Copyright for Artists - Lisa Congdon artwork

Some of you may recall my post Copyright for Artists - Congdon vs Cody Foster published  after a mini viral storm about copyright infringement on the Internet generated by Lisa Congdon (Today is going to be awesome).

[This post was revised and updated 26 July 2016]

This was followed up by two posts by Brian Sherwin:

• Let's Have an Ar(t)gument: You stole my idea! Lisa Congdon vs. Cody Foster & Company which reviews the legal arguments and the potential evidence. It seems there are lots of potential issues the claimant will need to address
• Lisa Congdon vs. Cody Foster: What about the photographers? At this point it became clear there was rather more to the story when it comes to alleged "copyright rip-off"! Again the images - of photographs compared to illustrations by Lisa Congdon - are very persuasive.

The latter has now generated 550 comments and is now one of the most extensive discussions I've seen on the Internet related to copyright infringement, the rights of photographers not tobe  copied and the whole thorny topic of derivative works

For example - Comment 424

I think it's fair to say that many artists, maybe even the vast majority of artists, are dangerously unfamiliar with copyright law. They think such things as "It's on the internet, so I can use it."

Or "If I change it 10 percent (or 20 percent or 30 percent) then it's legal."
Or "I'm changing it from a photo to a painting. That makes it okay."
Or "My work is stylized (like Congdon's) and because I don't work realistically I can use photos without violating their copyright." (Try telling that to Shepard Fairey.)
Or "If I make a sculpture (or an ornament) from a photo, I'm changing it from 2D to 3D, so that's not a violation."
Or "I'm only using this photo in a larger work, so it's okay."
Or "I'm only using a portion of this photo, so that makes it okay."
Or "I'm just a small time artist." Or a hobbyist. Or my heart is pure. Or everyone does it. Or no one will notice.

NONE of these is a defense in a court of law if you rip off a copyrighted photo to make your artwork.

One set of comments related to an artwork by Mathilde Aubier which it appeared had been copied by Lisa Congdon. The allegations - and the artwork - have now disappeared from view but the record of what happened remains in the comments.

A court case  about the appropriation of a photograph has also been quoted - the reference is Friedman v. Guetta – Copyright Infringement, Fair Use, and “Meaningless Art.” - and is very definitely worth a read if you are an artist who copies the photographs of other people.

However there have been further developments and one of them, from Thomas Allen (Thomas Allen Online) caused my jaw to drop..........

This is important and it's educational - particularly if you're not too hot on copyright!

Beware - this is a very long post with lots of links.  

Go get that hot drink and find a comfy chair now!

Copyright for Artists - Congdon vs Cody Foster

We seem to be seeing more and more stories of large companies who are "ripping off" independents in terms of alleged copyright infringement.

What we're also seeing is the power of the Internet as their actions are being "outed" online.

[Revised and updated: 26 July 2016]

Image for my
Copyright for Artists webpage

But is it all as clear cut as some of the stories would suggest?

Below are links to what is apparently another horror story of alleged copyright infringement which has been featured in a big way on Facebook and Twitter.

The claim by the artist is that there has been a wholesale rip-off (literally) of an artist's art by a commercial company which operates wholesale across the USA. However this is a story with a very big twist!! Do read through to the end to 'get it'.

Plus at the end there are some resources which you may find useful if you need help with copyright as it relates to artists - and some of the not so nice things that can happen from time to time.

Lisa Congdon - Art + Illustration

Images used in Lisa Congdon's blog post

My Art Was Stolen for Profit (and How You Can Help) was posted on Wednesday 16th October 2013 by artist and illustrator Lisa Congdon (Today is going to be awesome). [Update - It's now been shared in Facebook 245,000 times and 23.5k on Twitter]

She names the company involved as wholesale company Cody Foster & Co. who she alleges copied her original work for use on holiday ornaments in their 2013 catalogs. This is company which also started out as a very small independent craft company

On the face of it Lisa Congdon's images looked very persuasive to me. As indeed they did to many others.

