@davidhohn I admit I haven’t listened to the podcast yet, so maybe its mentioned there, but I was wondering what is the status of the law about the use of reference images - talking about both photo and illustration.
I know you can copy a color scheme or a composition (in terms of shapes and value structure) without any issue - those are generally not objects of copyright (though I know colors can become an issue in certain cases where the copyright holder wishes to TM them as „brand-specific“). But how about situation and subject matter?
The famous case we discussed at school was the Associated Press against Shepard Fairey for the Obama „Hope“ poster. But in that case, when you compare the art with the photo they are basically identical - aside from color and rendering. What happens when the image is only loosely based on a reference? How much distance is distant enough? And yes, taking your own reference pictures is nice, but let´s face it: it can be nearly impossible at times.
There’s one image in a project I’m on right now that gives me some heartache. It shows a rocket leaving Earth, heading for outer space. The composition is a classic: the rocket is diagonally oriented and set against the blue-green-white Earth globe, the shape of the rocket crossing the curvature of the Earth, so that it´s half superimposed to the Earth and half onto space. I saw the composition first in the famous TinTin moon comic and I thought it was simple and effective, so I used it. Now, all similarity ends with the list of objects (Earth, space and rocket) and the way they are oriented (crossing each other diagonally). The rocket is different, the Earth is shown from a different perspective, the inclination at which they cross and the extent of overlap is different and of course it´s painted and not inked and colored. What`s more, there are literally dozens if not hundreds of images with the same content, objects and composition: photomontage, 3D renders, paintings, film frames, NASA promotional material. I very much doubt that Herge was the first to come up with this image (though man had not been to space yet, when the comic was written) and if he did, it does not look like his heirs had any leverage to defend it.
The content seems so simple and literal (Earth is Earth and space is space and a rocket needs to be long and thin to look like a rocket) and so much in the common use that I can’t see how a depiction like this could be problematic. And yet, I wonder....
️ It’s critical though, we all want to not just be good, but legit too, I think.