Is this ever going to give me a headache?
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Me and my band are about to release our first single. The music is ready, it's all mixed and mastered, but we haven't done the artwork yet. The singer naively fell in love with a picture he found on the net, which was almost certainly not free to use (and in fact it's from Getty Images - not a stock photo, it's a 1940s photo from some archive of theirs). So to use that photo is a no-no (I mean, until we don't become any sort of popular I guess I could easily be using, I dunno, fucking Disney material with no issues at all), also because it is impossible to find in high resolution anyway and the print would come out like crap. So we thought, let's replicate it. Not a straight-up replication, which would be clear-cut plagiarism; just getting the elements we need (general theme, some details in the costumes), actually making it a better fit for the record sleeve (adapting the models' pose to the fact that there needs to be some space for the text and they should be front and
centrea bit to the left, plus the original photo shows a row of people in the centre, midground, we only need two or maybe three people close up). Let's make something different enough so that it is clear that it's a new photo and not a "trace". So, would this ever give me a headache?Edit: I'll add that the original photo is photojournalism, it's not a work of art per se, it's portraying people in a theatrical show and we just like the costumes really, nothing else. The original photo costs something like $1000 to use for our purposes so of course there is no chance we are going to pay for it.
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@admiral_p Can't answer the actual question, but I would offer the advice to, if there are people in order, put them in a different order when it is redrawn, as that will help even further.
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Obvious Answer Number 1 is that none of us here is a lawyer, much less an IP lawyer (despite the heated threads about IP -- or maybe those threads and the amount of bullshit everyone spouts in them being the proof of that?), so the chance that you will get a valid answer is about as high as the chance of getting good code by copying a snippet from the front page (inb4: we have a...?).
Obvious Answer Number 2 is, like you said, that unless your group start actually being known, nobody will ever know what you did nor do anything about it (especially if the picture you're taking inspiration from is not a hugely well-known one that random people can be expected to know).
Obvious Answer Number 3 is that I'm just babbling away and don't have a clue.
That said, my understanding is that it will never be a direct copyright infringement issue because the copyright is on the exact picture, not the idea of photographing a group of people in a certain setting. Reproducing it identically would, however, be a plagiarism issue. And from what I've read here and there, to avoid that you need to be able to reasonably argue that you reinterpreted the composition in some way, i.e. that you added your own creative elements into it. There is nothing illegal in getting inspiration from other works (as long as you don't include them directly into yours, which would become a copyright issue), provided it's just "inspiration".
(if that wasn't the case, then JRR Tolkien's estate could sue most fantasy authors for plagiarism...)
Of course the definition of "reasonably argue" and "inspiration" vs. straight copy will ultimately depend on the judge, but from what you describe (and taking into account Obvious Answer Number 2 i.e. even if they knew about it, it's unlikely Getty would bother suing you for "plagiarism", which is harder to prove than straight "copyright violation"), my opinion is that you'll be OK.
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@remi said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
That said, my understanding is that it will never be a direct copyright infringement issue because the copyright is on the exact picture, not the idea of photographing a group of people in a certain setting.
That's my understanding too.
Reproducing it identically would, however, be a plagiarism issue.
I've never heard of this being an issue in law with this type of IP, if it's possible in France then it's country dependent.
Of course, the best thing would be to talk to an intellectual property laywer, a small consult for this kind of advice should be resonable-ish.
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I'd first spend a few hours trying to find something in similar style that you can actually use for free or at low price. There's a chance your friend isn't as stubborn as they seem.
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@Cursorkeys said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
Reproducing it identically would, however, be a plagiarism issue.
I've never heard of this being an issue in law with this type of IP, if it's possible in France then it's country dependent.
It could be, yes (well it most likely is... laws are almost by definition country dependent!). Plagiarism is definitely a thing that can get you to court in France, there are regularly cases of authors who copied large chunks of another book. But I have no idea whether, in that case, the actual law invoked is "copyright" (in quotes because AFAIK the exact "copyright" concept does not exist in French law) because you are then, well, copying the exact words of the original work. If that's the case, then that wouldn't apply to a picture. I don't think that's the case, though.
