Ask Lemmy

Fair use bud

Technically illegal yes, practically I don't think most people would care. As an artist I'd be stoked to see someone using my work as a pfp. It doesn't generate revenue, it's too small to be exploited in any other meaningful way, so it's just a small statement of personality.

It isn't diverting money from the creator in any way, so even if it was technically not fair use, it'd be unlikely for anything to come of it.

Made me wonder since I changed mine recently: Is a screenshot I take of a video game mine or not? Like my new PFP is a character I made in a game. I didn't male the game, but I arranged the pieces and set the colors and took the picture. Similarly, if I took a photo of the guy in the Mickey Mouse costume at Disney Land, is it mine or Disney's? 🤔

Technically illegal unless you are given permission. I don't think It would not fall under fair use. (Depends on where you live)

Don't think even a nintendo lawyer would care.

We must protect this one!

As long as you arent using it to make a profit or actively trying to harm the brand associated to the image, you'll be right.

If you use art from a less known artist, just say who the artit is in your bio.

Many artists post low-res versions of their work online, and charge for the hi-res ones. They know that the publicly available versions might be used for all sorts of purposes.

Another important distinction is that you aren’t profiting off a mere avatar. Profiting off of someone else’s work without permission is a big no no.

I don’t even remember where my avatar came from.

Copyright is theft from the public domain. Go and be free, emo spiderman

It's almost certainly "fair use", in terms of the American copyright, as what you use as an avatar has absolutely no market impact on the original work.

Ethically speaking I don't see a problem with it unless you try to pass it off as your own work, do it against the wishes or the original creator, represent that work in a bad light, etc.

Technically speaking, it is illegal to even save images you find online to your PC.

However, because that billions of people do it, it is not enforced much less, not even talked about. However, I'd like to clarify that the only time you may run afoul with it, is if you find yourself at odds with a very uptight stock image site like Shutterstock. Simply because they charge money, quite expensively I'll add, just to use stock images. They don't like people finding ways to download stock images from their service.

I do. I don't care.

Personally I think it's okay so long as you give proper credit somewhere to the original artist, and are willing to stop if they ask you to.

Yeah as long as there's no money involved. Like if Mr. Beast was using someones artwork as his profile pic without [citation?], that'd be shitty and there likely would be legal action; however, if it was his personal use account that no one knows about and isn't monetized, there's no issue.

Just tell us who it is that created it ig... or don't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At least in Murican law I'm pretty sure any use of any image that's not public domain could technically be flagged.

Ignoring the legal, morally and just generically, t's good know the origin if you use it routinely. If nothing else someone might ask if they think it looks good. I'm kind of a pic/meme hoarder that wouldn't be able to tell you where the specific origin of most are though.

Technically, it could be copyright infringement, depending on the work, a fair use exemption might apply - for example a screenshot from a game would be less likely to be infringing compared to, say, a painting due to less of the copyrighted work being reproduced and the avatar not being a replacement for the original work (i.e. seeing the screenshot wouldn't give you the same experience as playing the game)

In practice, I doubt very much anyone would ever actually even go so far as to send a cease and desist unless you were impersonating some brand or causing reputational damage.

Morally speaking, I think it's absolutely fine! People have been using copyrighted works in their avatars and signatures (remember those?!) since dial-up was fast enough to cope with it. If someone asks you not to then you should respect that but otherwise I'd say go ahead!

IANAL .. but if you do use it, copy it to your own server so all those accesses don't suck up the bandwidth of the person you copied it from.

If it's owned by a corporation, then fair use and/or non-commercial use may come into play, depending on local legislation. Basically, use it until you get told to stop. It's effectively free advertising until they take exception to you.

For a smaller creator, they're usually more receptive (and responsive) than a corporation, so consider asking permission.

You could go full Weird Al and ask permission of a corporation if you're that way out. But they're more likely to not respond or say no if they have no idea who you are.

Of course, a thing to watch out for is the unlikely occurrence of becoming famous while using that avatar. It can't be your brand because it's someone else's.

So, you might consider pulling a Ray Parker Jr. and (commission someone to) make something that's almost but not entirely unlike the artwork you're trying to use. That said, RPJ did get sued anyway. Maybe take it a couple more notches off similarity.

... oh and try to avoid using AI to clone something.