Quote:
Originally Posted by rhettyeakley
The maker of these cards is not a person i’d want to deal with based on his responses to the previous threads on Net54.
Even if I thought I wanted one of these cards the maker is knowingly breaking the law by not getting permission to use the likenesses of those being depicted. Many of the players are not highly monitored nor is it worth the time for anyone to care but other players or entities representing those players do require permission to use an image of that person for profit. You can’t simple use The image of Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, etc without permission but this “artist” does so regularly and he knows it. There is a reason he doesn’t do current players... he’d get sued. He is banking on the fact that nobody is going to bother trying to stop him on the more obscure players. The fact that he uses images of living players and doesn’t compensate them for the use of their image is criminal to me (if you are going to make money using someone like Rod Carew’s image you should be paying Rod Carew for the right to do so!!!)
The fact that these are called “art cards” is ridiculous, the maker is simply using photoshop and other digital methods to alter images and trying to circumvent the law by saying he is making “art”
The reality is that these at best aren’t good for the hobby and at worst they are breaking established copyright and licensing laws.
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The whole field of IP is a minefield. Images from before 1923 are public domain, but certain public figures have a "right to publicity" or something like that that can vary from state to state.
I'm fairly sure that not all of the Helmar cards are simply done digitally. Before they got really popular, some were being sold that were supposedly actual original art that cards had been made from. The size didn't seem right, but there are people who do art specifically on baseball card sized cardstock.