Selling Photos With Quotes Or Song Lyrics In Them

you would have to ask a lawyer, personally i wouldn't take a chance. i don't think lyrics can be copyrighted unless you sing them yourself. quotes may belong to the person or estate of the person who said them. i look for public domain, anonymous quotes. and if i add something from the bible i use the king james version, because oddly bibles are all copyrighted. each has their own version.

if you can't find who said it, i suppose its safe, but you never know.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

If you don't know the source... at least google it. it will probably come up. First try googling it in quotes... " this is the quote I am searching for" that will force google to search for the exact match. Without quotes google will search for the quote be will also show results for each word in the quote... that might be good if the quote you are searching is not the exact original quote.

Normally to give credit you would put something like.... this is a quote --- " Michelle Stern" or --- "Anonymous"

Here on FAA you should not have an issue since you are not using your art to sell other product. If you were using your example to sell Michelle's Magic Wands... that would be a different thing. You would then need permission if the quote is not in the public domain... like "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" --- Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Of course the above is only my opinion not legal advice... [ hi abbie ;O) ]

bob

Song lyrics are usually a no no... they are more likely to be subject to copyright laws.

Forget the quote, do you own that image? (Edit: I may have misunderstood the OP. Not sure if you are asking specifically about the image here or using it as an example.)

http://identi.info/hazlo-tu-mismo/92930401/Efecto-Vintage-en-Photoshop.html
http://desmotivaciones.es/4486318/Hay-que-disfrutar

that is true. it has to be your own photo as well.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Song lyrics hold the same © as a book - words -

http://www.pdinfo.com/copyright-law/copyright-and-public-domain.php

link to full article http://janefriedman.com/2012/01/23/permissions/
It also seems like an interesting website for writers...


An Important Preface to This Discussion

Quoting or excerpting someone else’s work falls into one of the grayest areas of copyright law. For understandable reasons, you might be seeking a “rule” to apply to reduce your risk or reduce time spent worrying about it.

Therefore, the biggest “rule” that you’ll find—if you’re searching online or asking people—is: “Ask explicit permission for everything beyond X.”

What constitutes “X” depends on whom you ask. Some people say 300 words. Some say one line. Some say 10% of the word count.

But you must never forget: there is no legal rule stipulating what quantity is OK to use without seeking permission. (Major legal battles have been fought over this question, but there is STILL no black-and-white rule.)

So any rules you find are based on a general institutional guideline or a person’s experience, as well as their overall comfort level with the risk involved in directly quoting/excerpting work. That’s why opinions and guidelines vary so much.

The other problem is that once you start asking for permission (to reduce your risk), that gives publishers (or copyright owners) the opportunity to ask for money or refuse to give permission, even in cases where the use would actually be considered fair. So you can get taken advantage of if you’re overly cautious. See the Catch-22?

It’s very difficult to advise on these matters in a general blog post, or even through personal e-mails, because each and every instance of quoting/excerpting may have a different answer as to whether you need permission or whether it would be considered fair use.

There is no rule you can apply, only principles. So I hope to provide some clarity on those principles in this post.

When do you NOT need to seek permission?
•When the work is in the public domain. This isn’t always a simple matter to determine, but any work published before 1923 is in the public domain. Some works published after 1923 are also in the public domain. Read this guide from Stanford about how to determine if a work is in the public domain.
•When simply mentioning the title or author of a work. You do not need permission to mention the title of someone’s work. It’s like citing a fact.
•When you are stating unadorned facts. If you copy a list of the 50 states in the United States, you are not infringing on anyone’s copyright. Those are unadorned facts.
•When you are linking to something. Linking does not require permission.
•When the work is licensed under Creative Commons. If this is the case, you should see this prominently declared on the work itself. For instance, the book Mediactive is licensed under Creative Commons, and so are many sites and blogs.
•When you abide by fair use guidelines. If you’re only quoting a few lines from a full-length book, you are likely within fair use guidelines, and do not need to seek permission. BUT this is a gray area.

When should you seek permission?

When you use copyrighted material in such a way that it cannot be considered fair use. In such cases, crediting the source does not remove the obligation to seek permission. It is expected that you always credit your source regardless of fair use; otherwise, you are plagiarizing.

A Brief Explanation of Fair Use

There are four criteria for determining fair use, which sounds tidy, but it’s not. These criteria are vague and open to interpretation. Ultimately, when disagreement arises over what constitutes fair use, it’s up to the courts to make a decision.

