Who owns this image?

April 28, 2009 11:26 AM

I'm making a magazine (for a class), and one of the articles is about video game addictions. I wanted something that stood out for the title page, and I found this great little image. I used parts of it (pieces of the image, as well as the exact color) to make the title page image.

Before the magazine is uploaded to a public site (downloadable, but not for sale), however, I need to know who this image belongs to. I've searched, but it shows up on so many sites without attribution, as well as on coffee mugs, t-shirts, magnets and a plethora of other stuff that it's impossible for me to figure out who really made it (and who owns the rights to it) so that I can ask them for their permission to use it.

posted by ismaelsobek to law & government (5 comments total)

Judging by the from here, it seems like the most legitimate business selling products with that image is AllPosters.com. You could try emailing them and asking about who owns the rights to it.
posted by burnmp3s at 11:47 AM on April 28

My bet is that it was created by this guy. I'd ask him first.

If not, and if he doesn't know where it came from, I'd contact Karl Kapp. He used the image in a presentation and he looks like the kind of guy who would need to give credit to the image creator as well.
posted by mikepop at 11:48 AM on April 28

(shakes fist at mikepop on preview)

Damn you. Damn you to hell. What he said faster than me.

Although, I'd add that it's for a school project; securing permission is important, but you're not making any money off this. IANAC(opyright)L. Exploring avenues for permission is great, but if you can't find the original author, I'd mark it explicitly as "artist unknown" and add a disclaimer on your publishing info page, "All efforts were made to secure permission to publish included artwork. If you are the original artist, please contact....blah blah blah," or something along those lines. This at least makes it obvious that you took copyright into account when using it for your NONPROFIT purpose.
posted by liquado at 11:57 AM on April 28

Thanks all.

The problem here is that the magazines are uploaded to a school web site, where they can be downloaded by anyone, so as part of the program, we're required to provide credits for any photos and art that we use as part of them. We've stayed in the green until now by using CC-licensed photos (Flickr is your friend) and giving the name or username of the photographer, and contacting the photographer of the cover photo (the talented Andy Buck) to get his permission to use it. Normally I would just scrap the art, but because I put some work into it, I'm rather loathe to.

I guess I'll contact Kapp and Brummet, and if neither of them is the artist, I'll use liquado's suggestion and make it clear that the artist is unknown.
posted by ismaelsobek at 6:56 AM on May 1

Also, that TinEye search engine is very, very cool :P
posted by ismaelsobek at 7:01 AM on May 1