Copyright question

[Bart Sharp]

I've been kicking around the idea of making up a few sample carved signs like I've been doing lately and shopping them around to some of the local knick-knack stores. My hope is that someone would either take them on consignment or buy them from me outright for resale. I'm thinking that signs with popular quotes and phrases might drum up a little interest.

My question is what can I legally carve and sell? I know I'm okay with spoken quotes and public domain writings like bible passages. I also suspect that I would be okay with anything in a book like Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, because surely they did not have to obtain permission to republish every one of the thousands of passages they quote. Where exactly is the line for this kind of work? For example, could I carve a verse from an Edgar Allan Poe poem and sell it?

Any insight appreciated!
Bart

[John Hart]

It is my understanding that selling a sign with a notable quote, with the quoter's name properly posted does not violate copyright law. The only exception would be where every instance of publication of said quote is covered under the statement that it may not be used without permission of the author.

Carving "The Raven" into a sign might violate a publisher but exerpts would not.

I'd still ask a lawyer if I were you....

[Bart Sharp]

It is my understanding that selling a sign with a notable quote, with the quoter's name properly posted does not violate copyright law. The only exception would be where every instance of publication of said quote is covered under the statement that it may not be used without permission of the author.

Carving "The Raven" into a sign might violate a publisher but exerpts would not.

I'd still ask a lawyer if I were you.



If you're right, I'm good to go.

[Michael Gabbay]

Bart - I'm not a lawyer and I did NOT sleep at a Holiday Inn Last night ;) , but here is the link to the Copyright office within the Library of Congress. Hopefully it will answer some of the basic questions you have.

http://www.copyright.gov/

Keep in mind copyrights do expire so most of the "classics" may not be covered.

Mike

[John Seiffer]

A lawyer won't know unless it's a lawyer with experience in copyright law.

Short sayings are generally not protectable by copyright. You can't copyright book titles, bumper stickers etc.

HOWEVER a guy named Ashleigh Brilliant makes post cards with short sayings and was able to enforce a copyright on his stuff. Check it out here. http://www.ashleighbrilliant.com/copyrightinfo.htm And he's a funny guy to boot.

FYI - I am not a lawyer

[Ken Salisbury]

Please - lets not make disparaging comments on someone's profession.

I edited posts to remove those comments.


http://www.oldrebelworkshop.com/misc/moderator.gif

[AJ Hamler]

Disclaimer: Not a lawyer.

You may be more concerned with trademark rights rather than copyright laws. A lot of things that would seem to us normal people to be copyrightable aren't, and vice-versa. Generally, book/movie/song titles aren't copyrightable --- however, the song title "Margaritaville" is a trademark, and Jimmy Buffett successfully sued a tiny chain (about three locations) of restaurants in New England using that name, and forced them to change it. On the other hand, the name "Star Wars" is a trademark, and yet is used generically by the news media and just about everyone else to describe the Strategic Defense Initiative -- George Lucas doesn't like that, but there's not much he can really do about it because it's so widely used. (Ditto "May the force be with you." If I'm not mistaken, that phrase is trademarked; still, you see it all the time in print.)

A.J.

[John Hart]

Please - lets not make disparaging comments on someone's profession.

Oops...sorry Ken. I started it. Didn't mean any disrespect, just trying to be funny and missed the mark. My apologies to all.

[Bart Sharp]

Oops...sorry Ken. I started it. Didn't mean any disrespect, just trying to be funny and missed the mark. My apologies to all.

No offense intended on my part either, but I think I'll skip the apology. To imply that there is a range of abilities among the people who practice any given profession is in no way disparaging towards the profession as a whole or any individual who practices it. I could just as easily say "Even a lousy aerospace engineer would know the difference between stress and strain" without showing any disrespect at all to my profession. It would be different if someone had said "Go ask one of those good-for-nothing lawyers, but be careful because they're all crooks".

But like the TOS says, "at the moderator's discretion".

At the risk of getting back on topic, I checked out the link that Michael posted. It's a little hard to understand, but it sounds like just about anything that is ever written down is covered by copyright and off-limits to anyone else who might use it for commercial purpose. The copyright does eventually expire, but only after the author has been dead for 70 years.

I'm still just about as confused as I was before. I can't even afford to walk past a lawyer's office, let alone consult one. Maybe I'll just try to stick to spoken quotes and things like that and just give it a try... I can't imagine that the handful of signs I'll be able to crank out would even be a blip on anyone's radar screen.

{Please note, when I say that the information on the copyright office website is hard to understand, I am in no way suggesting that anyone at the copyright office is anything less than stellar in the performance of their job. The difficulty is due solely to my own inability to interpret the regulations.}

[Michael Gabbay]

Bart - It's because the lawyers wrote the content of the site. You need the laywer secret decoder ring to interprete! :D You might try giving someone in the copyright office a call or try a local university that has a law department. I'm sure that there is a simple answer.

Now that's not to imply that lawyers are in any way trying to make things harder than they are. ;)

Mike

[Mike Ramsey]

I think I'm gonna subscribe to this thread just to see how it turns out :) .