Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
If you go to your local toy store and buy a toy Dalek, you are free to take a photograph of that toy and post that photograph here, or anywhere else for that matter. The toy was made with the permission of the trademark holder, as was this particular model Dalek made with the permission of the BBC. It would be a different matter taking a BBC photograph of a Dalek, and posting that. That would indeed be a copyright violation. This, however, is not.
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Sadly you are mistaken. As Disney proved in their famous child-care lawsuit, ownership of a copyrighted toy/item/illustration does not give you the rights to reproduce a facsimile of that item. Disney sued a child-care center who had drawn a mural of Disney characters. As their defense the child-care center claimed they owned the book they copied the image from. (For legal purposes a good drawing and a photo are basically the same thing.) The child-care center lost big time.
Owning a toy of a copyrighted character does not give you the right to reproduce it except for 'fair use' such as a news article, or such. Your use is as an 'avatar', using it to represent your online persona. If I had never seen Dr. Who I might incorrectly assume it was your image.
I did a little research and found that the Dalek "brand" is copyrighted and controlled by the estate of Tim Nation. It's agent Tim Hancock handles all licensing of the Dalek brand, and was recently in a very bitter copyright dispute over the BBC to allow their inclusion in the new Dr. Who series (they finally settled).
So unless the estate of Tim Nation has granted you written permission, you basically find yourself practicing the same thing you so aggressively proclaimed against.
A very slippery slope indeed...