Leagle position of images from SL

I just thought of something. If I were to take an image of someone on SL and then use it in RL, who has the legal control. Do I have contol, because I was the one who took the image, or does the owner of AV that is in the image, since they created the character? Or does LL since it comes from their property? I know this might be a can of worms, but it was something I thought of.

It depends on what you do with it. If you use it to imitate an avatar then you might fall foul of copyright. If you just post it, then you will almost certainly be fine, though you may possibly fall foul of the ToS regarding harassment if it is used for certain purposes, which may affect your future participation in Second Life.

Just because someone's avatar is in a picture does not mean that they have copyright over that picture at all. In general, take whatever pictures you like.

I agree to a point, but it's more complicated than that. Copyrights work under the "fair use" concept, where the courts decide whether a particular use is fair. As you say, if you just post a picture that happens to contain a number of avatars, and the posting is just to enliven a personal web site, that's likely to be considered fair. Beyond that, it would depend upon how the image is being used, how distinctive and recognizable the avatar is, and how the avatar contributes to the value of your use of your image.

Consider this analogy: If you're writing a book on modern English literature, and happen to quote a very short poem in it's entirety (and there's no way an excerpt could make your point), that would be ok. But if it were a collection of poetry, then it wouldn't be, even though you're quoting the same amount of material.

If the avatar is the only thing in the image, so you aren't making some artistic or critical contribution to the work, then the original artist could make a case for owning the copyright outright. If the avatar were prominent but not the only thing, then you could wind up with a mutual interest, so that neither one of you could profit from it without involving the other (since you each contributed to the work).

If this is for personal use, just contact the original artist as a courtesy. If you're making money off it, you should get professional advice.

[Standard disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, but as a software engineer I needed to learn enough about copyright to protect my own works.]

It's an interesting legal question really. I mean, in RL of course it's not a problem for you to take a picture of someone, so I wonder how that compares in legal terms to taking a screenshot of someone's avatar?

But if I understand it right (and please correct me when I am wrong), the "fair use" concept is US only. So what about the rest of the world?

I shall see if I can dig up some information concerning The Netherlands.

Morwen.

That's not the case. In Italy (and I believe in the European Union, too) you need to have the consent of the person(s) portrayed in the picture. That is, as long as the person can be identified by looking at the picture.

Don't know about avatars...

The Berne Convention for Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (as revised) is subscribed to by most nations where you can run SL.

Linden Lab has asserted that in-game snapshots are not the property of the avatars in the snapshot and thus would fall under the Berne Fair Use (Art. 10 §1) "It shall be permissible to make quotations from a work which has already been lawfully made available to the public, provided that their making is compatible with fair practice" as an SL scene has been lawfully made available to the public.

Hope that helps.

Except, I suspect, for California and maybe other places, where anti-paparazzi laws come into play.

Of course, while it's generally ok to take a picture of another person in public, it's not always ok to use it, particularly for profit. Otherwise, General Mills wouldn't have to pay anything to the athletes whose pictures appear on boxes of Wheaties.

Well the wheaties box example isn't about using a picture for profit (otherwise the majority of the magazines at the supermarket would be sued out of existence) but rather getting the official endorsement of those athletes. Like, you can't claim someone is endorsing your product without actually getting their endorsement first.

Regardless, it's still an interesting comparison to make, since clearly any issues with photos of people in RL are not copyright violations. That is, people don't have a copyright on their own image (although many artists do consider their own body to be their greatest work of art.)

That falls under fraudulent advertisement not copyright.

Even the California Law is couched in terms of trespass and harassment, not copyright. And if anyone is going to claim that there is such a thing as actionable trespass in SL, my response is: pfft!

I think that's what Johan was trying to say, at least about it not being copyright.

It would be way off topic to get into whether it's false advertising and/or unfair enrichment. The latter is very complex. While people don't have a copyright on their own RL image, they do have a limited right to control how that image may be used.