This is what she had to say about the use of images.

"In the world of art & illustration, you can use the artwork of artists on your products as long as you ask permission, sign a licensing agreement with the artist, and agree to compensate them. I sell my images to companies all the time, companies who ask my permission and compensate me for my intellectual property. In this case, I was never contacted, asked permission or paid. That is called copying. It’s also called stealing." 
Lisa Congdon

This is no newbie, her Facebook Page Lisa Congdon Art + Illustration has over 12k likes - doubtless some generated as a result of the above post

As a result of a tweet by the artist, on October 17th, a firm called West Elm pulled all the Cody Foster products they were stocking from their stores - and wrote about what they'd done in We Love Authenticity

The story also got repeated by:

• Jezebel - Is Giant Folk Art Company Cody Foster Stealing From Small Artists?
• Boing Boing - see Meet Cody Foster & Co., the design pirates who help big retailers rip off artists (18th October)
• Artsy Shark - Alleged Copyright Theft Goes Viral

Another perspective - by Brian Sherwin

Interestingly, I then found these two posts - on EXACTLY THE SAME TOPIC by Brian Sherwin on The Art Edge with Brian Sherwin.  

• Let's Have an Ar(t)gument: You stole my idea! Lisa Congdon vs. Cody Foster & Company which reviews the legal arguments and the potential evidence. It seems there are lots of potential issues the claimant will need to address 
• Lisa Congdon vs. Cody Foster: What about the photographers? At this point it became clear there was rather more to the story when it comes to alleged "copyright rip-off"! Again the images - of photographs compared to illustrations by Lisa Congdon - are very persuasive.

Brian's posts are now the subject of a four page thread on Etsy - Interesting article regarding those recent copyright allegations.

Making A Mark notches up 2 million visits

Last week Making A Mark notched up 2 MILLION visits and has very nearly achieved 3 MILLION page loads.  

However I was about to succumb to the nasty cold/flu bug for the third time(!) and hence missed the moment!

Making A Mark - Statistics as at 7th April 2013

However I knew more or less when it happened so took a look at the early morning stats on Thursday 4th April and picked out a referring blog which has been a regular friend of this blog.

I'll be writing to Jana Bouc (Jana's Journal) - whose blog regularly sends visitors to my blog - and will be sending her an Amazon voucher for 'making her mark' and generating the two millionth visitor to Making A Mark!

I've introduced Pages to the blog (see top) since the last big review two years ago (Making A Mark notches up 1 million visits). When reviewing the most popular posts, I found it interesting this time that some of the most popular posts are actually the Resource Pages at the top of the blog.

• Did you know that most of the visits to my blog are actually accessing the archives?  The trick to generating traffic is to promote accessible archives about information which is of perennial interest!
• If you've not yet considered using the Pages function in Blogger you might want to give it a thought.  I use it to enable people to access recurring themes on this blog. 

Here are some of the most popular posts (and pages) those two million visits have been to.   

Artists making Art

• Van Gogh: Drawing media and techniques
• Contemporary Drawing Practice 
• Artists and illustrators drawing in pen and ink
• The influence of Japanese Art 
• Making A Mark Art Blog Awards (a page rather than a post)
• Make your own art!
• Gold medal art - lessons from the Olympics for Artists
• Flowers in Art... and Charles Rennie Mackintosh
• Flowers in Art: William Morris - herbals, flowers and making patterns
• How to paint miniature portraits

Don't copy any style at all, but make your own; yet you must study the history of our art...William Morris

Art Business & Marketing

• How to sign an art print
• Henry Moore Sculpture - a very poor precedent for public art
• How to use an iPad as your artist's portfolio
• The 1,000th Postcard from Provence
• Art Business Resources (a page not a post)

Art Competitions

• Major Art Competitions in the UK in 2013 (the competition pages have been very popular each year - so I'm giving you the most up to date page!)
• 20 tips for entering art competitions 
• 2011 Sunday Times Watercolour Competition - selected artists
• RHS Botanical Art Show & Five Gold Medal Winners
• BP Portrait Award 2010: List of Exhibitors and Brian Sewell

