Dis board photo calendar?

[Groucho]

as I stated before I initially posted what I did, because someone asked if it would attract trouble from disney, actually it was You who initially stated...

Yes, I certainly did say that.

However, nearly all of yours responses have taken the form of "it's not OK because any time you make money from Disney it's illegal" (including "they could even ban cameras" !!! - the day they ban cameras from Disney parks is the day they start selling Little Mermaid pornography) yet this was clearly stated to be a project where no one made any money. In your responses to me, you seem to state that things done that don't make money are fine, yet you still specifically think the calendar is a violation.

My disagreement is that I feel that I'm consistent in believing that it's probably not 100% legal (just like tattoos, custom car graphics, or the Disney mural in one my the rooms at my son's pediatrician's office) but it's unlikely that Disney will really care... but you have now and in the past been quick to point out possible copyright violations by others in non-profit situations while excusing or at least ignoring your own. I'm sorry if you don't see it that way, but that's how it looks from the outside. (Ditto on the lecturing vs non-lecturing.)

Frankly, I couldn't care less what you put on your car. I have a small die-cut vinyl graphic on the back of my car of a logo that is sold by someone who I'm sure doesn't have the rights to, but there's no legal version sold. Technically it's illegal, but it's such a minor thing (especially as this logo is almost unknown in this country) that I'm not really worried about it. I'm not going to give you a hard time about them, just want to point out that whether or not you cut them yourself, they are almost certainly technically a copyright infringement - a minor one, but still one.

 

[Groucho]

Lastly, and I don't really want to jump in or start a debate, but I'm still confused on why you can't take photos in a Disney park and then sell them??? I work in marketing, and I understand that when we purchase stock photos that we can only use them for our own purposes, can't share them, can't use them for personal projects, etc. etc. But how can Disney tell you not to sell photos taken in the parks?

My understanding is that that's all copyrighted stuff inside the parks - it's not like you're walking down Main Street of your own town, you're in a Disney cocoon at the park (especially WDW vs DL), and especially when there are Disney characters in the photo.

But hey, I'm not a lawyer. (Although I did work at a fairly ritzy law firm for a couple years.) But I'd be hesitant to try to sell any photos from there myself. Maybe I'll know more one of these days - like Mark, the idea of maybe working on a photography at WDW book bounced through my mind a couple times, too (Mark, if you get serious, let me know ), that would certainly involve some Disney lawyer discussions.

 

[MICKEY88]

Why not just ask Disney if it is OK? I can think of three responses:

1) They could say that it's OK and our problem is solved.
2) They could say that it's not OK and be on sound legal footing to say so, in which case we know not to do it.
3) They could say that it's not OK but not actually be able to prevent us from doing so legally. If that's the case, most people would probably not want to do it anyway as most people here are fans of Disney. Whether they could stop us would be irrelevent; simply not wanting us to do it would suffice.

Non-lawyers arguing about the legality of something is amusing, but it rarely leads to an accurate assessment of law.

no one is arguing, I'm simply repeating what Disney legal dept told me....I would think that relaying info given by disney attorneys, would be a fairly accurate representation of the law,

although I'm not an attorney, my comments are also based on 22 years of working in an office full of attorneys, and extensive research of photography laws in the past when I had a photography business, and wanted to make sure everything I did was legal...

I'm not going to say anymore on the subject, I was just trying to add some info that might help people decide if they should follow thru on the project or not.

 

[MICKEY88]

Yes, I certainly did say that.

However, nearly all of yours responses have taken the form of "it's not OK because any time you make money from Disney it's illegal" (including "they could even ban cameras" !!! - the day they ban cameras from Disney parks is the day they start selling Little Mermaid pornography)


that statement is ludicrous, my statement was based on having seen other venues decide to ban cameras after deciding that it was the easiest way to stop the sale of pictures without a release.yet this was clearly stated to be a project where no one made any money. In your responses to me, you seem to state that things done that don't make money are fine, yet you still specifically think the calendar is a violation.

