During my internship, most of my assignments involved designing and redesigning menus, postcards, and booklets. The majority of these tasks involve a lot of images with trademarks. When my supervisor was developing a booklet for a grocery store, the image that she had on the front cover has trademarks. I asked her, “Do you use the clone tool or the polygon tool to get rid of the trademarks?” She told me, “No, I buy the images from the owners. Doing all of that stuff takes too much time.” After reading these articles, I have a better understanding of how copyright is a huge role in the design industry. My supervisor bought the image to not violate copyright laws and to support the photographer.
In the article, Use of Photography by AIGA, “The photographer owns the opportunity to use or sell the image in all other uses, unless he or she sells the copyright in writing prior to the photoshoot.” The photographer can use or sell his or her images for other uses. For the image that my supervisor used, the photographer decided to let anyone buy his/her images for commercial purposes.
I have not signed a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement besides the Internship Agreement Form because my supervisor hasn’t mentioned it. If so, I would’ve signed it during the first week of my internship. I’ll ask her if there’s a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement form just to double-check.
Article Link: AIGA Business_Ethics 47556770-Use-of-photography-1-MB
