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Just wondering,

If a painter sold a mini, does the original painter still have right to use the images?
Or does the new owner have full rights to claim it as their own ( including using it for tourney paint scores, painting tournaments etc etc )

You will almost certainly get into trouble if you pass off a model as your paint job when in reality it is painted by somebody else. No "ifs" or "buts" about that.

I cannot imagine a tournament or competition that wouldn't remove the points/trophy or worse.

You sell the physical miniature. Intellectual ownership would remain with the original artist unless specifically agreed otherwise in the sale, just as you don't gain the copyright when you buy a book or a DVD.

Whether or not you can enter it in painting comps would depend on the comp. Some require in their rules that the minature be your own work. Some don't care, they're just awarding minis for being pretty... in the same way that you don't necessarily have to have done all the work yourself to enter your hotted up car in a car show.

If you want to pull a dick move you could claim it is your work... just be prepared to be embarrassed if the real artist is nearby.

As someone who sells a bunch of minis, both painted and unpainted. I retain my rights on my photos. My ebay policies even states that my pictures may not be used without permission.

Unless they repaint it themself it is the work of the original painter. Simply modifying it doesn't count either as then it is still the work of the original painter with slight modifications made by the new owner of the model.

inquisitorlewis wrote:As someone who sells a bunch of minis, both painted and unpainted. I retain my rights on my photos. My ebay policies even states that my pictures may not be used without permission.

But what of photos taken by the new owner?

I can see keeping the rights on photos, but once the model is sold, any future photos such as "look at my army here" posts would fall under the new owners rights.

I personally would prefer if buyers credited me for work done in pics, as would most any commission painter.

Future picutres would belong to the person who was the picture-taker. If I take a picture of my car, it's my picture, not Chrysler's. If I take a picture of my apartment, it's not the management company's. If I take a picture of my closet, it doesn't somehow become the joint property of Old Navy and half a dozen other brands.

The property in the image belongs to x person, its their property. You can own the previous image, but you don't own the image rights to said property unless you specifically said this in the sale.

I'm quite sure I've seen pro painted bought armies gain painting points in tournaments.

No, the new owner cannot claim the paintwork is their own.

You can't (acceptably) commission something, then enter it in a competition as your work.

Depending on the tournament, you may be able to enter it in the painting category (either simply for turning up - irrelevant who did the work, or in the artist's name). What happens to any prize is up to you and the artist to sort out.

But the original artist could not use photographs taken by the new owner (their work in taking the photos) without permission from the new owner.

In short, trying to pass off someone else's work as your own, whether or not you paid for it is unacceptable.

I'm sitting in a nice conservatory I paid for. I could not say I built it, but it is mine. If there was a house-with-conservatory competition I could enter. If there was a conservatory-building competition I could not.

If you enter a painting competition with work you didn't paint how could be anything other than cheating?

Howard A Treesong wrote:If you enter a painting competition with work you didn't paint how could be anything other than cheating?

It depends on the competition.

If it's a competition that is awarding painters for their work, then it would be cheating.
If it's a competition simply for the best painted miniature, then it's not a problem.

It's the passing someone else's work off as your own that is the problem.

As always, I"m a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. These opinions are educated guesses, and are not legal advice.

LunaHound wrote:Just wondering,

If a painter sold a mini, does the original painter still have right to use the images?

I am not an IP lawyer, so I do not know what the default rule here is. I know that in the US (and most likely Canada) the two parties can contract the sale how they want. It's not unreasonable for a person to buy a paintjob, and pay extra to not allow the painter to use pictures for promotion. You can speak to a lawyer, or you could just include the clause "Images of painted models may be used by the painter for promotional and other purposes after the commision."

Or does the new owner have full rights to claim it as their own ( including using it for tourney paint scores, painting tournaments etc etc )

Legally, when you buy something, you can do what you want with it. It ain't against the law (civil or criminal) for me to enter a commissioned model into a painting contest. Admittedly, if the contest prohibited that, and I won, that could be fraud, but the entry itself is either not illegal, or would not result in damages.

Polonius wrote:
Legally, when you buy something, you can do what you want with it. It ain't against the law (civil or criminal) for me to enter a commissioned model into a painting contest. Admittedly, if the contest prohibited that, and I won, that could be fraud, but the entry itself is either not illegal, or would not result in damages.

