Discussion:
What is the name of your state? Maryland
I play in a band of a particular ethnicity. We have artwork by a man, who died a couple decades ago, of that same ethnicity. We are currently using that artwork on our Demo CD and on our website. The art depicts images through the history of our culture, and (we feel) our music speaks many of the same words. Which I realize probably matters squat in legal terms...
The man's artwork is mostly in one museum in particular, and the rest is privately owned (or owned by the family). The artwork we (wish to use/are using) comprises both types.
An artsy-type person/biographer did a book about this man, I *believe* while he was still alive, and included almost all of his paintings in the book. We have gotten our images from the biographer, who has given us her permission to use them. I don't know if she had any rights to use them outside of her book.
The biographer, and a curator at the museum where the bulk of the man's art resides, have both, on our behalf, attempted to contact the family to discuss us procuring rights to use the images on the internet and on the CD label.
The problem: The estate is essentially controlled by the family Matriarch, who is herself quite old, has no idea what the internet is, and may/may-not know what a CD is. We've offered to send her/the family a copy of our demo CD to try to clarify matters, but, the biographer and the curator don't have the quickest turnaround...
Basically, I'm worried that we're WAY in the wrong in selling ourselves with this packaging, and I'm wondering what our best course of action is (Ideally, we'd like to get permission from the family, and/or pay a licensing fee, but, we're kinda running up against a wall trying to do so, and we *really* need to start selling ourselves with this because we spent no small amount of money getting this done).
Thanks for any help that you can provide
jw
Answer:
Here's your dilemma -- if the book publisher was given permission to photograph the artworks for his book, unless he had a contract specifically limiting the use of the photos to the book, he is free to resell, republish, or license the photos to others. It will all depend on the license he, himself, has.
So, if you obtained the rights to use his photographs, in principle, that's good enough, as long as you are actually using his photographs and not other reproductions of the artwork. The problem is, the copyright owners may decide to sue you anyway. It sounds like you would be in a good position, because you have permission from the photographer (hopefully in writing) -- but if you get sued, you'll have to hire a lawyer, and that will cost money, even if you ultimately prevail.
Based solely on what you've written, it sounds like you have the right to use the photographer's pictures of the artwork; you just have to weigh the risks of getting sued (evenif you are technically in the right) against the costs of waiting until you can obtain a license directly from the copyright owner. Even if that license is technically not required in your case, it would be a powerful defense if the family ever changed their minds!
Answer:
Based solely on what you've written, it sounds like you have the right to use the photographer's pictures of the artwork; you just have to weigh the risks of getting sued (evenif you are technically in the right) against the costs of waiting until you can obtain a license directly from the copyright owner. Even if that license is technically not required in your case, it would be a powerful defense if the family ever changed their minds!
say, that's a lot better than i was expecting!
Thanks much for the info; I will make sure of the biog/photog's status with her pictures, but will also go ahead and keep trying to get family's approval, because that seems the moral/ethical thing to do (hope those words don't get flagged as inappropriate on a legal forum, hyuck hyuck ... "Yeah, who needs another lawyer joke?" asks the violist...)
This forum is a great service -- thank you very much
jw