I have also no idea whether this is a criminal prosecution (i.e. you did something that goes against the law and the state is prosecuting you) or a civil one (you caused some damage to someone else and they're suing you for reparation), which is one of the main distinction in French law.
Of course, the best thing would be to talk to an intellectual property laywer, a small consult for this kind of advice should be resonable-ish.
Yes... that was implied by my Obvious Answer Number 1.
EDIT: a quick search on French Wiki tells me that French law does not define "plagiarism", but this is covered by laws against "counterfeiting", which prohibits "any reproduction of a work" (without author's consent etc.). So I think what I said initially would still apply, as soon as the picture can be seen as being a new work and not just a reproduction of the original one, it would be OK.
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@remi said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
That said, my understanding is that it will never be a direct copyright infringement issue because the copyright is on the exact picture, not the idea of photographing a group of people in a certain setting. Reproducing it identically would, however, be a plagiarism issue.
If you re-enact a photo, clearly make it a parody, as that should solve the problem.
(if that wasn't the case, then JRR Tolkien's estate could sue most fantasy authors for plagiarism...)
You mean they don’t?
The Tolkien Estate maintains the position that the geographical layout of Middle-earth or any other places in the imaginary universe created by J.R.R. Tolkien was the intellectual property of J.R.R. Tolkien and subsequently is that of his heirs. The Tolkien Estate has therefore restricted the publishing of maps to those authorized by the Estate and legally pursues anyone who publishes any maps, including self-made works, on the Internet.
Ever since I read that the other day, I’ve been toying with the idea of putting online a map of, say, a fence, some flower beds and a few stepping stones, and claiming it shows part of the garden of a hobbit's house.
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@Gurth what @remi meant is that you won't get sued if you put orcs and elves in your book. A map of someone else's invented world is a completely different category.
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@admiral_p I am not privy to Italian laws, but here in the USA I am fairly certain that you would not have an issue. It is photojournalism and not a creative work that you are loosely replicating, and there is a whole list of things you are doing differently. You are moving people around to make room for your text, you are changing the pose of your models, you went from rows of people to just a few, etc. I really do not think you would have a problem in the USA. Italy could very well be wildly different in their laws regarding such things.
There is a case in the USA that should serve as sort of a template for you. A magazine (I think it was Texas Monthly?) did a magazine cover that was a reimagining of a Norman Rockwell piece. It was very clear that it was a take on Rockwell, no doubt about it. But they added their own touches and redid it to fit the modern world.
There was some legal hubbub about it, but last I had heard they were not legally liable but gave a donation to the Norman Rockwell estate or something like that. It was a goodwill gesture, not a matter of any sort of legal liability.
If you are asking if you could be sued, that is another story. You can be sued for anything. There are patent and copyright trolls everywhere that send you nasty letters and threaten legal action unless you pay a sum that is less than it would cost you to defend yourself.
There is no easy answer, but you are asking about an American photo for the cover of an album for a garage band in Italy and you are not even lifting the photo and using it, you are recreating it with artistic deviation from original. The chances anything will happen is so remote as to not worry about.
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That sounds like an okay idea, but I hope you're not married to it.
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@Gąska said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
I'd first spend a few hours trying to find something in similar style that you can actually use for free or at low price. There's a chance your friend isn't as stubborn as they seem.
Yeah, the idea is to find something similar, or failing that, take a photo maintaining just a couple of details, but making it so that any resemblance would be "if you know, you might see it".
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@Gąska said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
@Gurth what @remi meant is that you won't get sued if you put orcs and elves in your book. A map of someone else's invented world is a completely different category.
Yes, that's the idea. Even further than that, some authors can write books that are openly very strongly inspired by Tolkien without there being any plagiarism issue, as long as they don't retell exactly the same story.
