Canadian lawyers busted me over my art
 

I have this painting that I did of a ' group of three persons which oddly enough resemble a certain unnamed rock band from Canada. '

http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...009rushlow.jpg

I have been told that I am infringing on their rights, and I am to remove it.

If I put a description like the above gibberish, which vaguely alludes to who they are, will they still bust me ?

I also plan to use hints, such as " I was in a real rush when i painted this "
Please feel free to enjoy the art. No need to rush off "

Oh BTW, it wasn't one of you guys that turned me was it ? :(

You have the right to freedom of expression, if you paint somebody, much as if you take a photo of them in the street there "should" be jack smidt that they can do about it, however I live in the us.

Maybe Canukistan has other laws.

WTF? :confused:

Nice work, BTW. :thumbup:

http://img03.deviantart.net/ff02/i/2...night_eyes.png

Salesmen.

Canada?

"ce ne sont pas un groupe de rock"

If you copied a photo they own the copyright of, then they might have a point.
If you painted it to their general appearance in public, or to a photo you took yourself in public or that belongs to the public domain, then they have no right whatsoever.

You did not put the band name in big letters on it or such.
Seems this is just harassment, maybe it isn't even them just a scammer.

What if you painted a picture of some random made-up person doing something objectionable? No harm is done. If you paint a real recognisable person, they can object if it harms them in any way. A famous person's likeness is valuable to them and so they will necessarily want to control any use of it. Just in case you were going to pass it off as an 'official' image, or use it in a commercial context eg to endorse a product, or portray them in a way they don't like, or something.
But if it was on a 'Canadian Rock Band Fan Club' website they might not object, if it was not in any other way objectionable...
(I'm at work and can't view the image so I can't see the merits of it)

need a little more context here CD.

Are you selling a painting, or is this "fan art"? What rights exactly do they think you have infringed upon?

And who does the lawyer represent? One artist or the whole lot, or some other entity?

title states you are already busted. what was stated?

Very nice painting.

The lawyer thing is a scam; ignore them.

So I was going to sell prints of this online at a site, similar to cafepress etc .
I was contacted by the site itself that they had taken down the art, and to not re-list the art again.
I used a popular photo of the band as reference, but modified it enough to get around the copyright issue. I even changed what is on Ged...um the bassists shirt, since he is a Jays fan.
This was not in the original photo.

I think it was the name of the band in a 'tag' that brought in the lawyers, since they scour the internet for that sort of thing. What they are calling it is 'intellectual property infringement" , saying it "violates a celebrities right of publicity".
It was a group which handles the band's merchandising i suppose.

BTW, I didn't sell a single one.

No harm done. By 'busted', I meant that they removed it. Oh well.

So if I simply sold this as " Three Dudes in a Band From Toronto ", with no mention of the band's name, could they still bust me ?
At what point would they be able to say for certain who the people in the painting are ?
I could just call it " Bubba and His Two Buddies ".

Thanks for the replies guys. I notice a lot of topics are going every which way - even here in the lounge. I'll try to keep from posting too much off topic stuff like this in the future.

That is interesting, I wonder how they handle jurisdiction issues since you are no-where near Canada.

I don't think so (but IANAL). From your own statement, your intent was to create a picture of this particular band, no?

If it wasn't a neural network trained on the corpus of IP being protected; then it will be by this time next .... month?

Eh ? :confused:

My intent was to create a picture of a popular bad, yes.
But to do so in a way that did not break copyright laws. I didn't consider that it would infringe on their "rights" .
I agree that celebrities don't want someone to paint them in a demeaning manner, but this happens all the time with political cartoons.
I didn't even paint them in such a way ( demeaning )

Anyway, it's over and done. This forum was just the first place i came to vent my frustration.
I'll look into 'fair use laws' .

You should look at copyright laws and even have some of you stuff copyrighted. The site operator is not going to defend you even if you are within your rights. Its much easier and cheaper to just take down your work.

Sorry, I meant Artificial Neural Network.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network

You may have seen the pictures filled with dog's faces and eyes:

Research Blog: Inceptionism: Going Deeper into Neural Networks

They were created by running the neural net backwards. The primary function is sorting pictures w/o human intervention at blinding speed.

The lawyer's jobs go next.

If human genes can be patented, then this shouldn't be surprising:(

Too bad you had to deal with this ****, Cd:(

Well, if you start copying human genes in public you will get busted! :eek:

I wonder if I will have to remove this one : http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...w_how_howl.jpg
I painted these guys as DOGS, so they can't say they are recognizable .....or can they ?
I'll have to remove those tag words for sure.

Nice Work!!!:thumbup::thumbup:

There is no infringement. You created the work, and there is no law that says it can't resemble someone else. As you say, political cartoons directly defame people all the time.

Site operators will always err on the side of caution since they don't want any chance of litigation or being shut down. You, on the other hand, have next to nothing to worry about concerning lawyers actually pursuing a lawsuit. They are just bothered that you might make money without them getting a cut, and want to make as much scary noise as possible.

Tell the lawyers to give me their names so I can demean their pathetic and worthless existence to all the world. I'll hire you to do the paintings.

I'm nearly finished with this one. Just a few minor detail and I'm calling it done.

I did it for a lady as a gift to her husband. I had to imagine how the car would look with all of the aftermarket pieces on the car, since this is what he wants to do with the car.
( A car which is now painted white and has only a few of the parts depicted . )

Let's see if Ford complains about that trademarked pony in the grill. ;-)

EDIT : I just fixed that rear wheel. " Reference is your friend ! "
I'll update the picture later.

http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a...IMG_0239lr.jpg

^^ I like the clear grille block, but where's the Kammback?

:) Right !
And he is actually engine off coasting the car to a stoplight.
That is fog around the car.

:D

They should be offering to pay you.

Thanks Oil Pan.

People suck !
I did this recently for a lady of her dog, and suspect that she just printed it after I sent here a picture of the painting.
I wasted my entire weekend doing the run-around " I'll meet you this afternoon ...no text or email, so I text her asking about meeting.
" Yes ! Interested in the painting ! I'll meet you this evening ! "
The evening come and goes - nothing.
The next day, same thing.
I wasted the entire weekend, and she still hasn't replied. :(

http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/a..._155850two.jpg