Art Education

Mixing Complementary Colours Using Coloured Pencils
sample by Katherine Tyrrell

• 10 Tips for How to Sketch People
• How to critique art 
• Colour Schemes: Split Complementaries, Triads and Tetrads
• Complementary Colours and mixing neutral colours
• Composition - The Elements of Design
• Composition - Principles of Design
• Which are the best books about oil painting? (see also the website which resulted - The Best Books about Oil Painting)
• The Best Art Books (this is a page rather than a post)
• Which are the best art books about watercolour painting? (see also the website which resulted - The Best Books about Watercolour Painting)
• Resources for Artists (this is a page rather than a post)

Art Exhibitions 

• Review: Lucian Freud Portraits at National Portrait Gallery
• "Lucian Freud Drawings" - a life in line
• How to make labels for an art exhibition
• RWS Contemporary Watercolour Competition 2012 - Selected artists & artwork
• Review: Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition 2011 (Part 1)

Techies

I find it really sad that in the last year people have had to become so protective of their images following the advent of Pinterest.  I think I was one of the first to take a stand and say it doesn't need to be like this - hence the popularity of the following posts round about this time last year

• How to do a reverse image search
• Pinterest: How to prevent your Blogger images from being pinned
• How Pinterest removed all my pinned images in minutes (#1)
• Takedown: How Pinterest moved fast to remove my pinned images (#2)
• Pinterest revises TOS and addresses copyright issues: a Primer

PS I wrote about a post back in 2010 called Now we are 5! (12 Top Tips for being a Long Term 'Daily' Blogger).  

That should provide the answers to any questions about how I keep going!

11th November 2012 - Who's made a mark this week?

Today is Remembrance Sunday and the eleventh day of the eleventh month - when people all around the Commonwealth remember all those members of the Commonwealth armed forces who have died in the line of duty that others might live.  On Monday last week I watched members of the British Legion hammer small crosses with poppies on them into regimented boxes on the grass outside Westminster Abbey.  Each was for a different part of the armed forces - with the biggest section given over to the unknown soldiers.

However, many of the crosses had names on.

Sometimes the simplest images are the most powerful - although oddly I can find no artwork associated with Remembrance Sunday.

A number of the crosses have names on and messages from loved ones
photographed outside Westminster Abbey

In the USA:

• Vets preserve memories of war with their own art
• in Houson Texas, an exhibition of war photography WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath has opened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH).  The FT has a slideshow of images of conflict from 1847 to today
• The National Post reports that Painting Belgium’s battlefields: Wartime scenes part therapy for 93-year-old Second World War veteran

and in Newfoundland, Jeanette Jobson (Illustrated Life) painted and posted a painting of a poppy for Remembrance

Artists and Art Blogs

Who Painted This?

•  My new series of posts is proving to be very popular and everybody seems to be being good and sticking to the rules - because this week nobody has worked it out as yet!  Who painted this? #3 has the answer to Who painted this? #2 at the end of the post and two supplementary clues in the comments

Drawing and Sketching 

• Sadie J Valeri (Sadie J Valeri) has written a short but very pertinent post for those want to learn how to draw - How to draw in 5 steps 
• Pete Scully (petescully) has been participating in nanodrawmo which is 50 drawings in a month - see nanodrawmo 2012 – part 1.  You've still got time to join.  Having a structure as per Pete seems to be the trick to getting 50 drawings done.

Loosely defined goals are for each participant to produce 50 individual works/drawings between Nov 1 and Nov 30. You can always do more than 50 if you've got it in you! That's just the minimum everyone should be shooting for.

