poster/comic cover reproduction site: need help to find the name of the site

[joecgcmaniac]

I have seen comic stores advertise that if you bring them your favourite comic book cover you own and they wil print it on a 18 x 27 inch canvas. For a fee of course and I am sure it is just not simply production related...Same thing here?

equally infringe-worthy, unless they go get permission or buy the rights to that cover.

 

But also just as hard to enforce (if not harder). You think Disney is going to come to your shop with a cease and desist order?

 

You really think Disney wouldn't?

 

Disney has spent tons of money protecting their other copyrights from these sorts of things, they'll hunt these down also.

[joecgcmaniac]

What's the difference between this and buying comics secondhand? Either way, someone else is profiting from a creator's work. Note: This is a legitimate question for those who know of such things.

 

The comics were produced legally, these posters, not so much. When the comics were sold, the creating company got paid, the poster makers aren't paying for the use of other's creations.

 

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

 

The problem resides in a company profiting from others and not having to pay any royalties or fees for usage. Example:

 

Let's say "Ralph" pays PosterBurner.com $20 to make a poster of GI Joe featuring characters created by Hasbro and drawn by artists paid by Marvel.

 

It costs PosterBurner.com $9 to print and ship a poster.

 

PosterBurner.com pockets $11 making a poster with someone else's idea and someone else's artwork without having to pay any fees to those companies.

 

In essence, they produce something that is not theirs and make money from it.

 

If someone bought a print from me, and then someone else offered to make it 2X bigger for an added price of $20 - that takes money out of *my* pocket. I lose the sale. I lose the opportunity to provide a customer with a bigger print. As the creator of the artwork, it is my perogative to provide customers with what I want - no one else gets to make those determinations - because it's my property.

 

I think people dismiss that because it's a big corporation and they can stand to lose a few bucks. Most infringement is done so out of ignorance not malice - it's not often that I see such blatant infringement like what PosterBurner.com is doing.

 

And again - it's not the repsonsibility of the customer to understand copyright law and licensing - it's the responsibility of the business to conduct themselves ethically in regards to other people's rights and to educate customers when they want something printed that the vendor shouldn't print.

 

But remember, big companies take too much of our money, so we should be allowed to undercut them and take rightful money out of their pockets. As long as we get what we want cheaper, who cares if laws get trampled.

 

[revat]

I have seen comic stores advertise that if you bring them your favourite comic book cover you own and they wil print it on a 18 x 27 inch canvas. For a fee of course and I am sure it is just not simply production related...Same thing here?

equally infringe-worthy, unless they go get permission or buy the rights to that cover.

 

But also just as hard to enforce (if not harder). You think Disney is going to come to your shop with a cease and desist order?

 

You really think Disney wouldn't?

 

Disney has spent tons of money protecting their other copyrights from these sorts of things, they'll hunt these down also.

I think for something bigger or more visible like a big internet website, or a big shop like Midtown in NYC, they'd do it. But for the average comic shop in your average city, or the average small print shop in your average city, I don't think they'd do anything, although they could.

 

What someone like posterburner needs to be careful of, is not the cease and desist, but actually making a lot of money and getting popular, THEN Disney suing for the money owed them. Essentially (unless they seriously hurt the brand), Disney could rake in 'free' extra revenue by suing 2 years from now or at some later date.

[mangbus]

Artists on sites like Society6.com have received cease and desist orders from DC comics over 'fan art' style designs that represent popular DC characters. DC tells the site to pull the items in question down and mails a letter to the artist.

[joecgcmaniac]

I have seen comic stores advertise that if you bring them your favourite comic book cover you own and they wil print it on a 18 x 27 inch canvas. For a fee of course and I am sure it is just not simply production related...Same thing here?

equally infringe-worthy, unless they go get permission or buy the rights to that cover.

 

But also just as hard to enforce (if not harder). You think Disney is going to come to your shop with a cease and desist order?

 

You really think Disney wouldn't?

 

Disney has spent tons of money protecting their other copyrights from these sorts of things, they'll hunt these down also.

I think for something bigger or more visible like a big internet website, or a big shop like Midtown in NYC, they'd do it. But for the average comic shop in your average city, or the average small print shop in your average city, I don't think they'd do anything, although they could.

 

What someone like posterburner needs to be careful of, is not the cease and desist, but actually making a lot of money and getting popular, THEN Disney suing for the money owed them. Essentially (unless they seriously hurt the brand), Disney could rake in 'free' extra revenue by suing 2 years from now or at some later date.

 

Disney files million dollar lawsuit against family business

[joecgcmaniac]

Disney tries to sue children's centers for decorating walls with Disney characters.

 

Disney sued the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, over the unauthorized use of Snow White during the Oscar telecast.

[revat]

Disney tries to sue children's centers for decorating walls with Disney characters.

 

Disney sued the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, over the unauthorized use of Snow White during the Oscar telecast.

 

Haha these are awesome, but they both happened right in Disney's backyards, LA and Florida. And the Oscar telecast is obviously huge, so they have to show strong.

 

Your average comic or print shop in Iowa or Oregon or Delaware? Probably safe. But hopefully the fear of being sued encourages people to follow the laws in place.

[Ryan.]

What's the difference between this and buying comics secondhand? Either way, someone else is profiting from a creator's work. Note: This is a legitimate question for those who know of such things.

 

The comics were produced legally, these posters, not so much. When the comics were sold, the creating company got paid, the poster makers aren't paying for the use of other's creations.

 

The creators still got paid for the original image that the poster is made from. When I sell a comic I am not sending a cut to the original creators of that comic. I'm not saying that stealing images and making posters of them is acceptable; I'm just saying that I'm not seeing a huge difference between doing that and making $5 from flipping the latest hot Image title. Is it as simple as, when you buy a comic firsthand you are free to do with it is as you wish but copying an image outright is indisputably stealing?

[joecgcmaniac]

What's the difference between this and buying comics secondhand? Either way, someone else is profiting from a creator's work. Note: This is a legitimate question for those who know of such things.

 

The comics were produced legally, these posters, not so much. When the comics were sold, the creating company got paid, the poster makers aren't paying for the use of other's creations.

 

The creators still got paid for the original image that the poster is made from. When I sell a comic I am not sending a cut to the original creators of that comic. I'm not saying that stealing images and making posters of them is acceptable; I'm just saying that I'm not seeing a huge difference between doing that and making $5 from flipping the latest hot Image title. Is it as simple as, when you buy a comic firsthand you are free to do with it is as you wish but copying an image outright is indisputably stealing?

 

Bingo (thumbs u

[revat]

What's the difference between this and buying comics secondhand? Either way, someone else is profiting from a creator's work. Note: This is a legitimate question for those who know of such things.

 

The comics were produced legally, these posters, not so much. When the comics were sold, the creating company got paid, the poster makers aren't paying for the use of other's creations.

 

The creators still got paid for the original image that the poster is made from. When I sell a comic I am not sending a cut to the original creators of that comic. I'm not saying that stealing images and making posters of them is acceptable; I'm just saying that I'm not seeing a huge difference between doing that and making $5 from flipping the latest hot Image title. Is it as simple as, when you buy a comic firsthand you are free to do with it is as you wish but copying an image outright is indisputably stealing?

 

I think with your example, something new is being made and copied and resold.

 

If you resold your comic, you are reselling something, not CREATING SOMETHING NEW (using copyrighted source material) and selling it. Like think if it wasn't just the cover poster. What if you recopied an entire comic book at like 1.5 x the size and just sold that copy? I think most of us can agree that is wrong. If copying a whole book is wrong, copying the cover is too.