Back in July many of us heard about “The Nicest Cease and Desist Letter Ever.” When a book cover looked far too similar to the well known Jack Daniels label. Sure the book cover was changed, but not enough to protect Jack Daniels from having to step in. Copyright holders have a duty to send these letters, to stop people from using their trademarks or they could end up having their brand seen as generic, (Further reading on Metonymy) but Jack Daniels did it with class and style, and they helped out a local. Because of this diplomatic move they gained themselves a lot of attention, free publicity, and I bet customers.
When you are working on a project, no matter what it is, book cover, flier, business card, store sign, website, anything, you want to make sure your work is original. Searching goole images isn’t your key to free images, most of those images are copyright by someone. Fonts are copyright, you can’t use the Disney font on your fundraising flier, if you do, Mr. Mouse won’t be as nice as Mr. JD.
What can you do?
- Have you art created for you, by an artist who understands copyright (like me perhaps?) and has your best interest in mind.
- Use an image with a creative commons license that allows you to adapt and use for commercial work, just make sure you give credit.
- Use an image from the Public Domain.
- Buy Stock Images, where you are paying for the use of the image. (Sites like clipart.com & istockphoto are prime examples)
- Use clip art from your paid programs like Microsoft Word, the clip art in your program is there for you to use, so long as you comply to their guidelines and don’t claim the work to be your own.
Is it really that important? After all I just have a local business, no one is going to check up on me.
Not true. Let’s not forget when Disney Sued a Daycare center for having their copyright work on their walls. It wasn’t even in the ads. Granted, Disney is the most notorious when it comes to suing over copyright but it’s important to remember. Let’s not forget when Hello Kitty sued a local child beauty pageant either. It would be really sad if your great project was the cause of bankruptcy thanks to a law suit.
Wait, but I see people using copyright work all the time.
Sure you do, and they may be getting away with it, for now. That could catch up with them any day. Do you really want to gamble with your business, your charity, your work? People jay walk all the time when it’s against the law, it doesn’t mean they should and it doesn’t mean they never will get ticketed. More importantly, do you want to be the kind of person that would take something that isn’t yours and use it as your own?
