Ask Ali: Copyright Part One…

…of probably several and the discussions and other questions that might come up as a result! That’s fine, it’s what I am here for.

Copyright is probably one of the things I get asked most about when I travel around demonstrating for art groups as it is both incredibly simple and complicated all at the same time. We will get in to the mechanics of it in another post, the first thing I wanted to write about, something I don’t see very often is WHY it’s so important.

Here’s a photograph I took, a few years ago, of the snowdrops underneath the pear tree outside the studio door. Nothing particularly remarkable, it’s not a great photograph but it has certainly got plenty of information in it for me to be able to create a painting from it, and I did.

We will gloss over the issues with the painting, it was done about fifteen years ago and I have learnt a lot since then, let’s think of it in terms of using the photograph as inspiration. I’m going to ask you some questions, give you time to reply to them in the comments below and then I will answer your questions or comment on them in a subsequent blog. One thing I would like to say is if you read a comment from someone else and they might have got their facts wrong, please don’t reprimand them (not that I think you would), we are all here to learn from each other and it may have taken some courage to post.

Here are the questions for you:
Who owns the copyright of the photograph?
Who owns the copyright of the painting?
What’s the difference between royalty and copyright?
If you were in a workshop of mine and you painted from my photograph/painting, who owns the copyright of your painting then?

I realise the potential of this opening up a can of worms but work with me and we’ll try and get this complicated aspect of art made much more simple and then you will be free to create art never having to worry about it.
I’m looking forward to your comments, Ali