Painting

• Stapleton Kearns Stapleton Kearns writes blog posts which, at times, are music to my ears - plus I clap and cheer!  Two such are
• Some thoughts on the challenges facing today's workshop participants
• More thoughts on the challenges facing todays workshops participants.  
• I think of him as the Simon Cowell of professional landscape painting.  You only have to look at the image for the second post to see what I mean!
• Harold Speed - On Painting a Head, and The Science and Practice of Oil Painting on Underpainting
• Sadie J Valeri has also been featured in Dezzy's Amazing Art Finds - see her post Sadie J. Valeri.  Very nice paintings - however a commentary appears to be missing.
• Women in the Act of Painting is described as
  

"an ever-growing collection of fine art images that depict women in the act of making visual art: painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking etc."

and includes one of my favourite paintings of a woman painting - next to a Fountain -
by John Singer Sargent 

The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, Italy by John Singer Sargent

oil on canvas, 714 mm (28.11 in). Width: 565 mm (22.24 in).

Printmaking

• I liked the curated collection of fine art prints on Etsy called Printmaking - Not just another pretty Repro! by Monique from RedTailStudios

Sculpture

• Henry Moore Sculpture - a very poor precedent for public art This is my commentary on the decision by the Mayor of Tower Hamlets to sell Henry Moore's bronze sculpture "Draped Woman Seated".  The implications for public art are very worrying.

Art Business & Marketing

28th October 2012 - Who's made a mark this week?

Quilts by Kaffe Fassett

I've been a huge fan of Kaffe Fassett for ages - I think his talent with colour and mixing patterns is absolutely phenomenal.

In 1988 Kaffe became the first living textile artists to have a one man show at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The exhibition attracted such crowds that the Museum doubled attendance figures during the run and has since visited Finland, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, Canada, USA and Iceland (where 5% of the total population attended.)

Back in the days before tenosynovitis set in, when I could still grip and  hold knitting needles, I loved to knit his designs.  If you are in any way interested in colour and/or textiles and/or patchwork/quilts then you should definitely take a peek at his website.

Anyway - his quilts were my main reason for going to the RHS London Autumn Shades show at the RHS Halls in Westminster last week - as there were to be a number of Kaffe Fassett quilts on display.

I walked in and was absolutely amazed to find they'd hung the quilts in mid-air so both sides could be seen and you could get a close look without there being any danger of them being damaged in any way.

Kaffe Fassett Quilts hanging in mid air at the RHS London Autumn Shades Exhibition
- also reproduced below as images in the rest of this post

So quilts by Kaffe Fassett will punctuate this post as I think they're wonderful!

Going to the exhibition also meant that I got to meet two more RHS Gold Medal winners - this time for botanical photography - see RHS Gold Medal winning Botanical Photography for the images of the photographs.

Coming out of that is a post next week about Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560 - 1627) the artist whose style influenced Clay Perry's work when photographing heritage fruit and vegetables.

I was intrigued to find when I got home that Clay Perry used to photograph the avant garde art scene in the 1960s - including Robert Rauschenberg and Yoko Ono - this is a link to Clay's photos of Yoko Ono and her Half-a-Room installation in 1967.  I also discovered that he also photographed R&B bands in the 1960s who subsequently became rather famous! Cue moody photos of Eric.

So I dug a bit further and found out that he had been a pupil of Ifor Thomas who was a pioneer teacher of photography as fine art (from this interview).  That to me came over very clearly in the photographs in display at the exhibition.  I always say that I have no difficulty identifying Gold Medal work as it always stands out.

Artists and Art Blogs

The Tate's Pinterest Top Ten Pin List

Last week I discovered that the Tate has a Pinterest account (see http://pinterest.com/tategallery/ ).  I looked a bit further and realised that it was actually just a way of the Tate Gallery shops bringing their products that they're retailing to people's attention.

The selection of Boards created by the Tate Gallery on Pinterest

So you click on Damien Hirst or Gerhard Richter and think you might get to see more of their recent exhibitions.  You do - but only to the extent that the Tate is selling a poster of the work or the exhibition poster or a catalogue.  The account has identified, organised and set up a number of Boards which all feature items for sale in the Tate Gallery shops.