Pretty certain that intellectual property (the right to be identified as the author of a particular work) must be explicitly passed on in the US and UK, and IIRC they CANNOT be passed on in Germany. From my software dev days, this was typically worded into your employment contract (anything you produce automatically belongs to us). Coupled with NDA's and an exclusivity period after employment, it really sucked in terms of having a portfolio when changing jobs.

So yes, you can do what you want with it (tear it up, strip it, whatever) but without permission of the author/artist (in the UK/US) you cannot claim you painted it.*

*There is a caveat of modification; you may modify the work and claim ownership of the modified work, but this opens whole cans of worms, and I have no idea how it is supposed to work.

Edit: It should be pointed out, I'd have no issues with my stuff being entered into a tourney best-painted compo as long as I'm named as the painter. I'd also have no issues with someone else playing my games for me while I do the painting. I suck at gaming.



.

If someone commissions a work to be produced - paint X for me in color scheme Y - then it may be a work-for-hire and the copyright would belong to the person commissioning the work, not the person actually doing the work. Therefore, any photographs taken by the painter may actually infringe the commissioner's copyright.

If you're simply buying a work that had been previously painted then the painter would retain the copyright (to the extent it exists) absent an express agreement to the contrary.

biccat wrote:If someone commissions a work to be produced - paint X for me in color scheme Y - then it may be a work-for-hire and the copyright would belong to the person commissioning the work, not the person actually doing the work. Therefore, any photographs taken by the painter may actually infringe the commissioner's copyright.

If you're simply buying a work that had been previously painted then the painter would retain the copyright (to the extent it exists) absent an express agreement to the contrary.

Yeah, unless the colour scheme is based on existing IP, in which case the copyright belongs to whoever came up with it. Note that copyright, and the right to be identified as the author are separate concepts; you can own the copyright to something I did, but you still have to say it was me that did it.

winterdyne wrote:

biccat wrote:If someone commissions a work to be produced - paint X for me in color scheme Y - then it may be a work-for-hire and the copyright would belong to the person commissioning the work, not the person actually doing the work. Therefore, any photographs taken by the painter may actually infringe the commissioner's copyright.

If you're simply buying a work that had been previously painted then the painter would retain the copyright (to the extent it exists) absent an express agreement to the contrary.

Yeah, unless the colour scheme is based on existing IP, in which case the copyright belongs to whoever came up with it. Note that copyright, and the right to be identified as the author are separate concepts; you can own the copyright to something I did, but you still have to say it was me that did it.

The selection of the color scheme may not be copyrightable, but the particular arrangements of color and shading on the model would be copyrightable. It's not the idea that is copyrighted, it's the expression of that idea.

Also, the concept of "moral rights" in copyrights is significantly weaker in the US than in Europe. The author can claim authorship, but the owner doesn't have to expressly present the work as of the author. However, entering such a work into a painting competition and claiming authorship would be fraud against the painting competition.

It'd likely be easier with emblems and such.

This has actually come up locally. I won't say who even though many of you would know him, but at the very least everyone around here thought it was a super dick move and the guy got some nasty glares.

daedalus wrote:Future picutres would belong to the person who was the picture-taker. If I take a picture of my car, it's my picture, not Chrysler's. If I take a picture of my apartment, it's not the management company's. If I take a picture of my closet, it doesn't somehow become the joint property of Old Navy and half a dozen other brands.

^ This

If I go to the Golden Demons and photograph everything the photos are mine, not GWs nor the painter's.

The way Stock photography is sold might offer some insight. Traditionally there were two ways to purchase photographs for use in marketing:

Royalty-Free is the less expensive option. However, you don't buy the rights, just a copy of the image, meaning the photographer is free to sell a copy of the photo to your competitor.

Rights-Managed are much more expensive. However, you buy the rights to the image. The photographer no longer has the right to sell a copy of that image to someone else.

This would mean the difference between paying $10 for a royalty-free photo, vs thousands for Rights-managed. Although sometimes those rights were leased rather than bought outright, and reverted back to the artist after a specified period. But that's getting even more convoluted...

So I could sell someone a "Ravenborn Space Marine" for $20, and continue to make more to sell (ignoring GW's rights for the moment). Or I could sell someone the rights to "Ravenborn Space Marines" for $20,000 (I dream) and would not be able to produce more without permission.

My experience is in illustration, rather than pro-painting, which is why I'm conveniently ignoring the "GW owns Space Marines" bit.


