2A)
During my first semester, I used an image for which I didn’t give any credit to the owner. The image was taken from a website and was free for use, but I learned later that even though the image was free to use it was unethical of me to use to create my own work and not give any credit to the owner who created it. It was just a part of the image that I used and back then I was not fully educated on the use of someone else’s work or photography and how to properly credit them. I googled and found a few sources that were helpful, and I learned the correct way to give credit, after that I gave credit to the owner for any image I ever had to use for my projects in college. I think it is very important and ethical to give credit regardless of the fact that the work is free to use or not because at the end of the day the picture or any other work is the owners hard work and it belongs to them. As a designer we should know what it means to be credited for your work and how awful it would be to have your work used by someone and called their own and it should be our responsibility to protect artists/designers work as we best understand the importance of the work we create and the hours we put in to it.
2B)
Copyright is a type of legal protection afforded to writers of “original works of authorship” such as literary, theatrical, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works in the United States. This safeguard applies to both published and unpublished works. Who owns the work is defined under copyright. To be copyrightable, work must be original and innovative. In the Fairey Copyright case, The Associated Press sued Fairey in 2009 for copyright infringement after he used a shot by AP photographer Mannie Garcia for the Barack Obama Hope poster. Fairey subsequently sued the AP, claiming that his use of the photo was protected by the fair use theory. The case was settled between the two parties where basically Fairey agreed to not use any of AP images without obtaining license first and both parties agreed to share rights for the Hope poster merchandise. I think this was best settled this way and was a positive outcome for both the designer and the photographer. It would have been career ending for Fairey if the case was not settled, the amount of damage to his professional career would have impacted his life and future. This is why we as designers are taught to be extremely cautious with the use of any outside work or images. As long as both parties agreed to a fair distribution of rights for the Hope poster, I think it shouldn’t be a problem yes it would have been unfair for the photographer as someone would have used their work to make profit without getting the rights.
https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/a-graphic-designers-guide-to-copyright/
