Copyright question

Hi,

I wonder about the Copyright rules on the market place. Maybe someone can help me.

Lately I see several items using pictures from movies or games. Do people really have the right to use these?

As I said, I’m just wondering. I’m working on a template myself and just used the free assets from Envato. But adding a Homer Simpson or movie star might raise the sales.

Thanks in advance, Oliver

Hi,

I wonder about the Copyright rules on the market place. Maybe someone can help me.

Lately I see several items using pictures from movies or games. Do people really have the right to use these?

As I said, I’m just wondering. I’m working on a template myself and just used the free assets from Envato. But adding a Homer Simpson or movie star might raise the sales.

Thanks in advance, Oliver

many of the pictures that you see are not released with the downloadable version of the theme and are only used in the demos for show

Touchy issue ‘round here in these parts. To put it plainly,

ThemeForest gets all the glory with the privilege to use copyrighted images without needing permissions or releases… but only for now. (However much longer “for now” might be… I mean geez).

ActiveDen was rebuked of those privileges.

All of the other marketplaces will have to be answered for by someone else. I only know of the two I listed above. Well, that’s how it is though. Sadly.

It is stated in the rules and guidelines of these marketplaces that to use copyrighted images you must have a release or have been given permission to use them in your files. But here’s what I think, ThemeForest gets to do it because those images help to make more sales. And at the same time, Those templates that use them generate a great amount of revenue for envato. TF templates seem to make thier marketplace more popular than any other marketplace. And since ThemeForest generates the MOST amount of revenue for “envato”, ThemeForest gets to use them without discretion other than that of the author’s themselves. I mean, come on. Lawyers? Legal Issues? It has been around 2 years already. What’s with the delay. The only reasons I can think of is envato is trying to buy themselves as much time as they can with this issue. If TF gets to use them despite the laws against copyrighting already put into place, then why treat others like they can’t? Here’s my real question—How come this hasn’t been resolved yet?

many of the pictures that you see are not released with the downloadable version of the theme and are only used in the demos for show

And yet, TF is the only marketplace that is allowed to do it.

If I understand it correctly, it is allowed because the theme previews which use such images are not actually hosted under ‘Envato’ sites. so the content images are also not on ‘Envato’ and then there is no issue for Envato of the copyright.

But the flash files are actually hosted on the Envato’s network.

You are allowed to host the flash site preview on your own server if you can justify why you need them to be hosted outside (use of server side programming such as PHP is one such case)

Note – this is just my understanding of it, you should contact support or read on the wiki to get a correct answer to it.

I don’t know. Honestly, I was making a bigger deal out of it than what I really needed to, but I also felt the need to express it at the time. Anyway, buying images from a stock site gives me a sense of piece of mind and accomplishment. You know, cus I had to earn the money to spend the money to make the money again. haha.

If I understand it correctly, it is allowed because the theme previews which use such images are not actually hosted under ‘Envato’ sites. so the content images are also not on ‘Envato’ and then there is no issue for Envato of the copyright.

But the flash files are actually hosted on the Envato’s network.

You are allowed to host the flash site preview on your own server if you can justify why you need them to be hosted outside (use of server side programming such as PHP is one such case)

Note – this is just my understanding of it, you should contact support or read on the wiki to get a correct answer to it.

That’s correct. Because those are live previews and aren’t hosted by Envato. At GR we’re not allowed to do it. This really sucks because the original image in preview is of a chess board which doesn’t even comply with action’s true power.

let say that what Aw_Shucks said is happening because what dexterous point out. Had to make this comment, else it could appear that they “fight” each outer.

On the other side, there is (or they want to create I’m not sure about it) a law that held responsible for copyright infringement who embed external content in their website. Famous example is: One person upload a copyrighted material on youtube and someone else embed the video on his blog. The blog fellow is held responsible under this copyright law even if the video is not on his server and he not posted the material on the net by himself.

But maybe the envato lawyers know better.

Don’t get the risk. Use only allowed images from sites like photos8.com or morguefile.com, for example. Or buy some stock in fotolia, if you’re expecting good sales to return the investment. Yes, would be nice to use Scarlett Johansson premium film images, but we’re not TF guys, don’t ask for more.

Well at least in someones’ strange weird-like mind… I forgot what I was going to say. Anyway, I read a bunch of stuff about copyright infringement last night. It wouldn’t matter where those sites are hosted, what matters is that they’re using that material to promote their business. It counts as bad.