Using photographs of miniatures in publications?

[Cergorach]

I want to explain a combat situation and instead of drawing a diagram i shoot a photograph of the combat situation, some painted miniatures on a grid. The miniatures are from company X and the scenery is from company Y. Can i use such photos in my publication legally? Anything i should look out for?

 

[philreed]

Your best bet is to contact a minis company. With some careful negotiation it should be a simple matter to secure permission and help promote the company's minis.

I wouldn't publish photos of minis without permission.

 

[D_Sinclair]

Regardless of the subject matter, the copyright of a photograph belongs to the individual who took the photo to begin with. So regardless of whether its a picture of your neighbor's house, a naked celebrity, or your miniatures arranged as you see fit, no one really has any say in what you do with that photograph.

 

[GMSkarka]

Regardless of the subject matter, the copyright of a photograph belongs to the individual who took the photo to begin with. So regardless of whether its a picture of your neighbor's house, a naked celebrity, or your miniatures arranged as you see fit, no one really has any say in what you do with that photograph.

Regardless of Dana's opinion, this is absolutely, 100% WRONG. A photograph of a sculpture does not change the rights of the original sculptor....for a simple example, check out the fact that the video copies of "The Devil's Advocate" film had to digitally alter the massive sculpture behind Al Pacino's desk at the end, because they hadn't secured the rights from the artist.

 

[DSC-EricPrice]

IANAL but I wanted to say that if you take a picture of a piece of art (be it a painting, a sculpture, or whatever) I BELIEVE that subsequent picture it is called a derivative work. The same goes if you make a painting of a sculpture, or another painting. It is on that basis that you must secure permission from the original artist before publishing your derivative work. That said, I would agree that if you can get company X and Y's permission, this should be pretty doable.

 

[Cergorach]

So those satelite photographs the us government has been making of my house are illegal when they don't have my permission? Were do i sue? *chuckles*

Obviously there has to be a line, the problem is were that line is and were do i find information that tells me exactly were that line is. There must be issues with things like clothing that people wear, obviously no permission is asked of the designers when you take a photograph of someone that wears nikes.

 

[S'mon]

IANAL but I wanted to say that if you take a picture of a piece of art (be it a painting, a sculpture, or whatever) I BELIEVE that subsequent picture it is called a derivative work. The same goes if you make a painting of a sculpture, or another painting. It is on that basis that you must secure permission from the original artist before publishing your derivative work. That said, I would agree that if you can get company X and Y's permission, this should be pretty doable.

That's right - unless the work is on public display like a statue in a town square, you need permission to reproduce it.

 

[S'mon]

There must be issues with things like clothing that people wear, obviously no permission is asked of the designers when you take a photograph of someone that wears nikes.

This AFAIK is indeed technically an infringement (assuming the Nikes count as a copyright work), which just shows how stupid & overextended copyright law is these days. A sensible court might say there was an implied license to photo the clothes when worn - there might be a precedent on this but I'm not aware of one.

 

[S'mon]

My advice would be to either email them to ask permission (& credit them) or just credit them, in which case no sane person would object to your use.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

There must be issues with things like clothing that people wear, obviously no permission is asked of the designers when you take a photograph of someone that wears nikes.

Ever wonder why MTV blurs out the logos on clothes in music videos? Hmm...