Titles and Codes

Here it is, another Sunday night, and I've spent most of the day getting the ingredients I need to finish a school project.

I have one project, a campaign for a site, petfinder.com It's a cool project, and I have a good concept and all that. I've posted them on my other blog.

The problem I have lies with the fact that I've used some illustration art from an online source of an artist whose work I like quite a bit. I came across his work at Twisted Kaiju Theater's K-Girls section, and then followed a few links to where he keeps some of his other art. He goes by the handle Heckfire and his deviant art account is here. The image I used is here.

For the assignment, my teacher liked the execution of my concept so I've been inking in the artwork and tightening up the other two ads as well. I'll post them later when they're more complete.


So, I'm in a bit of a bind. I am giving credit to the illustrator, and I want his blessing. I also know, that as soon as I can afford to pay for his services, I will. But, as a humble student, I have access to stuff like this under Fair Use clause of Copyright Law.

Title 17 of the US Code covers Copyright law. Its purpose is to "Promote Science and the useful arts." It's here(http://www.copyright.gov/) to check out, and the forms for registering your stuff are downloadable.

When I was studying Multimedia, I had to take a class covering the topic, because, when using multiple sources, you have to know who gets credit and how to go about making sure everyone's rights are protected. My teacher was a Ms. Julia Harmatz, an Intellectual Property lawyer from Boston who studied at Loyola University in Louisiana. She was passionate about her craft, and was hard on her students because it was such an important thing to know.

Under Title 17, there are six rights the creator of a piece of art has governing her or his art. There are four cases, however, that falls under the "Fair Use" clause.

... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

So basically: Criticism, Editorial, News, and Scholarship.

Fair use was guaranteed from the outset, because it's part of our freedom of speech. Notice how Criticism was the first freedom listed. I think that's because it's our god-given right to mock whatever we see fit.

There's 4 criteria used to determine if something falls under Fair Use; Purpose, Nature of the work, Amount used, the Effect of the works' potential marketability.


So, with this project there's three people I can't let down, the Artist, my teacher, and my IP Law teacher.


I'm not sure if I ever thanked her for her class, so on the off chance she ever comes across this:

Thank you, Ms. Harmatz. Thank you very much.