copyright question

Frank Fusco

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Mountain Home, Arkansas
I'm hoping we have an expert on copyright here.
I am pretty much OK when it comes to written works but, in this case, I am wondering about painted or drawn artistic works.
I am a fan of artist Bev Doolittle. Each year my wife gives me a new Doolittle calendar. I now have a collection of these going back a number of years. Lately, I got to thinking they might be saleable if I separate each picture, frame it and offer on eBay.
I have seen these offered but they always have a caveat the seller is not offering the picture, just the frame and the pic just happens to be inside. Kinda phoney, IMHO. But why the comment at all?
I know a copyright book can be resold. And a turned artistic vase can be resold. So, why not possibly a print of a painting?
BTW, below is one of my favorites.
 

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Frank so long as you are not claiming to be the artist and reproducing the image then you are not breaking any copyright laws. It is my understanding that you can resell an original anything that you have paid for and at what ever price that you can get for it so long as you don't copy it. The CD and music issue with the copyright issues have polorized this issue in that I can give you a cd or sell you a cd but I can't make copies of it to sel. I know I have gone through a long battle over one of my photos of an eagle that an unscupulous photographer aquired at a photo store in Prince rupert where the owner had permission to sell them, This fellow made copies of my pictuire and put them on post cards for his own gain without my permission.
 
Lately, I got to thinking they might be saleable if I separate each picture, frame it and offer on eBay.
I have seen these offered but they always have a caveat the seller is not offering the picture, just the frame and the pic just happens to be inside. Kinda phoney, IMHO. But why the comment at all?
I know a copyright book can be resold. And a turned artistic vase can be resold. So, why not possibly a print of a painting?

Frank,

There isn't actually much of a question here. An artist painted a picture. Someone, presumably with permission, made a print of that picture and sold it. You then bought the print, the object. The object is yours to sell, as long as you represent it faithfully in the process of selling.

Yes, the artist has the right to exclusively sanction for original sale reproductions of her work. But once that original sale has been made, the object can be resold, as if it were, say, a candy bar. I can buy a snickers bar for fifty cents, and sell it to you for a dollar.

What I can't do is make a bunch of candy bars, exactly like a snickers bar, put a snickers label on them, and sell them. That's the case that Drew mentioned with the postcard, and that's clearly illegal, even if it's difficult to pursue the malefactor...

Hope this helps,

Thanks,

Bill
 
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