Note also that you can have a "race of short persons who walk barefoot and enjoy food etc." (that's inspiration) but you can't call them "hobbits" (that's infringing on Tolkien's IP as he invented the term -- or at the very least, invented the meaning of this word as "race of short ..."), see how D&D renamed them to "halflings" for this exact reason, as far as I know.
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@Gąska said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
@Gurth what @remi meant is that you won't get sued if you put orcs and elves in your book.
I know, but my point is that the Tolkien heir-organisation isn’t exactly known for being very permissive. After that followed a digression inspired by, but basically unrelated to, the issue at hand in this thread.
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@remi said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
D&D renamed them to "halflings"
Although they are also referred to as halflings in LOTR.
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@Scarlet_Manuka I imagine that only "hobbit" is "IP".
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@Gąska said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
your friend isn't as stubborn as they seem
Preemptively pointing your mistake before @pie_flavor does it
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@TimeBandit the only mistake I've made is surrendering to the radical progressives and their newspeak dictionary. Although life gets easier when you surrender.
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@Gąska Hey, if either we bring back thou or we accept the singular they.
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@TimeBandit said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
mistake
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@pie_flavor
what?
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@anonymous234 said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
@Gąska Hey, if either we bring back thou or we accept the singular they.
I'm okay with singular they, but only if the verbs stay plural. Otherwise it just sounds weird.
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@TimeBandit your mistake is saying that there was a mistake
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@anonymous234 said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
@Gąska Hey, if either we bring back thou or we accept the singular they.
How would the archaic second person singular pronoun help?
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@mikehurley Consistency. "Thou" is to "you" as "he/she/it" is to "they".
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@anonymous234 said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
@mikehurley Consistency. "Thou" is to "you" as "he/she/it" is to "they".
Except that originally
thou:youastú:usted(to use my high school Spanish).
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@anonymous234 said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
@mikehurley Consistency. "Thou" is to "you" as "he/she/it" is to "they".
Except in modern English, you can't refer to a third person of unknown gender as either he or she or it. Reintroducing singular second person would make it less consistent, not more.
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@anonymous234 said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
@mikehurley Consistency. "Thou" is to "you" as "he/she/it" is to "they".
I couldn't remember the details of thou used to be used so I was looking at this chart. Looks like it's just a synonym of singular you. At one point it apparently was also the informal you (du in German). Yes the chart is for Middle English, but it also has modern equivalents and modern-still-technically-valid-but-archaic.
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@Gąska that's a bit bitter for being able to use a convenient shorthand. Beats using he/she or him/her or his/her or his/hers every time.
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@admiral_p said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
@Gąska that's a bit bitter for being able to use a convenient shorthand. Beats using he/she or him/her or his/her or his/hers every time.
In every other language, we just say "he" always (that's how it used to work in English too BTW). But that's because other languages have actual grammar rules, which makes it a bit harder to abandon "gendered" language. Thanks God.
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@Gąska said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
other languages have actual grammar rules,
English has actual rules, too. The controversy is that some radicals don't like them, because "Everything must be politically correct!!!!11!1!!"
which makes it a bit harder to abandon "gendered" language
English has a perfectly serviceable singular neuter pronoun, but some people don't like it, either.
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@Gąska actually in Italian (eg. in official documents) it's very common to state both genders, it has been for quite a while too (I have no memory of the contrary). "Il/La sottoscritto/a", "suo/a". It gets ridiculous after a while, because a typical form will be littered with slashes and double references. The fact that only endings and articles change makes things easier somewhat. By the way, it used to be that each professional had two different nouns, like actor and actress. "Professore/professoressa", "dottore/dottoressa", "studente/studentessa". As the -e ending is not overtly gendered (the masculine ending is usually -o), the trend is to use the same term for both genders, but it's inconsistent. Some feminists for example will complain because it is wrong to distinguish between the two (so you're a "ministro", whether you're make or female), others will demand differentiation ("ministro" and "ministra"). It's all quite petty, but it's all better than the use of the *.
"Siete tutt* invitat*".
