I wanted to write my own Ebook, and was wondering if it is breaching copyright protection if I copy and pasted pictures of well known actors/stars in an Ebook?
This area of law concerns copyright which is the right to prevent others from copying or reproducing an expression of an idea. In this case the expression of the idea is the two dimensional representation of the actors/stars in the form of a picture. in the case of the Ebook the image used will be in a digitised form of the original pictures and will be classified as reproductions of the copyrighted work which is entitled to the same level of protection as the original pictures.
The pictures would either be the property of the person who took it or the news agency who employed the person who took it or an image bank which has been paid for the pictures and which is allowed to resell them for a fee.
One way to overcome these obstacles is to take the pictures yourself. Alternatively you may refer to the copyright owners as to which public license under the Creative Commons scheme is attached to the pictures. If the owners have opted for this scheme they may issue four varying levels of permission to parties interested to use the pictures. However it is unlikely the owners have opted for this scheme in this particular case due to the fact the actors/stars are well known and there is no benefit to the owners to allow their pictures to be used freely and for the fact that it is probably going to used for commercial purposes. The scheme is more applicable for reproductions of copyrighted works that are not well known and used for academic or information purposes.
In conclusion you would probably have to pay for the use of the pictures. You can of course go ahead and take the risk of using the pictures in the hope of being lost in the crowd. However there is a chance the Ebook will become well known enough to get the attention of the copyright owners and youcan be sued for copyright infringement. On the other hand if the actors/stars are no longer popular, such additional publicity would be more than welcome and the copyright owners may just keep quiet about it.
This area of law concerns copyright which is the right to prevent others from copying or reproducing an expression of an idea. In this case the expression of the idea is the two dimensional representation of the actors/stars in the form of a picture. in the case of the Ebook the image used will be in a digitised form of the original pictures and will be classified as reproductions of the copyrighted work which is entitled to the same level of protection as the original pictures.
The pictures would either be the property of the person who took it or the news agency who employed the person who took it or an image bank which has been paid for the pictures and which is allowed to resell them for a fee.
One way to overcome these obstacles is to take the pictures yourself. Alternatively you may refer to the copyright owners as to which public license under the Creative Commons scheme is attached to the pictures. If the owners have opted for this scheme they may issue four varying levels of permission to parties interested to use the pictures. However it is unlikely the owners have opted for this scheme in this particular case due to the fact the actors/stars are well known and there is no benefit to the owners to allow their pictures to be used freely and for the fact that it is probably going to used for commercial purposes. The scheme is more applicable for reproductions of copyrighted works that are not well known and used for academic or information purposes.
In conclusion you would probably have to pay for the use of the pictures. You can of course go ahead and take the risk of using the pictures in the hope of being lost in the crowd. However there is a chance the Ebook will become well known enough to get the attention of the copyright owners and youcan be sued for copyright infringement. On the other hand if the actors/stars are no longer popular, such additional publicity would be more than welcome and the copyright owners may just keep quiet about it.
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