My disagreement is that I feel that I'm consistent in believing that it's probably not 100% legal (just like tattoos, custom car graphics, or the Disney mural in one my the rooms at my son's pediatrician's office) but it's unlikely that Disney will really care... but you have now and in the past been quick to point out possible copyright violations by others in non-profit situations while excusing or at least ignoring your own. I'm sorry if you don't see it that way, but that's how it looks from the outside. (Ditto on the lecturing vs non-lecturing.)


Frankly, I couldn't care less what you put on your car. I have a small die-cut vinyl graphic on the back of my car of a logo that is sold by someone who I'm sure doesn't have the rights to, but there's no legal version sold. Technically it's illegal, but it's such a minor thing (especially as this logo is almost unknown in this country) that I'm not really worried about it. I'm not going to give you a hard time about them, just want to point out that whether or not you cut them yourself, they are almost certainly technically a copyright infringement - a minor one, but still one.

not excusing or ignoring, as I have said repeatedly I checked with Disney legal dept before doing the graphics..

I had initially contacted the advertising dept, to see if they had ever considered autowrapping, vehicles in the northeast as a way of advertising, from there the conversation went to doing graphics for a showcar, and was transferred to the legal dept.

now as in the past I was just trying to share the info I had been given directly from Disney...

if you choose to take it in any other way, that is your choice...

I would appreciate it though if you would PM me and tell me just exactly what I've done to incur your wrath...

 

[MICKEY88]

I think this sounds like a fun idea, but I agree with a previous poster that I've already got all of the calendars that I need for this year. I would contribute photos if you decide to move forward with the project, but probably would not buy a calendar.

What about another photomosaic project? That is something I would not do myself, but would love a poster of the castle or some other Disney "icon" to frame.

Lastly, and I don't really want to jump in or start a debate, but I'm still confused on why you can't take photos in a Disney park and then sell them??? I work in marketing, and I understand that when we purchase stock photos that we can only use them for our own purposes, can't share them, can't use them for personal projects, etc. etc. But how can Disney tell you not to sell photos taken in the parks?

If you took the photos, you own them, right? Does it say in park brochures or is it written anywhere obvious that this is their policy? I just don't see how they can control it. I guess I've never seen Disney photo for sale, per se, somewhere that wasn't Disney or an official Disney site. But if photography is art, then how can they control art that we create???

any time you take photos of privately owned property/real estate/buildings etc.

you need a property release, just as you need a model release to sell photos of someone else,

even if you are walking down the main street of your hometown, and take pictures of someones house, you can not legally sell that photo without a property release.

 

[rtphokie]

any time you take photos of privately owned property/real estate/buildings etc.

you need a property release, just as you need a model release to sell photos of someone else,

even if you are walking down the main street of your hometown, and take pictures of someones house, you can not legally sell that photo without a property release.

The law is pretty clear cut when it comes to photos of people. It's rare that getting a model release form signed is a waste of time. I've been shooting some stock photography and stick to including my own family or making sure that faces cant be seen to avoid having to deal with the complexities of model releases.

Property releases are more complex,

The guiding principle, that of course is muddled with exceptions, is that as long as a photograph of private property is taken while the photographer is on public property or on property that is open to the public then it is permissible to publish that photograph without permission from the owner of the property.

The article below goes on to point out that there may be exceptions for photos of a "well-recognized product" or "a building where the building design is protected by a federal trademark". This smells like Disney to me.

However, I think if we stick to the more esoteric subjects that the photogs on this board seem to love, we'll be alright.

More information

Someone mentioned going with a photo mosaic instead. I'd be glad to put one of those together as well. The one we did for the Disney Cruise Board is still available here:
http://www.cafepress.com/dismosaic

 

[MICKEY88]

The law is pretty clear cut when it comes to photos of people. It's rare that getting a model release form signed is a waste of time. I've been shooting some stock photography and stick to including my own family or making sure that faces cant be seen to avoid having to deal with the complexities of model releases.

