Copyright of doll vs Copyright of photos of dolls?

Then people who film movies shouldn't get paid? Being able to operate a camera DOES take skill and I believe it should be paid well for if the person is good at what they do.

 

Anyone can be sued for just about anything, but I do not see why you couldn't name a band Super Dollfie. There are lots of bands out there named after popular movies for example.

 

Remember when Aqua made 'Barbie Girl'? And that was just a song..

 

Last I heard, the standard was 50%. That's not some hard and fast rule but more a guide for the artist. To really avoid getting in trouble, the derivative work must not be indistinguishable from the original. Taking that into account, to alter a dollfie by 50, or even 30%, you'd have to do way more than just change its makeup and add another wig. You'd have to fundamentally change the shape to make it into a NEW doll, which would then be your own artistic work. Furthermore, there's also the issue of causing product confusion, if your doll could be mistaken for a dollfie or if you used trademarked terms. If your photos were not what X Doll Company approved of, they could say the photos are doing damage to their image. (Like the Mattel affairs.)

Whether a company will go after someone using dolls for artistic purposes depends on the use and company. Photos taken for the internet are fan activity that advertises the dolls and is good for the company. The doll companies obviously are all for it. Selling the photos? That's iffy.

Also, using others' work in icons and banners is not okay under copyright. The current (and very restrictive) laws prohibit any use of an artist's work without express permission, and this includes simple things like reposting images or making teeny banners out of them. However, unlike individual users, companies rarely freak out over that kind of stuff. And even if they do, they'll just pester you to stop with big legalese talk, unless your use of their properties caused them financial loss.

 

Mattel lost that case.

 

That doesn't mean a BJD company would approach it from the same angle that they did, my point is it caused controversy and clearly the companies frown on it.

 

But at the same time, you have to remember that copyright laws differ from country to country, and also, the whole free speech thing we've got over here makes people think that they can apply it to just about anything, including what they call themselves.

 

Well, as I said, anyone can sue you over just about anything. Personally, I find it unlikely that a company in Japan or South Korea would spend their time and resources to go after anyone here in the states even if it really was an issue of copyright infringement, but that's just me...

 

Another thing to think about--say hypothetically that I wanted to publish a photostory with one of my dolls (this is just an example, I haven't been planning on it). Now if the story was literaly about Souldoll Paris, that might be an issue, but that's not what the story would be. It would be about a guy named Frank who happens to be depicted using *my* particular Souldoll Paris that I purchased, did the faceup for, etc etc. I can't help but think there would be a difference there.

 

In the case of Mattel sueing over barbie mods, it's not a matter of copyright infringement, but trademark abuse.
Not about artistic ownership, but about damage to their image.

Obviously, it would be a copyright infringement for you to recast, and resell another company's dolls. The dolls; their shape, their look, their feel, are copyrighted property of the company that first designed them.

With photographs, it's mostly about the composition, and the story the single image is trying to tell. It's not about being a picture of a doll... But besides that, who would buy "just a picture of a doll"? There would need to be some seperate artistic value.


The "altering 30% (or 50%) rule" would only apply to selling doll mods.
A picture of a doll is %100 not a doll.
I feel pretty confident saying you shouldn't have any problems if you intend to do photostories, because then it's not about the doll's design at all.

I would still contact the company who's dolls you intend to photograph, but my concern would be more about trademark issues, than copyight.

 

The way it was explained to me, yes. The example used then was I couldn't make Nike shoes, but I could make Nike Veterinary Ear Cleaning Solution with a completely non-swoosh logo and be fine, because there's no reasonable chance of mistaking the two. (I think this is a case where a "reasonable man" test applies.)

In it's most basic (over)simplified form, trademark is to protect the mark (logo, name, etc) that a company trades under, and it's a protection for the customer as well as for the business. When you go buy, say, Tide detergent, you want to be confident that you've really gotten Tide, not some generic that's pretending.

Again, IANAL.

 

Thanks Jinnayah, We decide "Dollfire" for this week anyways lol

 

Ohh, I see. So then, technically a band would be ok. It has nothing to do with dolls or toys at all.

 

There is nothing wrong with using the name "Super Dollfie" for a band because a band makes music and not dolls. That is why you see lots of bands with names taken from popular movies.

 

Wicked, I shall put this to them. thanks guys!

 

very interesting thread, especially I was wondering about it lately. I mean prints of artistic phothos of your own doll.
Last post here is about one year old, I am probably refreshing it now

 

I was wondering about the legality of publishing photos that you take of your dolls? Say for a book or published photostories and such. If you wrote a book about dolls and took photos to illustrate could it be published by a publishing company without infringing on the rights of the dolls?

(If this is in the wrong place please move it, I wasn't sure were it should go.)

 

If you are being published in a regular magazine such as Haute Doll they will take care of that.

If you are self publishing or making your own try the following-

Contact the doll maker, tell them you are writing a book/magazine and ask who you deal with for getting permission ect. They may ask to see pictures or a sample of the finished product so have some ready with water marks on them. It's not the companies as much as hacker pirates who may steal your images. If you get aproval all is good.

If you don't get aproval go ahead any way, you will just have to say in the book that you don't have aproval from the company. For example The Secret Life of Barbie book and movie was made without permission. A photographer won the right to take pictures of Barbies in blenders. Your publisher should be able to help.

 

I think that this comes under the heading of comment/critique, which is covered in the Berne Copyright Convention, which basically says that if you making a work which comments on other work, you can quote a reasonable amount of prose from that work, or in the case of objects, print representative photos of those objects.

To make sure your resin rump is covered, you should always credit the company, the name of the sculpt, and the sculptor when known on each photo.