Understanding Visual Copyright

Visual Copyright is a type of copyright that covers things such as photographs, posters, illustrations, product packaging, graphic design, and others. When a musician creates a song or an illustrator creates a piece, it's already copyrighted upon creation, but registering it creates an extra layer of protection, especially when it comes to enforcing copyright claims. A copyright claim is when you take action over the use of a material you have ownership over. In the U.S. you have to register the work to file a copyright claim. Common and simple things probably won't be able to get copyrighted, such as a smiley face or a shape like a square. Being the owner of the copyrighted material allows you to do whatever you want with the work, such as selling and creating copies of it. If you're hired to do the work for someone else, like a logo, for example, it's considered a “work for hire.” A work for hire means that any work you produce would be owned by the person who hires you rather than you, the creator of the work. It's best to get this done as a written agreement to further establish that it’s a work for hire. This is important for the musician as well as the designer of their cover art or marketing material since this is the basis of the entire relationship between the two. 

Now, let's talk about fair use. Fair use is a law that allows the use of copyrighted material as long as the work is transformative and is used for teaching, criticism, research, and commentating. In this case, the focus would be the transformation aspect. This means that the new work using the copyrighted material has to be different enough from the original that it can be considered an entirely new work. Usually, this poses no problem, but sometimes the waters get muddied, and people get sued for works that get a lot of attention and use copyrighted material. Time to put that fair use to the test and teach you about those muddied waters with this image.

Hope. It's what Obama’s campaign ran on and one of the biggest examples of fair use not being as cut and dry as people think. The above image is the famous Barack Obama “Hope” poster created by Shepard Fairey that ended up representing Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. The Image became so popular that the Smithsonian acquired the original version to put in the National Portrait Gallery after Obama won the election. The Poster was based on a photo taken by an Associated Press photographer named Mannie Garcia 2 years prior. AP noticed the similarities and contacted Fairey’s legal team for compensation, and Fairey sued AP, claiming fair use so he wouldn't have to pay any money. It got really messy, and a second lawsuit happened after Fairey lied about his claims and presented evidence to create a narrative that he used a different image not owned by AP as inspiration for the poster. But in the end, they settled outside of court and split the profits and shared the rights to the “Hope” poster as well as collaborating on future Poster designs based on AP photos. 

Collabs like that are group registered so that all parties involved have equal rights to the work. To register any work, go to  www.copyright.gov/registration. It costs $45 for an electronic filing and $125 for a paper filing for a standard filing, but filings can range from $35-$500 depending on the specifics, such as the type of work and if it's a group of works. Hopefully, you learned something new in this post about copyright, and you make sure your work is protected as well as the work you hire people to do for you. Subscribe to my newsletter using the form below to get updates and more tips!