Still lost to whats fair game legally to use?

[barm]

so maybe some one can riddle me this or even the artist can chime in



how is it legal to use that image of the woman as it was the album cover for Bill Evans on Undercurrent and from what I know is not in the public domain, plus I thought that photography was not copyright free to use until 70 years after the death of the photographer...I do know that it has not been transformed from the original enough to warrant a new artistic representation, as you can clearly still tell its the original that has been photomontaged...I'm really curious to this as I see a lot of gigposter artists using a lot of photography that is not their own that has been produced in the last 50 years and some has barely been modified other than some type face

[mikeage]

Do what you want, it if you want to make sure it's legal call a lawyer.

[ken taylor]

hey there - in actual reality the photo has been changed a lot - for a start the original has no face on it and by adding that rob has changed the whole point of view - very cleverly i might add! of course the background, the top of the water and the sky have also been added so that clearly changes the photo but most importantly by adding the lightning strike the girl becomes part of a bigger concept and without robs awesome brain figuring that out it would not be anywhere near as great a poster as it actually is. I think it has definately been transformed enough to warrant a new artistic representation....plus i freaking love this poster!!
my two cents

[john seabury]

You can take your own photos.But then you mignt not give yourself permission anyway.

[barm]

I agree this is a great poster, I only asked about this one b/c I keep seeing it on the homepage of GP and the bottom image is pretty recognizable, and I do agree that a lot has been done to compose the poster, but the picture has been relatively unaltered...my understanding of using a work that still has copyright on it is that it has to be made unrecognizable in comparison to the original, I mean shit thats what the whole shepard fairey debockle was over

[crosshair]

Short answer: I don't know. I avoid the issue by working from my own photography exclusively.

There are a lot of myths floating around about something called 'fair use' and I wouldn't put much value on what anybody says about it other than an intellectual property attorney (Nels?)
When you say that this image has not been transformed from the original enough to warrant a new artistic representation... that is your subjective view of this particular image, which jumped out to your eye because you're familiar with the source. Is it a legal standard? Again, I don't know, and neither do you. But what is certain is that if someone with the $$ and resources to pursue legal action decides they have been infringed upon, saying "I transformed it into a new artistic representation. Fair use maaaaan!" isn't going to do a lick of good unless you too have the $$ resources and time to mount a defense. You are toast. And as Shep Fairey can tell you, even having the $$ to put up a fight doesn't mean you won't get slapped down.
A determined and ruthless party with a lawyer will crush any artist like a bug 99.9% of the time. Fair use, nothing.

I'll leave the ethical & moral judgments to others... people are going to do what they are going to do. Presumably they know the risk they take, and have given some thought to covering their ass. I certainly have appropriated images. Not in recent years, but I've done it flagrantly plenty of times in the past, so I'm not going to cast that stone. I'm more interested in the broader point you raise, of image-grabbing as design... This is a bad example because it is actually a very good poster, and aside from the lady and the lighting, for all I know the artist used his own photography. I hope so.

But there is a TON of poster art being produced, and posted on GP which consists mostly of photographs and parts of photographs, taken off the web. Not known or recognizable photographs, just stuff. Like, search google images for "mountain" or "bird" and grab the third hit which is some dude's shot from his vacation. Or maybe just a tiny part of it, apply a halftone, and boom there's your halftone-y texture overlay. Add your type and there's a poster, right?
Makes for a whole hell of a lot of half-assed, boring, shitty posters.

It takes time and thought to do an illustration.
It takes time and thought to work with a camera, and manipulate and combine photographs.
It takes time and thought to create design with vectors and typography.
It takes time and thought to combine two or more of the above.
It even takes time and thought to appropriate and re-contextualize an image in a thoughtful enough way, that it produces a something distinct and new.

It takes very little time and very little thought to grab a bunch of stuff off of google images, tweak it a bit, slap some type on it, maybe a little clip art, and call it a poster. And nearly always, it shows.
I wish more people who like to work with photographic images, would just get out the damn camera and make some. It's fun.

[barm]

thanks for your input Dan I agree 100% and you hit on everything I was pretty much driving towards...and yes this was not the best example of a poster but like I said I have been seeing it a bunch lately and yes that one image I am familiar with, and I should correct myself from earlier as I do think their is a new meaning to the piece artistically as it has been done I was more or less generalizing the part of the image I was familiar with...its probably all legit b/c I don't think Rob would have made it if it was not, I think the main driving idea I was getting out which I have seen done in other posters is yeah somebody goes on to google images and picks and pulls elements from say 3 or 4 pictures to photomontage their own new little compositions and slaps a couple vector elements on to them and some type and call it a day

[ZELIG]

I'm the "artist" who made the poster.

It is my understanding that this photo is in the public domain after Toni Frissell, the photographer, gifted it along with her entire life's work to the Library of Congress.

I don't have a hard on for Blue Note covers like most folks here, so I was unfamiliar with it being used for a Bill Evan's album cover. Even if I was, I doubt I would have given a shit.

If I'm wrong about any of this, feel free to let me know.

[squeegeethree]

Toni Frissell's wikipedia page has this image on it and says it's been used on 4 different album covers by 4 different artists. So I would guess it's fair game.

Further more:
"This file is in the public domain, because it was gifted to the U.S. Library of Congress by Toni Frissell. No restrictions of usage according to [1].
In case this is not legally possible:
The right to use this work is granted to anyone for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law."

[barm]

well again yeah this was a bad example of what I was getting at b/c its a completely legitimate usage (I just never would have guessed though b/c most pics are under copyright for 70 years after the photographer dies), also I'm not trying to throw up a red flag that says hey that's illegal you can't use that, I'm just trying to understand what is "fair use", oh well