No copyright

[DukeNukem]

I recently found some pictures of big game animals and turned one into a pattern today,My question is can you make patterns and call them your own if they have no copyright?



Jerry

[CanadianScroller]

That depends on the source of the pictures.
If the pictures are copyright free then yes you may.
If someone took the pictures and did not give you permission to use them , then no you may not.
It never hurts to fire away an email to a photographer and explain what you want to do.

There are also some great sites online with copyright free photos. You can also get copyright free photos on CD from many software stores. Just make sure you are not infringing on anyone by modifying.

I am sure with the proliferation of software and people attempting to make patterns that this will be an area that is closely watched.

[CanadianScroller]

Just to help you along
US Fish and Wildlife Service site has lots of free images, read the disclaimer first though
http://www.fws.gov/pictures/

[Minnesota scroller]

I may get berated for this, but if I find a photo online, and it has no copyright or message requiring permission to reuse the photo, and also does not have a credit to go with it, I'm not going to worry about it. Evidentally, if the photographer didn't bother to copyright it or even leave contact info, he really doesn't care what a person does with it. There are probably a million amateur photos online that a person posts just for fun or to show others. I have photos on Photobucket and Flickr and wunderground.com and couldn't care less what anyone wants to use them for. If I gave a crap, I'd protect them or at least accompany them with a warning and contact info.

Of course, I'm not going to mass produce anything either.

[DukeNukem]

Thanks Canadianscroller I will look into that.

Jerry

[Minnesota scroller]

Actually, you can go to flickr.com and do a search for photos. I searched for caribou and found thousands of photos. The majority of members choose to allow anyone to download their photos. It's one of the options when they join. It's just part of the fun of sharing photos.

[DukeNukem]

Thanks Mike ,I will look into it.

Jerry

[muzzleloader]

I'd be careful with flickr.com! I scrolled to the botom of the page and clicked the copyright policy link, it's too long to repeat it here, so here's the direct link to their views on copyrights: http://info.yahoo.com/copyright/details.html

muzzleloader

[BobD]

To be brutally honest, a photo is copyrighted as soon as a photographer takes it. Even if they don't offer a statement outlining their copyright, it is still their copyright.

The way the law looks at it, a person's copyright is automatic and protected by the law. If someone offers the photos for free use (such as the Creative Commons photos on the Wikipedia, http://creativecommons.org/

But unless the copyright holder implicitly states that the images are available for people to use for free, the images are copyrighted and you CANNOT use them.

Bob

[jigsue]

HI

The Forum "Free Patterns by design" has loads of public domain image sites listed. (you may need to be a member) Their address is:

http://www.fpbd.proboards81.com/index.cgi

Sue