Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC wrote:
On Jul 20, 2005, at 11:26 AM, Josh Ockert wrote:
No I disagree. I'm fairly certain that an independently drawn
personified mouse would not be copyright infringement.
Calling it "Mickey Mouse" may very well be trademark infringement,
however.
As long as the "independently drawn personified mouse" didn't look like
Mickey at all you would be ok. But an independently drawn personified
mouse that bore resemblance to His Mouseness would probably land you in
hot water. Again, IANAL-AIDPOOTV.
Unless of course you made it clear that the resemblance was
intentional and your use of the copyrighted image was as part of
legitimate social commentary (e.g. satire, or critique). You'd get
in trouble if you tried to pass it off as an independent work. Thus
the infamous "Beastie F'ing Tux" image is probably not an
infringement of either the Beastie or the Tux image copyrights,
because it's a parody. Only a federal judge could tell you for sure.
Copyright is both clear cut and a murky gray area, at the same time.
The only sure protection for an "infringer" is to have a written
approval from the copyright holder for use as a "get out of jail
free" card. IANAL, but IAAL (I am a librarian ;) and have spent more
than a few hours on the subject.
Anyway, this thread is getting way OT for -questions. The OP's
question was answered I think. The rest of us should go to -chat, or
in my case, -lunch.
--
Greg Barniskis, Computer Systems Integrator
South Central Library System (SCLS)
Library Interchange Network (LINK)
<gregb at scls.lib.wi.us>, (608) 266-6348
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