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So today I had a listen to some of @admiral_p's music and it is quite well done. It is not my type of music, but I can appreciate that it is well done. Honestly, he just needs the marketing and promotion aspect of the business because what I heard was better than most of the shit that is popular these days. It may not be my type of music but I would not actively try to change the station if it came on and I would do that with most of the shit that people find popular today.
But
do I know? 
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@Polygeekery Was a link posted somewhere?
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@anotherusername negative.
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@Gąska said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
But that's because other languages have actual grammar rules, which makes it a bit harder to abandon "gendered" language.
Let me introduce you to French "inclusive writing". This is the new brain worm where, to cover all genders and avoid the ugliness that @admiral_p mentioned of his/her slashes everywhere, you introduce a brand new ugliness and even a new symbol, a half-way-up dot (there is a proper name for it but honestly, I don't care).
And that is in a language that has a very strict grammar and where people put a lot of attention to it.
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@remi did it catch on?
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@Gąska Depends... It did make some headlines a couple of years ago, but that was partly random buzz-of-the-day because of some random school book that mentioned/used it (so cue rants about schools and teaching in general). And after it died down, we didn't hear much of it.
Some groups however still use it fairly consistently, typically some political parties or unions, so you'll see it regularly on their leaflets.
It's used in the name of one political party (the party founded by the socialist candidate in the last presidential election, after he left/got thrown out for having the worst score for, I don't know, more than at least 50 years?). For an example of it's supposed to be actually written, see the French wiki page of the party.
I get the feeling that it is not catching on in general use, but that it will stay around for a long time in some circles.
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@remi yeah, as I said, somebody does that too in Italian. With an asterisk. The problem is:
- how do you pronounce it? "Dear members" would become "Car* iscritt*". No. To just cut words is ugly and unacceptable.
- it was clear to me that the asterisk is a wildcard, because I'm familiar with computers. We usually use them in advertising to redirect to the ugly clauses we don't want to show ("subject to availability", "the figure reported refers to standard testing conditions" etc.). I think that it can be confusing.
- languages may well have some "male chauvinism" coded into them, and I don't see anything wrong in principle in changing a language to get rid of certain chauvinist remnants. But that doesn't mean that we have to accept any solution. For example, "spokesman" and "spokeswoman" can be replaced by "spokesperson". But I find it a bit quirky as a word (repetition of the "p", stress on "per"), that makes the word break the flow and stand out too much compared to its gendered versions (which is somewhat counter to the role of a spokeswhatever). Why not come up with a new term that has no possible reference to gender at all? We have "portavoce" in Italian, which is elegantly charming (it translates as "voicebearer", but could be translated better) and solves the problem from the start. With grammar, it's much harder, but a lot of the possible weirdness really dissolves by simply getting used to it. I accept elegant solutions. "They" instead of "he/she" is elegant, all right, deploy to production. Not all solutions are elegant.
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@admiral_p said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
With an asterisk.
Using a character that has existed in ASCII forever is soooo old and boring.
We use a character that requires a proper Unicode font and therefore that nobody knows how to type (I'm guessing some sort of Alt+666 on Windows), ensuring that whenever someone tries to use it, not only do they get flak from people who think this is stupid, but they also get flak from people who think they used the wrong symbol!
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@remi said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
(I'm guessing some sort of Alt+666 on Windows)
I was curious what that was: Ü
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@Polygeekery said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
@anotherusername negative.
@admiral_p will one be posted?
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@pie_flavor said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
@Polygeekery said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
@anotherusername negative.
@admiral_p will one be posted?
That's up to the good admiral. I am not going to doxx him.
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@admiral_p said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
Why not come up with a new term that has no possible reference to gender at all? We have "portavoce" in Italian, which is elegantly charming (it translates as "voicebearer", but could be translated better) and solves the problem from the start.
Until the feminists solve all other problems they have and out of boredom think up that "minister" is 100% masculine and it's derogatory to refer to women with that word, and push to introduce the brand new made up feminine variant, "ministra". In case you're wondering - yes, it actually happened in Poland.