Property releases are more complex,

The guiding principle, that of course is muddled with exceptions, is that as long as a photograph of private property is taken while the photographer is on public property or on property that is open to the public then it is permissible to publish that photograph without permission from the owner of the property.

The article below goes on to point out that there may be exceptions for photos of a "well-recognized product" or "a building where the building design is protected by a federal trademark". This smells like Disney to me.

However, I think if we stick to the more esoteric subjects that the photogs on this board seem to love, we'll be alright.

More information

Someone mentioned going with a photo mosaic instead. I'd be glad to put one of those together as well. The one we did for the Disney Cruise Board is still available here:
http://www.cafepress.com/dismosaic

the article continues and offers this conclusion though..


Conclusion

Regretfully, there are no guarantees that an identifiable person or owner of property in a photograph would threaten to or bring a legal action for publishing a particular photograph. Therefore, the only way a publisher can be almost risk free from such lawsuit is by obtaining a written release from any person(s) or owner(s) of property that appear in a photograph.


there is also a difference between publishing a photo and selling it for profit,

the book I have on photography laws, gives the following example of why a property release should ALWAYS be obtained,

you walk down the street of any town USA, see a nice house, take a picture then sell it to a stock agency, they in turn sell it to someone doing an article on crack houses, the pic is just a background photo in the article....

the property owner sees the article, recognizes their house, they now have a valid lawsuit since their house has been portrayed in a neagtive way...

 

[barrie]

I think this is a really hard one to figure out. I've been trying for sometime to figure out what Disney related photos are ok to put on cafepress or zazzle and what aren't. Some things are deleted immediately, while others are left there indefinately.

The research I have done has led me to these guidelines:

• You cannot sell photos of characters or any of the entertainment people without a release because they are backed by a union.
• You can't sell photos of any recognizable trademark. I had a photo deleted from zazzle that had the ESPN sign in it. So nothing that says Disney anywhere.
• You can't sell a photo that is focused on a person that has not given a release. If it's a shot of the castle that has a crowd in it, it seems like it's ok. But if it looks like you are focusing on any particular person or people, you have to have a release.
• Even though the shopowner wouldn't be making any money off the calendar, cafepress would be making a profit so the rules would have to be adhered to.

Those are the only rules or guidelines that I have been able to nail down.

There is conflicting information all over the place though. Tim Devine has his photos for sale but other people have had their entire vacation albums deleted on photobucket. I've had some photos deleted from zazzle, but not others. Some things on cafepress seem to be safe if I don't tag them with Disney but other people have Disney stuff on there that is tagged.

Disney doesn't have any clear guidelines posted on the internet anywhere that I can find. Places like zazzle and cafepress won't give specific information, only that it "infringed on trademark guidelines". Tim Devine sidestepped the question when asked on this board how is is able to do it.

My suggestion would be to give it a shot, but follow the guidelines above - that is if you're willing to do the work and take a chance that it may be pulled. Barrie

 

[Groucho]

I would appreciate it though if you would PM me and tell me just exactly what I've done to incur your wrath...

I think I've stated in the thread exactly what I've disagreed with. (And believe me, this is not my wrath, you should see me on a non-Disney forum. ) When I initially asked if you contacted Disney legal about your decals, you didn't respond. I took that as a fairly clear signal that you had not and just didn't want to answer the question. If you hadn't, it would be pretty hypocritical to post every time copyright came up in a hard-line defense of copyrights while in clear copyright violation with your car.

If you have checked with Disney Legal, then fine, I shan't bring that up again and I apologize for my assumption.

However, in this thread specifically, I think you haven't specifically stated why you think that some things that make no profit are OK (decals, projects, etc) and that other things that make no profit are not OK (a calendar that would go unadvertised and be sold at cost with zero profit to those working on it.)

