doing her out of money by refusing to pay for something but taking it anyway. Your options should be paying for the painting or not having it. As she doesn’t do prints, making a print isn’t an option she chooses to make available. Nobody can stop you doing it anyway though. If you download an ebook from a pirate site, the ebook still exists for sale on official sites, but you decided not to pay for the author’s work and did them out of the money they’d have made if you’d bought it in the Kindle store. That’s just as much theft as if you walked into Waterstones and stole a paperback off the shelf.

It’s not just morally wrong. It’s a theft of the artist’s intellectual property.

If you can’t afford to buy her work, OP, then that’s just tough.

My rationale is that she isn't losing by me doing this as I wasn't going to buy it anyway.

Weak and circular argument. You weren’t going to buy it anyway because you can’t afford it. She is losing out because you’re not prepared to pay what she charges but you’re hoping to get something free by just printing it off.

At £500 for a small size it is way beyond my budget or what I could justify in spending.

You don’t want it badly enough then. If you wanted it really badly, you’d ask if she could reserve it for you and save up for it.

It's not against copyright to display it in your own home, instead of people wildly just guessing or assuming, why doesn't anyone take the time to actually research it?

PS poor people aren't allowed art it seems.

It’s not just morally wrong. It’s a theft of the artist’s intellectual property

Source please

@Yobean

PS poor people aren't allowed art it seems.

And you're imagining the artist to be the rich one in this scenario?

OP pointed out right up there in the very first post that this artist doesn't produce prints, otherwise she would be happy to buy one.

Yes, I'm aware she can't purchase a print from the artist. There are millions of prints out there she can buy one of those.

Poor people can have art.. they can save up for it.

It would probably not be illegal to put the image up in your home, but it would be illegal for a commercial enterprise to print it (they ask if you own the copyright when you sign up to print stuff) or frame it (because they'd be profiting from the IP theft).

Could you honestly look at it every day, knowing it was stolen?

Just save up, or accept that its beyond your means and you can't have it, like the rest of us do with things we can't have.

@Yobean

PS poor people aren't allowed art it seems.

That's a stupid comment. There are beautiful prints out there which are excellent quality. Most people can afford that.

@Yobean

PS poor people aren't allowed art it seems.

You have to live within your means. If you (the generic you!) can't afford a £500 oil painting, then you buy a £50 print to put on your wall. Like I can't afford the latest iPad, so I have a cheap kindle instead.

@RunningFromInsanity

Just do it. It’s not going to effect anybody in the slightest. The artist isn’t losing out. No one is going to see your picture and then judge the original artist in the quality. You aren’t profiting from it, you aren’t pretending you did it. The police aren’t gonna break down your door for a bloody photo.

It won’t effect anybody? The artist won’t lose out?

If everyone started doing this to me, how do you think I will pay my mortgage?

@zatarontoast

Really interesting food for thought here. I'll have to go around my house and sanitise it of other people's intellectual property, I'm quite a thief I've discovered. *@Nikori* I have a few framed calender pics, I actually thought I was doing a good deed rather than throwing it in the recycling bin

I don't think that the calendar analogy is the same, they're prints and you've bought the prints. I have a calendar up now which was bought for exactly to be kept and framed, it's no different from keeping it in a drawer, I'll keep them on the wall.

It's not stealing to print off an image for personal use. Stealing is to "take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it." The OP has taken nothing from the artist because the artist still has all the assets they had before. One could argue that if the OP bought the artwork the artist would have her money, but this falls flat because a) the OP isn't going to buy it, b) the artist has never possessed the OP's money so it isn't the artist's property and c) the artist still has the artwork and can sell it to someone else.

This is why taking a physical painting would be stealing - depriving the rightful owner of something that belongs to them - and making a digital copy is not.

Using the logic that it would be stealing for the OP to do this, it is equally stealing to sing a song that you don't own the copyright to. I'm sure many people here have sung "Happy Birthday" over the years, a song which until a couple of years ago was copyrighted. (Until a judge said that the copyright was invalid, which kind of proves the point!)

Ask if she will make a print for you - my Uncle has started selling prints of some of his work because he was asked so often (partly because of cost & partly because some are huge)

@Yobean

PS poor people aren't allowed art it seems.

By that reasoning, if you can't afford them ,you are morally allowed to go and steal jewellery, luxury items and luxury experience? Really?

@SourcePlease

I’m using a colloquial phrase, it’s true. Someone upthread referred to “intention permanently to deprive” being one of the key elements of theft.

We aren’t dealing with the criminal offence of theft here. We are dealing with the act of copying - which is an act of primary infringement of copyright under the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988. Under section 17(2) of that act, copying in relation to an artistic work means reproducing the work in any material form, including storing it in any medium by electronic means.

Acts of primary infringement are “strict liability” torts (civil wrongs), meaning no knowledge or intention is needed to be shown on the part of he defendant to establish liability.

if you can't afford them ,you are morally allowed to go and steal jewellery, luxury items and luxury experience?

Nope, any of those lead to direct loss for someone, printing an image that is already readily available online and printing it for use in your own home doesn't cause a direct loss to anyone. And copyright law doesn't cover it.

Any of those lead to direct loss for someone, printing an image that is already readily available online and printing it for use in your own home doesn't cause a direct loss to anyone.

This is palpable nonsense. the OP’s not paying £500 got the artist’s work, because she doesn’t want it THAT badly, means that the artist misses out on a sale and on the amount he or she is due for the time they spent on the work.

@WiddlinDiddlin

Poor people can have art.. they can save up for it.

It would probably not be illegal to put the image up in your home, but it would be illegal for a commercial enterprise to print it (they ask if you own the copyright when you sign up to print stuff) or frame it (because they'd be profiting from the IP theft).

Could you honestly look at it every day, knowing it was stolen?

Just save up, or accept that its beyond your means and you can't have it, like the rest of us do with things we can't have.

An image you download off the internet is not stolen unless you've hacked into a paywall.

Downloading an image off the internet for personal use does not breach copyright.

copyright law doesn’t cover it.
The policy reason for the civil wrong of infringement, enshrined in legislation, is to try to guard against this “badness”. The artist herself owns the RIGHT to COPY her own work - nobody else. Hence COPYRIGHT.

Using the logic that it would be stealing for the OP to do this, it is equally stealing to sing a song that you don't own the copyright to.

Yes, it is - if you sing it in public you need to pay the artist. Most people don’t know so don’t, but technically you need a licence to perform a cover. You need the permission of the original writers of both lyrics and music. If you quote a song in a book, you need permission to use the lyrics. That’s why you see them listed on the copyright or permissions pages of books.

It's a bit of a victimless crime

It's really not.