Drawing people

[hae]

Isn't it wrong to draw and sell celebrity drawings? I never draw them since there is such a big deal made about it. So is there any way, reason or circumstance you can draw and sell celebrities pictures?

[ehoeveler]

Once their pictures are splashed across the internet they become public
property to the extent that you can draw and paint them without legal repercussions. E

[hae]

Thanks E, I never did draw them since I've heard that their image was a copyright. I don't know about selling them but I see it happen all the time. There should be no such worrying about selling a drawing unless you put something bad in the picture, but that's not always the case so I've read. There are better things to draw I guess. haha

[ehoeveler]

Go ahead and draw what you want and I say this because a pencil, charcoal or painted rendering is NOT like the internet photo.
You've interpreted this photo in a different way, therefore the rendering is Yours and not subject to copyright law. E

[johnwalkeasy]

Well Look, If somebody like that takes you to court. you've hit the big time.

[hae]

yeah i hear ya john....haha

[Artsupplies]

Agree with Ehoeveler When the pictures become public on internet than anybody can use them . You can see several people use celebrity pics as their profile pics on social media accounts. So you can do what you want just avoid to do something bad.

[Jwalk]

I dont know all the rules about that, all I can add is dont do some one thats not classy.

[eddieblz]

Painting or drawing a celebrity and selling that piece may be alright because once that person becomes a public figure the become public domain.
Now what you use as source material to create that likeness could be a problem because the copyright of that source material belongs to the photographer or artist who created it. Also the celebrity may own the copyrights to the source material being used. So they may not be able to sue and artist for creating an image of them but the celebrity can sue the artist for using copyrighted material to create that image.

Here's a link that helps to explain copyright laws.
http://www.copylaw.com/new_articles/copy_myths.html

Personally I've used plenty of images as source material over the years and generally I get permission to to use the images before I begin. I've found that other artists and photographer are generally pretty good when they are contacted first.

[CarlOwen]

Well thank you Eddie. My movie muses are going to disappear.

[eddieblz]

Well thank you Eddie. My movie muses are going to disappear.

[Blurhead]

Just echoing what some other people have commented above regarding copyright etc.

The problem really comes from the owner of the copyright for the actual image used as a reference for the drawing/painting.
It seems that "most" owners do not have any issues, although this seems to change very rapidly if you decide to sell prints or t-shirts of your artwork using the image reference.
Selling a one-off drawing "should" not cause an issue as this is an original drawing/painting, but as stated above - if you decide to start selling prints then beware.

I had an issue with a drawing I did of Humphrey Bogart when the "estate" of the actor complained to a website and they took it down, even though I was just showing it on a forum similar to this one, that is a celebrity who passed away in 1957 !
I have other drawings of celebrities that I have not had an issue with though, if you can get permission to use the photo as reference - do so !

[Blurhead]

There has been some accurate, and a lot of not accurate posts on this subject.
This however seems to be an interesting article that anyone interested in this topic may like to read:
https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/what ... yright-law

[yuli455]

It's no wrong:(