White Lion Pub Copyright Issue

Drip

Design Anvil - Razor42 said:

The only real concern I would have with this product, based on the promos, is one very small detail that I know does require licencing and has some protections in place for certain forms of distribution or commericialisation. But even that would be up for legal debate as to whether the protections extend to this form of product or distribution or images created from it. Photographs bearing the same are generally considered okay for commercial usage.The laws had a very specific usage target in mind but could be considered more generalised across the board. (Bonus points if you can guess what I am referring to here).

Someone already mentioned that the streetsigns use a different, slightly wider, font from the one used in real life, and since I can't discern whether there's any markings on the sewerlids, the only guess I have left would be the streetlanterns?

Design Anvil - Razor42

Yep, you have it straight up. Well done, apologies I did miss the earlier reference to the signs.

My only concern would be the street signs as they are protected by copyright and not just the font, the enitre design is protected. The only way this wouldn't be a copyright issue is to argue the usage is transformative (being a digital representation and not an actual enamel sign) as the design content is at least 95% identical and the changes seem superficial. Displaying the 'City of Westminster' mark doesn't help.

 

'Westminster City Council is now the sole owner of the iconic red-and-black lettered enamel steel signs, as well as of the copyright to their original drawings and design briefs from Black’s estate.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7335994.stm

 

'To avoid copyright infringement, you need to make substantial changes to the original work. The key here is transformation, ensuring that the content becomes distinctly yours by altering its structure, language, and overall expression." 

https://www.copyrighted.com/blog/how-much-do-you-need-to-change-to-avoid-copyright-infringement

 

It would be a hard case to make that the street sign isn't copying the city of westminster street sign to a large degree. Considering it actually is depicted as a City of Westminster street sign of an actual westminster street.

Though as far as I am aware there have been no cases fought over similar usage by westminster city, improper usage without permission is generally a 5000 pound fine for sovernir sellers in London. Though who knows truly what the legal ramifactions are here if any, as it is highly unlikely to escalate from this kind of usage tbh. But highly unlikey is not never...

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If an agency reject images because assets 'might' be similar to a real world item, how do they feel when other artists use exactly the same assets as are submitted to the agency in images? Surely that is potentially more of a copyright problem for the agency than an image looking like a real building?.