copyright question

[annastasia76]

I don't know if this has been asked already or not, if so could somebody point me to the correct thread.

I am wondering about copyright concerns about cross stitching a pattern of a copyrighted image. Lets say for example, I love Greg Olsen artwork and would love to make up some of his paintings (or other images I see on the internet) in cross stitch, and I could easily run an image of one of his paintings through a cross stitch generator, but my concern is; Would that be a copyright violation???

Does anybody know of an official website with copyright information (hopefully one with language that I can understand, lol)

[rcperryls]

There has been a fairly detailed discussion about copyrights recently ( Is It Worth it To Bother with Copyrights?) which you might want to review. Without knowing the details, I would think you would need the artist's permission to do a chart of his/her work. If it is for your personal use, I would think the artist would give permission and be flattered.

Carole

[annastasia76]

I did email the artist and am waiting a reply though since I emailed through where he sells prints of his paintings, I am not sure it will get to him.

I am also wondering about other simple artwork, like graphics that you see all over the place, many times you see them copied over and over on all sorts of websites. would there be anyway to find out who originally made it?? I also try to search only free sites but am finding out that they may not necessarily be copyright free. I have purchased some designs so that I could use them. I found a website that sells designs for some paper/vynel (ok I can't figure out how to spell it) cutter machine, the designs are only 99cents each. I had emailed the company and they said that as long as I purchased the designs I could do what ever I wanted with it.

here's one example of a free image site
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/" target="_blank" target="_blank
now are these copyright free and able to use for personal use? I could have sworn that I saw some copyright info on some images though the last time I looked through it.

here's a perfect example. the picture is on the microsoft website and available to download for free here
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/image ... 44926|mt:0|" target="_blank
but if you look at the upper right of the screen it says provided by then a link. when you click on the link it shows that they charge $6 for it. So now it's confusing.

[Rose]

Copyright is always so very hard to say, yes it is ok to use or no you can not. If you google copyright you will get a ton of information. But be aware it differs for different companies and also different countries. Also there are a lot of people out there that post there opinions rather then the actual law.

Here we try to error on the side of caution. We say get permission from the original designer. Some times this does take lots of time to track down but it is always the best plan.

For some pictures if you buy the work and then decide to make a graph and stitch the picture as a gift to some one or for yourself, that is ok. Now I am not saying this is a tried and true rule as I said before it is hard to say this is how it is for all designs.