Selling real art on SL..

Well, I've long thought I recognized several art peices that are being sold by SL residents that clearly are not the real artists.

Is this allowed? I mean.. I've came across Kinkade, Mona Lisa.. even art with actual people on them. If this is allowed, does SL protect us then if the real artist sees their stuff being sold?

Pardon if I've missed this someplace.. And yes, I know, I ask alot of questions =p

Questions are great.. wish I had a more informative answer- but I imagine unless the artist is alive and kicking ... I mean, what are the chances Leonardo will find out...?

Leonardo is dead btw.

He is not! We danced at the Vangoh exhibition the other night
/me stomps foot!

Nobody ever tells me anything.

IS NOT! We were just talking the other day. With Elvis. And bigfoot.


... while in our UFO.

Thought you looked familiar...

Some art/literature/etc. is in the "public domain".

A public domain work is a creative work that is not protected by copyright and
which may be freely used by everyone. The reasons that the work is not protected include: (1) the term of copyright for the work has expired; (2) the author failed to satisfy statutory formalities to perfect the copyright or (3) the work is a work of the U.S. Government.

And of course, some works were never copyrighted in the first place

Some classic art may be in the public domain by now, which means it probably could be sold. (I'm not going to speculate which, if any, classics may be in the public domain.)

The digital copies of art by more recent artists is mostly likely the product of copyright infringement.

I saw a bunch of art for sale newly uploaded to a SL web store last night. I recognized some of the pieces of art that have been illegally digitally copied and passed around the web since there has been a web. The merchant who uploaded it seemed to be claiming to have created it. I'd give a million to one odds that the merchant isn't the avatar of the artist who created the art. (Espeically since not all of the digital scans had removed subtle artist signatures, and there were several different artist signatures among the series). If the merchant is not the original artist, I'd give a billion to one odds that the merchant doesn't have licenses to sell these digital creations for what amounts to about 5 cents each.

I'm not familiar with all the fantasy artists who have been popularly ripped off with unauthorized digital images of their art floating around the web. One whose work I happen to know well, though, is Boris Vallejo, and I spot his art copied with frequency in Second Life. Given that he's one of the few artists who devoted a massive effort to getting unauthorized digital copies of his art off the web, I'd lay those same billion to one odds that SL merchants selling his work aren't licenced to sell it at a few cents a shot.

One thing about the Second Life DMCA policy, though, is that complaints are generally only to be filed by the IP holder only. I can't make a report on the very high suscipion that someone's work is pirated.

Ahh, but does this mean anyone can legally sell duplicates of these works?

*slaps forehead* wow, I could have so done this if so.

Mmm, not making that determination, thanks

Just provided the info.

If the work has no copyright protection, and there is no prohibition as to the copying and distrubution of the work, then it wouldn't matter whether the work were distributed for free or for sale.

Yes, that's exactly what public domain means. I have a shop in SL that sells public domain art and maps.

In the US, all works published before 1923 are in the public domain. Some works published from 1923 on are in the pubic domain, but that needs to be looked at on a case by case basis. Finally, all works that are created by the US government (""a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. government as part of that person's official duties" are public domain as well.

I'm sure waiting to see what happens in five years...

Mickey Mouse was 'born' in 1928. Interesting times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse

We'll see how hard the lobby is to extend copyright protection another 50 years...

I work for a new Art Gallery where SL Artists exhibit and/or sell their digitized work. The Artist gets 80 to 90 percent of the selling price, which the owner of the gallery asks the artist to set. So... some new art is really being sold by real artists on SL.

In our gallery, the gallery owner is seen as the 'owner' of the art, but it's just so that she can set some scripts in them which are not transferable. Shows the artists trust her. *smile*

Might be the same for many other galleries. I think I'd check before condemning (sp?).

In five years? Nothing. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 extended all copyright terms in the US. Nothing will enter the public domian until 2019, when works published in 1923 will go. This assumes, of course, that Disney doesn't buy another copyright term extension in the meantime.

Not quite true. It is possible for anyone (usually the artist's descendants, but theoretically can be anyone) to purchase an extension of the copyright on any work even once its past 75 years. That's how Disney has the copyright for Winnie the Pooh. So just because an artwork is over 75 years old doesn't necessarily mean it's copyright is finished.

I don't see how it can pay to put public domain works in SL and sell them though. Who's going to pay L$100 or even L$15 when they can go to google and upload it themselves for L$10? Same applies to pirated copyrighted work (eg the Boris Vallejo that someone mentioned). Why would anyone want to pay more than L$10 when its so easy to upload it yourself?

The best art to sell in SL is art that cannot be found on Google. Be original. Sell something they can't upload themselves.

And yet, it happens.

I guess because it's easier to spend a nickel or a quarter on the someone else's pirated work rather than spending ten minutes to find, download, cut in Paint, upload to SL, apply to a prim, and pirate the work oneself.

Plus, I think a lot of people like to tell themselves that if someone else did the downloading, and I'm shelling out money, then morally I haven't done anything wrong.

Ditto.. this is why alot of my work I sell in sL is stuff I've made just for my gallery.. coz if i linked up my www then anyone could upload and make their own canvas out of my stuff..

but I also rep for a few rL artists who are not in sL and am doing so just to promote and spread their work around.. sure people can go online and get the jpegs for free, but they still support the cause and buy them in sL.. but then again i try to at least give them nice frames, etc.. and sell them for ubercheap.

I'm talking about US law. Under current US copyright law, there are no extensions that need to be filed for (though before the Copyright Act of 1976, the law did have provisions for renewals).

Works created during or after 1978 are protected for a the life of the author plus 70 years. Works with a corporate author (works-made-for-hire) are protected for the shorter of either a term of 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation.

Winnie the Pooh was first published in 1925, so it is still under copyright protection. Disney's version of the original A. A. Milne (writer) and E. H. Shepard (illustrator) character, is a derivitive work. Even after Pooh goes into the public domain, Disney will still have rights to many Pooh-related derivitive works, including the now-iconic "red shirt" Pooh version licensed by Disney, until those elements eventually pass into the public domain as well.

There have been several licensing disputes over Disney's Pooh, and an effort by Clare Milne, the granddaughter of A. A. Milne to reclaim the copyright. Perhaps you heard of one of these?



I have operated a gallery of public domain art and maps in SL for over two years now. I sell all the artwork and maps for 40L$ each. It was worth it (sort of) for me do the the work of finding, uploading, and sizing the artworks. Many people would rather pay me for that service. I sell stuff all the time. It's not a huge amount of money for me--that's true--but I spend most of my time on NCI anyway.

Apparently Luis Royo has a Second Life account, since I saw a shop in the mall selling his art.

Righto

Carl - I simply must locate your shop! =p

Hrmmm.. Alright! I guess it's that old saying "you're not in trouble until you get caught" or something l like that. Still think if I was an artist and seen some Joe selling my stuff 1L or 1,000L.. I'd get a little mad, especially if my signature was removed. I have a few arts out there that I made so many years ago. Haven't seen them on yet though.

would this mean the maps over at fact book are legal to use? the CIA is owned by the us government..............oh wait maybe it's the other way around.

I have. For more than a year. Nobody buys. Should just have put up famous artwork from before this era. Put a bunch of nude paintings up from the dawn of time until, say, 1815. Instead I put my stuff up and don't sell anything. If I somehow drop through some wormhole and find myself a few years in the past, I'll just do that, sell public domain stuff.