On 1/20/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 1/20/06, Michael Snow wikipedia@earthlink.net wrote:
Justin Cormack wrote:
On 21 Jan 2006, at 00:19, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I'm sure that a Darth Vader Halloween costume would be copyright protected.
Unlikely under US law I believe.
You are aware that the movie-related merchandise (action figures, costumes, Lego sets, whatever) sold on the mass market is *always* produced under licenses from the studio, producer, or whoever holds the rights to the intellectual property in the movie? That they will make vigorous legal action against people who mass-produce such items without obtaining a license? That the rightsholders invariably prevail in such cases?
Are you sure you're talking about copyright law, and not trademark law? I'm not personally aware of any lawsuits based on copyright law pertaining to halloween costumes, though that of course doesn't mean there aren't any. A halloween costume may very well be a copyright infringement, but if so it's pretty much always *also* a trademark infringement.
Doing a quick Google for <i>"copyright law" costume</i> gives:
http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/unprotected.html "The print found on the fabric of a skirt or jacket is copyrightable, since it exists separately from the utilitarian nature of the clothing. However, there is no copyright in the cut of the cloth, or the design of the skirt or jacket as a whole, since these articles are utilitarian. This is true even of fanciful costumes; no copyright protection is granted to the costume as a whole."
and
http://www.orrick.com/fileupload/513.htm "Elements of Halloween costumes that are separable from the costume itself may be entitled to copyright protection, the Second Circuit held. Chosun sued Chrisha Creations for copying Chosun's Halloween costumes. The district court dismissed the complaint, holding that Halloween costumes are "useful articles" that cannot be protected by copyright law. The Second Circuit reversed. It held that because it is possible that some of the elements of Chosun's costumes could be separated from the overall design without adversely affecting the functionality of the costume, dismissal was improper."
Neither really answer the question of the copyright status of a photo of a Darth Vader costume in general. It would depend on the specifics. But when I try to think of some I kind of come to the conclusion that all of this is kind of discussion over nothing. A photo of a Darth Vader costume would be nice to have in the part of an article which is talking about Darth Vader costumes, but it wouldn't be so useful in say the introductory section of the [[Darth Vader]] article (unless the costume had a probably proprietary image of Darth Vader on the front of it or something).
I'd say the ideal solution for illustrating the [[Darth Vader]] article would be with a free image which depicted Darth Vader. A drawing of Darth Vader need not be a derivative work of an existing non-free Darth Vader image. If you're going to take the requirement of freedom *that* far then you'd exclude pretty much every bit of image or text in the encyclopedia, because pretty much everything is based in some part on other things.
When one wants to write free text about Darth Vader, one reads other (usually proprietary) writings and then summarizes them in one's own words. Likewise, when one wants to draw a free image of Darth Vader shouldn't one view other (usually proprietary) images and then summarize them with one's own artwork?
Anthony