Royalties and Patents

Hi,

I would like to use some images of famous paintings to make a puzzle game. On allposters.com there is this message:

Which I guess means that I can't use any of the images there? Of course there are other sites that contain images of the same paintings without such a message.
Is there any rule of thumb I should follow when snatching images from the internet?

Also, is there a way (a website maybe) I can easily check if a game has a gameplay patent?

thanks a lot

 

The genereral rule of thumb is: don't snatch images from the web. Period.

As fas as I know the only exception can be classical paintings - if the artist is dead over 70 (?) years and relatives of the artist haven't renewed any copyright then the depiction of the image goes over to public domain. I'm not 100% sure on that, though.
Check Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Maybe you can find something there.

 

If you don't own it, or have written permission to use it, don't try to make money with it. That's my philosophy. If you're just making a game that you won't profit from, then I would say go for it.

 

This may not work for your game idea but I partnered with a photographer. In my case we're using the photos for 3d textures and web site images. This it handles the copyright issues and could give you a large library of photos to work with.

Josh

 

Thanks for the replies.
Obviously I am not Picasso so I am not going to make the paintings myself. There must be some way to obtain permission to use these kind of images, no?
I just checked, and there is already an iphone puzzle game that uses famous paintings.

Also, any ideas on the second question about game patents?

 

I found this answer on the web

and also these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_image_resources
http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm

 

Just remember an interesting thing about copyrights. They don't say you can't do something; just you can't without permission. I bring this up because it's often forgotten.

If you like some art (be it paintings, pictures, models, sound, music) by all means try to get in touch with the original artist and ask about it!

Many artists love having their work used and don't mind others using it, especially other independents just doing stuff for 'fun' while others are willing to work out quite fair deals.

The main point of this system is that it's up to the artist (please, no RIAA talk heh) so don't hesitate to try to talk to them -- heck, even if an agreement can't be worked out 99% of artists will just love to hear you liked their work!

 

Thanks Timmer for the reply. This is very much the way I see it too. Unfortunately the artists that I had in mind are no longer alive. I asked allposters.com since they sell these images and here's the reply I got:

Anyway, I will stick with paintings before 1923... This should be fine I think.