Another interesting comparison would be tattoo work; "Mike Tyson tattoo artist sues to block "Hangover""

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/29/us-hangover-idUSTRE73S6XR20110429

Here, the artist claims that while Tyson wears the tattoo, the rights remain with the original artist. Therefore, if a movie (The Hangover 2) copies it, they needed to ask the artist, not Tyson, for permission. The artist was originally asking that the tattoo be digitally altered in the DVD release so it would not continue to infringe on his copyright.

The case was settled "amicably", the agreement was confidential, and the tattoo remained in the DVD. This makes me think A) the court would have sided with the artist, and B) he ended up with a lot of extra cash in his pocket.

*Examples provided for Entertainment purposes only.

You know we're all talking very indepth about a hobby right?

So what if John won a competition with an army he got someone else to paint and who cares if Fred posts a picture of some models he painted for someone else?

Its not like someone's stealing the design for the new iPod.

If someone feels the need to either be petty about pictures or cheat to win some plastic men they lead a very sad existence.

Biccat is correct. I will add that the copyright of a photograph is controlled by the author of the photograph because ample precedent in the US has established that taking a photograph is an act of artistic expression. Lighting, exposure, framing, and many other factors are controlled by the photographer, and that constitutes artistic expression. A photograph of something is not controlled by the author of the work(s) that appear in the photograph. Similarly, the author of a photograph does not control the work(s) that appear in the photograph. The artistic expression of a photograph is generally limited to the artistic value of the photograph, i.e. those factors that are controlled by the photographer.

I will also add, echoing Polonius, that when an author of a work of art sells the work, or a copy of it, the purchaser has certain limited rights to the product, as described in the US copyright code. Any further rights, as biccat has explained, would have to be negotiated for. See section 109 of the US copyright code, Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Effects of Transfer of Particular Copy or Phonorecord.

adameast wrote:You know we're all talking very indepth about a hobby right?

So what if John won a competition with an army he got someone else to paint and who cares if Fred posts a picture of some models he painted for someone else?

Its not like someone's stealing the design for the new iPod.

If someone feels the need to either be petty about pictures or cheat to win some plastic men they lead a very sad existence.

Beyond 'it's a dick move to enter someone else's work in a competition', everything else is pretty much a tangent / mental exercise; nobody is actually (I don't think) taking this that seriously...

LunaHound wrote:Just wondering,

If a painter sold a mini, does the original painter still have right to use the images?
Or does the new owner have full rights to claim it as their own ( including using it for tourney paint scores, painting tournaments etc etc )

Any pictures taken of the object prior to sale by the owner are their (first party) property. For someone else to use those images as their own (without showing credit) is an intellectual property rights violation.
(Former professional photographer. IP laws are a minefield that makes no-one but the legal hell-hounds rich.).

The new owner shouldn't claim prior images of the object as their work, let alone the work itself, but there are people out there who WILL do both.
It's why most professional photographers will watermark their pics (and some go as far as 'watermarking' the file itself) so that credit is displayed appropriately.

The new owner has the right to take new pictures (which are then HIS/HER work) and there is no criminal law that would stop them appropriating the work as their own, even if it isn't.
It's a civil law violation and an irritation. It could, however, be part of an "intent to defraud" issue if there is money being made by means of deception - and that IS a criminal act.

A very clear division should be made between..

Painting Score
A score as part of a comp usually not specified that the painting be done by the player. Unless stated otherwise, you simply get points for having a painted army. Shouldn't be a problem using a pro-painted army to get these points.

...and...

Painting competition.
Entering an army for "best painted' or a figure into a painting competition. It's not acceptable to pass off the pro-painted army or fig as your own work.

chromedog wrote:Any pictures taken of the object prior to sale by the owner are their (first party) property. For someone else to use those images as their own (without showing credit) is an intellectual property rights violation.
(Former professional photographer. IP laws are a minefield that makes no-one but the legal hell-hounds rich.).

While you might own the copyrights to the photographs you might not (especially if it's a work for hire) own the copyright to the model. Therefore, while the purchaser couldn't display the photographs (it would infringe the copyright in the pictures) the painter likewise couldn't display the photographs (it would infringe the copyright in the paintjob).

I still post pics of stuff I've sold or traded. How else would people know I can paint...sort of.

But in say tournament (not straight painting competitions that are at such tournaments) bringing an army painted by someone else doesn't botch points given for "army prettiness" on the scorecard does it?

MightyGodzilla wrote:But in say tournament (not straight painting competitions that are at such tournaments) bringing an army painted by someone else doesn't botch points given for "army prettiness" on the scorecard does it?

So long as the tournament rules don't require the army to be entirely your own work to qualify for paint scores, no. Some do.