Heh - I recognise some of the objects you've used in your illustrations! What's the story?!

This could take a while - so grab a coldie, sit back, relax, and let me take you on a brief exploration of the world of intellectual property rights. Please do keep in mind that everything on this page is nothing but an opinion; there is no legal advice here no matter how hard you look.

The Executive Summary

The law is one thing; enforcement of the law another; the threat of legal action is yet another.

Intellectual Property laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, country to country. This article, such as it is, is about Australian law.

Copyright only applies to artistic works. Products, even Maseratis, are not artistic works when it comes to the application of copyright law. Artistic works covers areas such as literary works, musical works, art works, dramatic works, and performance. Artistic merit is not a criteria for defining an artistic work. Australian copyright law recognises some specific moral rights for the copyright holder. The Attorney-General's Department handles matters of copyright.

Trade Marks are used to establish a brand. They may be a word or phrase, a symbol or other image, a letter or a number, or a combination of any of these. Trade marks are used to uniquely identify a corporation and the products it produces. A Trade Mark must be registered (with IP Australia) to be enforceable.

Designs are used to define a specific product. To register a Design it must be both new and unique. A Design may be registered with IP Australia, and doing so makes it easier to determine where an infringement has occurred and to enforce the Design holder's rights.

Photography is an artistic work. Copyright over the image belongs to the photographer as soon as the shutter closes. There is no need to register that copyright, though doing so makes detection of infringement and enforcement of the copyright holder's rights easier. You can photograph anything you like with a few specific exceptions. These exceptions are noted in legislation (such as the recent anti-terrorism laws).

In a nutshell:

Holding the copyright over an artistic work allows the copyright holder to prevent others from copying the work, deriving a new work from the original work, or claiming that they created the work.

Holding a Trade Mark means that others cannot display or use that Trade Mark on their products or packaging. Doing so implies that there is an association with the Trade Mark holder where none exists. 3rd parties may license a Trade Mark from the Trade Mark holder in order to display it and/or incorporate it into their products.

Holding the Design rights over an object/product prevents others from manufacturing that product. This includes importing that product from a manufacturer who does not hold the Design rights. It also includes retailing that product from a distributor who has sourced the product from a manufacturer who does not hold the Design rights. In other words. when you hold the Design rights others can't simply make "fakes" and sell them.

When you take a photograph of someone there is every chance that the image will contain a wide variety of products over which a variety of individuals and corporations may well hold a variety of commercial rights -- be that Copy Rights, Trade Marks, and/or Design Rights. Taking that photograph does not infringe those rights, and the copyright over the photograph belongs to the photographer. That image can be sold; the photographer is entitled to sell the artistic works over which they hold copyright. Regardless of the legal position of the photographer's artistic work, there may be those who will seek to prevent the taking of the image, the sale of the image, and/or the publishing of the image. The courts are there to sort out this kind of situation.