|
|
|
() The "fair use" doctrine allows you to use a copyrighted photograph under certain circumstances, mainly for educational or review purposes. You can also use a photo of a copyrighted work to advertise the sale of the piece - for example, you can resell a book and use a photo of the cover of the book, even though it is copyrighted. You are not infringing on the copyright to include the photo of the cover.
As for the warning that art cannot be resold on eBay, that's a bit of a stretch. It is true that an artist - or any other copyright holder - can impose certain limits. A perfect example is the warning at the beginning of a DVD that says that the film is licensed for home use only and not for exhibition. Another example is promotional records issued by a record company - often times the record company only loans the record, and pretends to retain ownership. Thus, you have stamped warnings on promotional CDs that resale is prohibited.
But the idea that an artist or manufacturer can prohibit any resale is not a clear legal issue. Under antitrust law, a manufacturer cannot prevent the resale of its products. Thus, when a bike shop started reselling Schwinn bicycles decades ago, Schwinn was not able to stop them and limit sales only to its authorized dealers.
I never dealt with the resale issue when I handled copyright cases, so I would welcome any input from other attorneys or those knowledgable about this area of law.
|
|
