Art/media Copyrights?

[Eyen7]

how copyright works for selling art and media not own on SL?

[Christhiana]

You cannot sell items you do not have the copyright for. You would need permission from the original creator of the artwork to do so. You can read more about intellectual property on the wiki. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Intellectual_Property

[Chic Aeon]

Basically you need to use art that is in the public domain.  Some Creative Commons work  may be OK depending on the rules the creator chose.  OR you could just not upload anything that YOU didn't make. That works too.    

If you type in "Public Domain Art" into Google you can see that many national galleries and museums have the art out for you to use.  Note that the copyright on art most often stays with the MAKER and does not get sold along with the work (exceptions to this can be made).  So most Public Domain Art is older.   

 

 

[Da5id Weatherwax]

I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but I have worked in several roles where an understanding of IP laws was required so here's my 0.02 in the simplest possible terms...

If you do not own the copyright and do not have permission from the person or entity who does, do not use it. At all.

"Permission" from the owner can come in more ways than them telling you personally that you may use it. If they choose to release it to the public domain, you have permission. If they license the work in a way that permits its use in SL for your purposes, you have permission so long as you fulfil any conditions attached to that license such as crediting the original etc. If you're in any doubt whether the terms give you permission or not, assume they do not and do not use it.

[animats]

11 hours ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

If you do not own the copyright and do not have permission from the person or entity who does, do not use it. At all.

It's not quite that bad. First, everything published before 1925 is now public domain in the US. That year advances one year each year. And copies of objects, including photos, of items before that date are not copyrightable in the US.  (See Bridgeman vs. Corel.) So if you just need artwork for your walls, everything pre 20th century is available.

Items copyrighted prior to 1976 are under different rules. If they were published and not formally registered and marked as copyrighted at the time, they are public domain now. See U.S. Copyright Office Circular 15a. There are more special cases, but those are the big ones.

One useful special case is that works by employees of the United States Government are uncopyrightable. That's why some of my videos use music from U.S. military bands.

[Da5id Weatherwax]

2 hours ago, animats said:

It's not quite that bad...

Yeah, I should have phrased the line where I said "If they choose to release it to the public domain, you have permission" as "If they choose to release it to the public domain or it has passed into the public domain because of age or other special cases in the law, you have permission"

Not the first time something has been left out through oversimplification, but at least I erred on the side of non-violation, which is the side you want to err on, if you err at all, in making stuff for SL .