This is strictly retail folks!

The Top Ten Tate Gallery Pin List

In a very curious way, it tells you what people think about art, artists and what art museums are for. Could it be that museums have now morphed into shops?

So today the top ten boards which have attracted pins are as follows:

1. Greetings Cards 104 pins
2. Art Reads 86 pins
3. Children's Gifts 65 pins
4. Artist Products 48 pins
5. Picasso & Modern British Art 48 pins
6. Exhibition catalogues 44 pins
7. Damien Hirst 44 pins
8. Pre-Raphaelites 43 pins
9. Children's Books 37 pins
10. Kusama 31 pins

I found it all rather depressing.

Is this really the way that the Tate wants to be identified on Pinterest?  Compare for example the Smithsonian's approach - with their Archives of American Art account.

Pinterest revises TOS and addresses copyright issues: a Primer

The Pinterest team has decided to try and address the very real copyright concerns of visual artists, photographers and others.  

NEW Terms of Service are to be implemented as from 6th April 2012.  

This post highlights the changes and what it means for artists and photographers and other designers who have been at risk of losing income streams due to the previous TOS and member behaviour.

Here's a summary of what it covers

• What Pinterest has changed
• Terms of service to be revised as from 6 April 2012
• The definition of user content - including what the Acceptable Use Policy says
• a New definition of Intellectual Property Rights 
• Access to more information about copyright - a smart move on Pinterest's part to provide access to resources which are a resource for those who know nothing or very little about copyright
• Easier to report copyright infringements - ways in which Pinterest now makes this easier
• Penalties for repeat offenders (re. copyright infringement - in terms of inability to pin or loss of membership
• How to file a notice re copyright infringement - this discusses perjury and what the penalties for perjury are
• New Developments which have been signalled
• A Pinterest API
• Private Pin Boards
• different Pinterest accounts
• What hasn't changed
• Size of images

It's probably necessary for me to say that I'm not a lawyer and you should not rely on anything I say as legal advice.  I'm just an experienced internet user who, like you, is trying to make sense of what Pinterest is saying.

Takedown: How Pinterest moved fast to remove my pinned images (#2)

Do you want to get your images removed from Pinterest quickly and easily?  If you do read on.

This is Part 2 of my post about remedies to the problem of images appearing on Pinterest without permission.

In yesterday's post - How Pinterest removed all my pinned images in minutes (#1) - I found how to

• identify just how many images 
• reviewed why it is wrong to pin without permission
• started to comment on the images in question - but got frustrated with the notion of doing each image one by one

I decided the best way to get an instant result would be to try for a site-wide solution.  Not only that I decided to make sure that the take down notice applied to all six sites on which I've already implemented the meta tag which prevents images from being pinned.

The reason for reading on is I succeeded in being able to get images removed from all six sites. I had most images off the site in half an hour and the virtually all the rest within the hour (just one outstanding to date).

What it means is that:

• you don't need to contact the member who pinned the image
• you don't need to do endless takedown notices for one image at a time.
• this is the speedy version!

First study the Pinterest Copyright page

I studied the How to Report a Copyright Infringement page on Pinterest.  This states

In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, the text of which may be found on the U.S. Copyright Office website at http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf, Pinterest will respond expeditiously to claims of copyright infringement committed using the Pinterest website (the "Site") that are reported to Pinterest’s Designated Copyright Agent, identified in the sample notice below

This page provides a numbered process to follow.  I didn't follow all of it because I've done this several times and know pretty much what they need to know to take action.  I explain this in my annotations to my email letter below

Next draft a Takedown Notice

Let me explain a little bit about the background behind the letter I sent them before you read it.  I've been issuing takedown notices for about six years and during that time I've learned a few things.  One is that you need to be very assertive and very firm.  If you know you're right you need to explain matters clearly to the host - and then tell them how long they have to take action - and what you'll do if they don't.

