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Originally Posted by Turtle91
Curious...
How would you know if it is in the public domain? Is there a "In the public domain" list somewhere? How do you know if an image is protected by copyright and/or how do you get permission if the author/copyright holder is unknown.
Local fair use is just that, local. What is legal in one locale might be infringing in another.
I suppose it is safer to use only images you've made yourself...unless the image you've made is of a copyright protected subject...
Copyright law is so confusing...  |
Copyright laws vary from place to place. You need to know the law for the place you're intending to publish.
For most of the world, for written and drawn/painted works, things fall into the public domain 70 years after the author/artist has died.
Photographs are the main exception to life+70 terms, and often are only protected for 50 years from creation of publication, but, due to changes in copyright laws, the exact length of protection might depend on exactly when the photograph was taken or published.
And yes, if you can't get around copyright laws by taking a photograph of a copyright object. You might or might not create a new image with its own copyright by doing so, but the image you create will almost always be subject to the copyright of the original object as well.
Copyright laws, especially term lengths, are horrendously complicated due to differences between countries, and due to changes in the laws over the past century in each country.