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The tracks (which I really proudly recorded and mixed in a garage, although they've been professionally mastered) are unreleased, and they're privately uploaded on my SoundCloud profile. As they're unreleased, I'd rather not link to them publicly, but feel free to PM me if you're interested.
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@Gąska It kind-of almost happened in France some years ago, some people started to push for e.g. "auteure" instead of "auteur" (author). The noise about it has died down and I think almost nobody does it. However what we sometimes get is using the feminine article in front of a traditionally male noun to indicate that the person is a woman, e.g. "la professeur" for "the professor (women)". One of the most used example is (your post reminded me of it!) "la ministre" (minister, woman).
I think it's not a bad solution, in effect it's making some nouns as being no longer of a single (grammatical) gender and being usable as both genders. It's a neat way to convey more information without complicating things too much.
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@Gąska that happened in Italy too. It's petty but it's even pettier to get all worked up over it.
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@admiral_p we weren't worked up. We were too busy laughing. Because "ministra" sounds just stupid. It doesn't make you think of a prominent politician taking one of the highest executive offices in the country - instead, it makes you think of a schoolboy that helps the priest in the local church prepare and perform masses ("ministrant").
It should come as no surprise that the only minister who actually insisted on being called ministra has resigned after just a year.
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@Gąska said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
Until the feminists solve all other problems they have and out of boredom think up that "minister" is 100% masculine and it's derogatory to refer to women with that word, and push to introduce the brand new made up feminine variant, "ministra". In case you're wondering - yes, it actually happened in Poland.
This is exactly the opposite of what’s been happening to Dutch, where feminine forms of function descriptions were completely normal for many/most such words. A male participant or contestant is a deelnemer (lit. “part-taker” as in “to take part”) and a female one is a deelneemster, a male vehicle driver is a chauffeur (yes, a French loanword) and a female one is a chauffeuse — and so on. In modern times, though, the masculine form is almost invariably used regardless of the sex of the person being referred to.¹ This leads to unnecessary things like “vrouwelijke deelnemer” (“female participant/contestant”), or worse, “vrouwelijke deelneemster,” a construction I notice quite often.
Not to mention that this kind of language still assumes everyone is a man unless you’re specifically told otherwise: nobody ever says “the male bus driver <whatever>” unless it’s pertinent that you’re talking about a man, but “the female bus driver <whatever>” regularly appears in news reports and things when it’s completely irrelevant whether it’s a man or a woman.
¹ Except for occupations that are mainly done by women, and nobody has found a good word for a male secretary (as in the person who types letters), because “secretaresse” is the feminine form and mean{s|t} “person who takes dictation/types letters” while “secretaris” is the masculine form and means “person who prepares meetings, writes reports, etc.”
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@Gurth said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
@Gąska said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
Until the feminists solve all other problems they have and out of boredom think up that "minister" is 100% masculine and it's derogatory to refer to women with that word, and push to introduce the brand new made up feminine variant, "ministra". In case you're wondering - yes, it actually happened in Poland.
This is exactly the opposite of what’s been happening to Dutch, where feminine forms of function descriptions were completely normal for many/most such words.
In Polish, some are and some aren't. It's quite inconsistent. And if you try to make up one when it doesn't exist, it's usually taken as infantilizing and rude. Although "ministra" is special because it doesn't just not exist, it also goes against standard word formation rules (if anything, it should've been "ministerka").
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@Gurth said in Is this ever going to give me a headache?:
nobody has found a good word for a male secretary (as in the person who types letters), because “secretaresse” is the feminine form and mean{s|t} “person who takes dictation/types letters” while “secretaris” is the masculine form and means “person who prepares meetings, writes reports, etc.”
Guess what - it's exactly the same in Poland (sekretarz/sekretarka). I believe it's because back when women weren't allowed to work, writing was a rare and valuable skill, so people who could write fast were highly regarded - not so much nowadays.
Template:Middle English personal pronouns (table) - Wikipedia