You also should admit that statements like the following are unnecessarily heavy-handed.

t all sounds good but the bottom line is you are still trying to circumnavigate the copyright laws, and do something that will cut into disney's profit on calendars, while it appears great on the surface, you are blatantly doing this on a website monitored by Disney, although technically legal, Disney could be miffed enough to stop cameras from entering the parks...

I'll restate my early sentence. The day a Disney park bans cameras is the day they offer half-price admission to convinced murders and instruct CMs to point with just one finger instead of two, and I don't mean the index finger. It ain't gonna happen. Implying that someone is doing something wrong by even discussing it, and that they could be personally responsible for Disney punishing everyone by banning cameras, is rather silly, to put it mildly.

To put it even more simply: Relax, we're all here to have fun.

 

[Groucho]

Disney doesn't have any clear guidelines posted on the internet anywhere that I can find. Places like zazzle and cafepress won't give specific information, only that it "infringed on trademark guidelines". Tim Devine sidestepped the question when asked on this board how is is able to do it.

I obviously can't speak for Tim, but I would assume that most places that sell Disney photos online have a simple way for avoiding trouble - "keep your head down"! Everything is legal until Disney catches you.

 

[TomPokNY]

A new approach: everyone pick a month, contributors can make their pages full print size, and someone with a lot of web space can host the files for a time. We will download the files and print them ourselves.

And for those who do not own calendar-creating software, I came across this neat website that can create a simple calendar page from an image on your hard drive.

 

[barrie]

Tom - great link. I tried it. Took all of 5 minutes to create this calendar page. This seems like a really easy way to do this - then people could just choose to print out whatever pages they wanted, free.

Maybe we could set up a flickr group just for calendar pages. I'm not that familiar with flickr groups but I'm thinking it can't be that hard.

OK - well, I had to see if the group idea would work so I set one up. Here's a link to it: http://flickr.com/groups/wdwcalendars/. I made it a public group so anyone can post to it.

 

[TomPokNY]

Tom - great link. I tried it. Took all of 5 minutes to create this calendar page. This seems like a really easy way to do this - then people could just choose to print out whatever pages they wanted, free.

Maybe we could set up a flickr group just for calendar pages. I'm not that familiar with flickr groups but I'm thinking it can't be that hard.

OK - well, I had to see if the group idea would work so I set one up. Here's a link to it: http://flickr.com/groups/wdwcalendars/. I made it a public group so anyone can post to it.

I like your idea of setting up a group for calendars - it makes the pages available to those here who want them, yet hopefully sidesteps some of the copyright/trademark issues that have been discussed.

And I see you've already been busy posting some! Should we use the group to post complete calendar pages, or just the images, so that people have the flexibility to create a page for the month and size they need?

 

[barrie]

Hey Tom - I'm thinking that the group page should just have completed pages to keep it from turning into another photo gallery.

The group is all set up and already has 5 members. Two different people have posted 35 calendar pages so far. I'm one of them - I went kind of crazy and did a whole year's worth of pages. Then I used the flickr mosaic tool to create a page with all 12 months on one page.

If anyone wants this or any of the other calendars, you can download them from the WDW Calendar Pages group in several different sizes. To download any of the calendar pages, just click on the "All Sizes" button right above the photo. Once it's saved to your computer you can just print it out or set it as your desktop background.

One really cool thing about this is that you can mix and match pages from different people to create your own personalized calendar. I also like that although my calendar pages are up for grabs, my original photos are not. Oh, and since there is no money being exchanged, Disney should have no problem with it (for the time being anyway!).

So now we just need people to add pages to the group... come on, it's super easy!

 

[rtphokie]

Now that the arguing has died down I'd like to resurrect the original idea. Seemed like there is enough interest so I'd like to something together and make it available for printing via CafePress.

I'm no lawyer but don't see a big problem with this. The only party making a profit from it is the one that's doing the printing. It's no different than putting a group of photos up on a site like SnapFish or oFoto and making them available for sale. CafePress offers a printing service. That being said we need to be careful not to include logos and characters just to be sure. If Disney or CafePress has anything to say about it, it's coming down.

