• FreeAdvice has a new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, effective May 25, 2018.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our Terms of Service and use of cookies.

Copyrighting upcycled items

Accident - Bankruptcy - Criminal Law / DUI - Business - Consumer - Employment - Family - Immigration - Real Estate - Tax - Traffic - Wills   Please click a topic or scroll down for more.

Jenni81

Junior Member
Can items made from recycled books be copyrighted as a new item? Specifically an ornament made from recycled book pages from multiple authors put into a commercially produced fillable glass or plastic ornament?

Thanks!
 


quincy

Senior Member
Can items made from recycled books be copyrighted as a new item? Specifically an ornament made from recycled book pages from multiple authors put into a commercially produced fillable glass or plastic ornament?

Thanks!
What is the name of your state, Jenni81, or, if not in the US, what is the name of your country?

If you are in the US, what you are describing APPEARS to be a "transformative" use of copyrighted materials.

Transforming a copyrighted work into a new work with new meaning and expression is not considered infringement. Transformative works will have their own copyrights and can be registered with the US Copyright Office.

That said, there are numerous cases filed by copyright owners against those who have used their copyrighted works as the basis for new works. The specifics of use need to be evaluated before it can be determined if your use would infringe on the rights of copyright holders.

You can search online for cases filed against the appropriation artist, Jeff Koons. He takes portions from others' copyrighted works to create his own artwork. He has won some cases (where the works he created were judged transformative) and he has lost other cases (where the works he created were judged to be derivatives of the original - creating derivatives is an exclusive right of the copyright holder).

Other cases to look at (and I can provide links later) are: Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 US 569 (1994), and Cariou v. Prince, US Court of Appeals, 2nd Circiruit, No. 11-1197 (2012), and Leibowitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp, 137 F.3d 109, 2nd Circuit N.Y. (1998) ... there are many, many others that discuss transformative works versus derivative works.
 
Last edited:

Jenni81

Junior Member
Hi Quincy. I am in Massachusetts.

Is this something I could copyright? Or would my creations just be covered under transformative use (for the most part) and something like this can't be copyrighted?
 

quincy

Senior Member
Hi Quincy. I am in Massachusetts.

Is this something I could copyright? Or would my creations just be covered under transformative use (for the most part) and something like this can't be copyrighted?
Thank you for providing your state name, Jenni81.

Transformative works have copyrights that can be registered with the US Copyright Office. But registration of the copyrighted work is not necessary to have copyrights in the work. The copyrights exist once the new work has been fixed in a tangible (or fixed) form.

What transformative works are, are works that take parts of the copyrighted works of other authors to create entirely new and different works. Determining whether a work you create is transformative and not infringing, however, is often difficult. It is difficult because, if a copyright holder believes their work has been infringed by you, the copyright holder can decide to sue you for infringement. It will then be a court that makes that determination. You want to avoid a lawsuit if at all possible. :)

There are four main factors that are looked at when deciding whether a use of another's work infringes. These factors are the purpose and character of the new use; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and the effect of the new use upon the potential market for or value of the original copyrighted work. I can go into more detail on this, if necessary, but the cases I will provide links to later will detail them for you.

Now, if you use recycled book pages from books published prior to 1923, copyright infringement is no longer an issue because the books are in the public domain and can be used by anyone for any purpose. If the books are newer books, and perhaps especially if they are newer picture books, what shows of the book in the glass globes and how the globes are marketed could potentially be seen as infringing (not only on copyrights but on trademark rights).

I cannot tell you, in other words, if a copyright holder would find your use of their works infringing. All I can tell you from this distance is that the globes you are creating sound to me as if they would be transformative works and, therefore, not infringing. You will want to have the actual globes, and the copyrighted works you intend to use, personally looked at by an IP attorney in your area of Massachusetts to get a more definitive answer.

Good luck.
 
Last edited:

quincy

Senior Member
Rogers v. Koons, 751 F. Supp, 474 (S.D.N.Y. 1990): http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/751/474/1745065/

Blanch v. Koons, 467 F.3d 244, 2nd Cir (2006): https://cyber.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/IP/2006 Blanch Abridged.pdf

Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 US 569 (1994): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/92-1292.ZO.html

Cariou v. Prince, US Court of Appeals, 2nd Circiruit, No. 11-1197 (2012): https://cyber.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/cx/2013_Cariou.pdf

Leibowitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp, 137 F.3d 109, 2nd Circuit N.Y. (1998): http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit/1306605.html


Above are links to the cases I mentioned above. All discuss the four major factors looked at by a court in an infringement suit when the defendants claim their works are fair uses of the plaintiffs' copyrighted works (transformative works rather derivative/infringing works).
 

Find the Right Lawyer for Your Legal Issue!

Fast, Free, and Confidential
data-ad-format="auto">
Top