The four criteria are:
1.the purpose and character of the use (e.g., commercial vs. not-for-profit/educational). If the purpose of your work is commercial (to make money), that doesn’t mean you’re suddenly in violation of fair use. But it makes your case less sympathetic if you’re borrowing a lot of someone else’s work to prop up your own commercial venture.
2.the nature of the copyrighted work. Facts cannot be copyrighted. For that reason, more creative or imaginative works generally get the strongest protection.
3.the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the entire quoted work. The law does not offer any percentage or word count here that we can go by. That’s because if the portion quoted is considered the most valuable part of the work, you may be violating fair use. That said, most publishers’ guidelines for authors offer a rule of thumb; at the publisher I worked at, that guideline was 200-300 words from a book-length work in a teaching/educational context.
4.the effect of the use on the potential market for or value of the quoted work. If your use of the original work in any way damages the likelihood that people will buy the original work, you are in violation of fair use.


To further explore what these four criteria mean in practice, be sure to read this excellent article by attorney Howard Zaharoff that originally appeared in Writer’s Digest magazine: “A Writers’ Guide to Fair Use.”

Does this apply to use of copyrighted work on websites, blogs, digital mediums, etc?

Technically, yes, but attitudes tend to be more lax. When bloggers (or others) aggregate, repurpose, or otherwise excerpt copyrighted work (whether it originates online or offline), they typically view such use as “sharing” or “publicity” for the original author rather than as a copyright violation, especially if it’s for noncommercial or educational purposes. I’m not talking about wholesale piracy here, but about extensive excerpting or aggregating that would not be considered OK otherwise. In short, it’s a controversial issue.

Note: You do not need permission to link to a website.

A note about song titles, movie titles, names, etc.

You do not need permission to include song titles, movie titles, TV show titles—any kind of title—in your work. You can also include the names of places, things, events, and people in your work without asking permission. These are facts.

Permissions for song lyrics and poetry

Because songs and poems are so short, it’s dangerous to use even 1 line without asking for permission, even if you think the use could be considered fair. However, it’s fine to use song titles, poem titles, artist names, band names, movie titles, etc.

I use typography quite a bit in my work, but I never ever use a quote that is attributable to any specific person if I can help it. I carefully research before I use any phrase or saying. it's absolutely not worth the risk. I do have one by Socrates, but pretty sure no one from his camp is going to come after me.

Please remember that giving an artist credit is NOT the same as getting their permission.

Thanks everyone! I kinda figured it was a gray area. Extra thanks to you Bob for all that effort, it was very helpful!! :-)

Guess we're not going to get an answer to the image question

Thank you for doing the homework---for the interesting discussion.

She's a photographer. It's probably her own image. Using other people's images is not okay.

I would be very surprised to find that quotes from the Bible in any version aren't okay. Whomever copyrighted the versions are all about spreading the Word.

except that image has been around the net for a while. she's new to photography and one of those blog entries i posted is from 2012.

you can use the king james version, and there are other open source bibles (so you don't have to say YE and HATH).

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

You don't need to own an image to post it in a discussion thread.
The question was can you do something like this... there was no mention of it being her image.

I began to think that, too, Bob, as evident by my edit to the first time I mentioned it. It would have been nice to get a clarification, but then again, I'm not owed one either.

oh i'm sorry, I thought it was obvious I would use my own photos...I AM a photographer, I'm not that stupid to try to sell someone else's picture. The example I posted was only an example to show everyone one idea I was considering.

Bible's are not necessarily translated and printed to "spread the word". Don't be naive, its a business like any other. It costs money to research and translate a bible version as well as publish and market the results.

Found this:

:Many modern Bible translations are copyrighted, and thus place restrictions on the extent to which you can quote or reprint passages from them. Publishers retain rights to their translations because producing a Bible translation is an enormously extensive (and expensive) project. A single translation can represent years of work by hundreds of scholars, theologians, and editors, all of whom need to be reimbursed for their work. By retaining their copyright to the translation and asking you to respect that copyright, publishers are able to pay their translators and ensure continued translation work.

This means that downloading or distributing the entire text of a copyrighted Bible translation is not permitted. Fortunately, most publishers do allow you to quote passages from their translations within a reasonable limit. You can find general copyright information at the bottom of all the passage pages. For specific information on individual versions, please contact the publisher directly." https://support.biblegateway.com/entries/187525-Why-are-modern-Bible-translations-copyrighted-