Anyone who is interested in including any of their photos, send me a private message with instructions on where to get at them. Something like:

• You can use the photos in my <fill in the blank> album at the following URL (something like Flickr or SmugMug oryour personal homepage)
• You are welcome to use any of the photos I've entered in the photo contests on the photography board under the username <fill in the blank>
• Here are URLs to the photos I'd like to contribute to the calendar

Please PM me by Jan 26.

Let me see what gets submitted and then I'll put together some ideas. I'd like to lean heavily on the photos which have won contests in 2006 where possible. It may be 1 photo per page, it may be a collage, it may be more scrapbooky. I'll hope to have at least one photomosaic in there as well.

I'd like to reserve the cover for Dan Murphy, winner of the best of 2006 if he's agreeable.

 

[Groucho]

I would think that if one was to be done, it might be fun to make it a small contest - first, come up with a theme for each month, to try to give a balance.

For example, obviously December would have to be "Christmas at Disney". Other themes could be resorts, Epcot Future World, Epcot World Showcase, MGM, transportation, flowers, Animal Kingdom, Disneyland, a castle, Magic Kingdom, etc. Once a nice balance of themes is set, that could be a recurring pattern for future years.

Then, maybe run mini-contests (if they wouldn't interfere with the existing weekly content) and let people contribute, making it clear what the intention of is - so the photos would have to be in a specific aspect ratio and the photographer would be willing to give the full resolution version to the person organizing the calendar.

I do think it's a little late for a 2007 calendar (unless you can do a half-year or maybe an 18-month old) so we have plenty of time to prepare a 2008 one.

 

[boBQuincy]

I made a calendar page from my image of Tinkerbell (macro). I went for February since 05 Feb is when "Peter Pan" was released.
The calendar page is posted in 8 x 10x 300dpi size at:

http://www.mindspring.com/~edwardteach/wdw/calendar_2293a.jpg

 

[rtphokie]

I would think that if one was to be done, it might be fun to make it a small contest - first, come up with a theme for each month, to try to give a balance.

For example, obviously December would have to be "Christmas at Disney". Other themes could be resorts, Epcot Future World, Epcot World Showcase, MGM, transportation, flowers, Animal Kingdom, Disneyland, a castle, Magic Kingdom, etc. Once a nice balance of themes is set, that could be a recurring pattern for future years.

Then, maybe run mini-contests (if they wouldn't interfere with the existing weekly content) and let people contribute, making it clear what the intention of is - so the photos would have to be in a specific aspect ratio and the photographer would be willing to give the full resolution version to the person organizing the calendar.

I do think it's a little late for a 2007 calendar (unless you can do a half-year or maybe an 18-month old) so we have plenty of time to prepare a 2008 one.

I hope to do something thematic like you are referring to that as well. Hard to tell what's possible until we have a number of photos people are willing to share.

As for the photo quality, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Any pages that have just a single photo will need higher quality than what is posted here. 800x600 or even smaller will probably be okay for collage pages made up of a number of photos.

Another alternative is Shutterfly. You can begin the calendar on any month you want there. No ambiguity about them, they are definitely just a printing service, not any opportunity for anyone to make any money (beyond the printer). They are a bit more expensive though

Another option is DigiLabs. They produce a more arty looking calendar that looks like this:

 

[Groucho]

Well, I'm certainly happy to contribute but gathering images is the easy part, I think.

One other option, I suppose, would be to have a "featured photographer" for each month, and have a collage of their favorite photos. That would obviously require 12 good (wo)men and true to step up and agree to participate.

I guess it depends on what folks would like to see in their calendar.

 

[Snurk71]

Considering that you can't legally get a Disney tattoo on your own body, I'm pretty sure that custom graphics on your car are out, too.

Whoa!!! You mean my Mickey tattoo is techincally illegal?

I had better watch myself in the pool and at the water parks. I wouldn't want a bunch of lawyers pulling me out of the pool.