Copyright

It costs around $ 150.00 US to get something copyrighted.

They actually have to be completely and unquestionably yours in order for that to work. You can't just find random images on the net, try to copyright them, and THEN say they're yours.

Every image already has a copyright. That copyright is held by the original creator of the image. By creator, I mean an artist who drew a picture (using any form of media) starting with a blank canvas, a photographer who took a photograph. None of those images, wholly or in part, can be used by another without permission from that original creator. You cannot put together an image made from other images, however you choose to do it, and copyright them.

Copyright law is quite simple to understand. It is there to protect the creator of an image, to prevent distribution or dissemination of their work without their express permission. I hope that is clear and understandable.

Isn't that $150 saved? Enough said....

The issue re Wincustomize.com accepting or refusing/rejecting an upload is due to the actual ownership of the works submitted.  If someone has them rejected for copyright issue it is because those images have been found to have been sourced elsewhere and thus the uploader actually has no rights to their use [public redistribution] and should not be submitting them for such distribution.

In simple words....they actually have to be YOUR walls or they will be rejected....;)

^Which is what I said in #2.

Fuzzy looks to see if we are standing in a very large cave...

$50 off!!!!
I can make copy right for just $100.
Terms will be defined after order?

I stand corrected.

Here are some common misperceptions and a very good article on the matter.



Permission is granted to freely print, unmodified, up to 100 copies of the most up to date version of this document from http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html , or to copy it in off-the-net electronic form. On the net/WWW, however, you must link here rather than put up your own page. [bold text by Admin....relevant to posting of article here] If you had not seen a notice like this on the document, you would have to assume you did not have permission to copy it. This document is still protected by you-know-what even though it has no copyright notice. Please don't send mail asking me if you can link here -- you can do so, without asking or telling me. The only people I prefer not link here are those who mail me asking for permission to link.



This article was originally composed in 1994. The latest revision was in October 2004.

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Edited by Admin ...as reposting in its entirety is itself a copyright issue.

Definitely worth a read, however....;)

Thank you Night Train for posting that very informative and highly readable article for us.
It has cleared up many of my questions and misconceptions regarding copyright and legality of creating copies of any sort. I have in the past , not created something due to the question of copyright infringement, and wish I had known about that article for reference guides.

I would ask for a url , for future reference, but think I will just bookmark this page instead. Though if you have a url I will bookmark it as well.

Kudos to you for having found it on your own and taken the time to quote it here.

Well thank you'll for this info. And i think that wincustomize will accept my walls because they are mine

If your wall contains, uses, looks like, or is created from someone else's work you have a copyright issue.

for example, if you put a picutre of mickey mouse in your wall....no matter what you do afterwards (unless you 100% remove mickey mouse) it still has a copyright issue.

To those that haven't yet read that article. you are strongly encouraged to click the link and read in it's entirety , it is informative and readable and will enlighten you on copyright issues in such a way, I'm sure you'll be referencing the page often in your skinning and writing work.

Derivative works and reuse of non-original elements is a tricky bit that a LOT of people at one point or another on this site have tripped over.

While we have slightly different fair use rules for things like Dreams, static art generally has to meet the following criteria:

Must be 100% your original work.
This means that all the drawing is yours.  You don't use images from other artists, you don't use clipart from a CD, you don't repurpose photographs from magazines etc.  So if you have a wallpaper where you take a photo of a model, and then apply effects to it and add stuff around the edges, while you made the resulting image, it's based on work that is not your own.

There are a few exceptions here for using non-original work:

1. Permission from Original Author
   If you want to use an icon someone else made in your skin, you need to ask the original author for permission.  You must then provide proof of that permission (typically a copy of the email, with headers) in a permission.txt file, zipped up with your submission.
   
2. Using images either in public domain or with appropriate general use licensing
   Some images are in the public domain, or are provided for general use, modification and redistribution under specific licenses such as Creative Commons.  In the case that an image is provided under such a license, you must comply with all stipulations of the license.  This typically involves proper citation of source, and often granting permission to others to reuse and redistribute your resulting work.
   

WWW Link

this is becoming a very informative and relevant thread. Keep posting the information you find here. I am enjoying the education.

wow, thats funny.. My bad.   

I snickered at the irony of that myself.  

Nothing like a good 'copyright' discussion.