When people make the glass pendants with pictures behind them, or Scrabble tile pendants, they’re using domain free images, right?
~ Can you take things like origami paper (that’s obviously mass produced, or produced enough to distribute to several stores) or newspaper, old RiteAid sale flyers, cut them up and use them to make the pendants? Or is that copyright infringement?
I was told using Scrabble tiles for jewelry is fine because once you buy the tiles, you own them and you can do whatever you want with them, but I’m not sure the same thing applies here. I know if I personally take photographs of things, I can use the images in jewelry because I took the photos.
~ Also, isn’t it copyright infringement to make a necklace based off a popular food item? Like if I wanted to make a little bottle of soda necklace, but instead of calling it just Lemon & Lime, I called it Sprite, isn’t that copyrighted and illegal to sell?
~ Is it illegal to make Sanrio jewelry and sell it? I see people selling the Hello Kitty charms and then turning them into jewelry, but I thought unless you have written consent from the company, it’s copyrighted material and you can’t sell it.
Is buying the charms and making it into jewelry different from using the images of the characters and selling it as jewelry?
The main distinction to make here for all your questions is whether or not you want to *sell* the items (in other words make a profit, or do "business"–even a tiny business of one sale).
If you want to make something for yourself or to give as a gift, then you can use any images you want–no one will go after you if you don’t do a huge amount.
But if you want to sell them, you can only use images under that are copyrighted or protected by trademark like logos/brand names/etc (and most are) which you have purchased** or own. And you own only that single item/image.
You can’t sell images you’ve copied from online and printed out, or even drawn or sculpted yourself, if the original images are already legally protected by copyright or trademark. Even images from "Dover clip art books," etc, usually have small print somewhere that allows only a certain number of the copied images to be used and sold without getting permission (sometimes allowed, sometimes refused). Even images from stamps are usually protected that way unless they’re images from "angel" stamp companies.
**such as the image in a magazine or flyer you’ve actually purchased or that was given away… you can use that particular piece of paper with the image on it, but you can’t duplicate it to use for making a profit
…you might also own transfers of copyrighted images or something like that which you’ve purchased from a business; you can use those single items to sell but only because the business has already paid the copyright/trademark holder
Now …whether anyone will ever *see* that you’re selling things so they can go after you depends on where you’re selling mostly. If you’re doing it online, or at a large craft show, or at a football game (using the logo of the team), etc, you’re much more likely to be discovered than if you’re selling to a few friends at school or work. And many young people for example have no idea they’re even violating copyright/trademarks, but just aren’t doing it in a way that gets much notice by the right people.
Also, some companies (owners of the copyrights/trademarks) are *much* more aggressive than others about coming after anyone who sells "their" images at all–Disney, for example!
There are a few complications in the law about trademarked/copyrighted images used for parody, art, "fair use," etc, but those probably wouldn’t affect you.
U.S. copyrights (and trademarks?) created before 1927 or a similar time are not protected usually btw, and many of the pendants/etc you might see have really-old images from paintings, etc.
You can read more about copyrights/etc, on this page of my site especially for selling crafts/art/etc, if you’re interested:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/owning_copyrights.htm (click on the category called Copyrights, Trademarks, Patents)
…and Wikipedia’s articles on copyright and public domain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain
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