To be honest it just saves time.

the image referenced in the email
The view of the Winter Garden from the Orangery at Dunham Massey
11" x 16", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Folio Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Here's the email I sent to Pinterest.  My annotations of the letter are in green.  I always keep in mind that somebody on their website is doing wrong and I am TELLING them to follow the law.

Bottom line - this is NOT  a request - it's a factual statement of the wrongdoing and an instruction as to what they must do as a result.

[UPDATE:  The email address for all letters like this is copyright@pinterest.com - I was so sure I'd already included this info - but apparently not!]

How Pinterest removed all my pinned images in minutes (#1)

This two-part post is about remedies to the problem of images appearing on Pinterest without permission

• Part 1: 
• how I discovered just how many images from my websites and blogs had been pinned - without my permission - on Pinterest
• why it's wrong to pin without permission
• how I started to comment on the images in question
• Part 2: [Update - see Takedown: How Pinterest moved fast to remove my pinned images (#2) ] how Pinterest removed all my images within minutes of me serving a "takedown" notice. 
• how you too can get your all artistic creations and photographs removed from Pinterest quickly.

I kept wondering how on earth I was ever going to find out whether or not any of my images were on Pinterest. I couldn't see any way of doing it quickly and easily via the site itself.

Then an (anonymous) friend told me how - for which many thanks.

How to find images pinned from your website or blog

If you want to find which of your images have been pinned this is what you need to do

Pinterest: How to prevent your Flickr images from being pinned

This post explains how to prevent your Flickr images from being pinned - by changing your site preferences

Lots of people like to share images on sites they control - like their website, blog or Flickr account.  What many of them are less keen on - and I'm one of them - is the sharing of those images by other people, without asking on sites that we have no knowledge of.  People's views vary - this post is for people like me!

Flickr introduces 'no pin' meta tag sitewide

Flickr inserted the 'no pin' meta tag into its site very soon after it was published by Pinterest.  

The 'no pin' meta tag was introduced by Pinterest on 20 February 2012 (What if I don't want images from my site to be pinned?) following the viral outcry, approaching a viral storm, about the level and extent of copyright infringement being promoted by Pinterest.  Some are characterising the way the site works as promoting piracy.  Given the recent interest in the USA in the changes to the copyright laws all of a sudden people are getting interested in copyright issues!

The Flickr Help Forum post Adding Pinterest's "nopin" meta tag indicates that Flickr had introduced the meta tag to the Flickr site no later than 22 February.

It's important to note that the principle is that the meta tag follows the stated preferences of the Flickr user.  Hence it ONLY applies if:

• you have opted out of sharing 
• it is not a public photo (ie you have made your photos private).

This is an image of the Your Account page - for my Flickr account which is mainly used as an archive for my images (ie 99.9% of the 13,779 items in the account is not shared!)

Change your Flickr Account to say 'No' to sharing

What you have to do to prevent sharing of Flickr images

This is what you need to do if you would prefer your images to be seen on Flickr - but NOT shared elsewhere.  I've tested this with images I have on view on an account where I have disabled sharing.

Pinterest: How to prevent your Blogger images from being pinned

This post explains how to stop images on your Blogger blog from being pinned to a Pinterest site - by inserting a meta tag in your Blogger template. 

I discovered that Pinterest has responded to the very many howls of "theft!" by those concerned about copyright infringement.  I know I was very concerned when I saw how people were pinning with blatant disregard for the owner of the image and their copyright restrictions on use or publication on other sites.  (At the end of this post are references to several blog posts and articles which detail why it is a problem)

Pinterest has now introduced a piece of code which prevents images on your website or blog from being pinned.

This is what they now say in  NEW help item  What if I don't want images from my site to be pinned?

What if I don't want images from my site to be pinned?
We have a small piece of code you can add to the head of any page on your site:

<meta name="pinterest" content="nopin" />

When a user tries to pin from your site, they will see this message:
"This site doesn't allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!"

I tried it - and it works.

So this is what you have to do to install the code on Blogger.