Inchie on an ATC

LOL love your flaking comment! How about an International one next time round!

Love your flake comment too, this is serious! :-)

Can we incorporate an inchie someone gave us as long as we give that person the credit for it?

Do you give credit to every magazine clipping or image from the internet you may use in a collage?

I'm not intending to be snide with that question, just want to know why it's necessary to give credit for an inchie, but not the other stuff. And what if you cut the inchie diagonally in half? or punch dots out of it and use them? Is there a difference?

@panykattack you can use an inchie you got from someone else. You can give credit, that is nice, not necessary as long as you don't pass it off as your own. I have used ATC's that were painted and sent to me as an RAK, I don't think I gave them credit, however I didn't pass them off as my own and it was just the background, solid color.

If you can't pass along an ATC someone else did...why would you do it with an inchie? Inchies are miniature works of art by an artist and should be treated that way. Just my humble opinion....

Passing someone else's art off as your own is different from passing it along to someone else.
Many people make inchies intended to be used as embellishments in larger mixed media art. Some people may want to frame them and keep them as an individual piece on it's own, but essentially, once you own a piece of art, you can do whatever you want with it, except pass it off as something you did.

My question (not criticism, but actual question) to everyone is really this:

When you make a piece of mixed media art, using images you clip from magazines, or scrapbook paper created by someone else, or handpainted background papers made by someone else, is there any difference between that and using an inchie made by someone else? Or using an ATC, or a piece of jewelry or other created item in a larger mixed media assemblage or collage piece, etc? They're all someone else's creations, so how do you deal with the potential violation of their copyright?

@twobluecrows I'm not sure about that. I know artists do that, I went to MoMa with my daughter and there is an artist that does huge collages using magazine pages etc. If anyone has the answer feel free to enlighten us.

@yomousey I would love to join an international version if you run one. :-)

@iGirlZoe I will think about it. If you want to host an International one feel free.

I have been watching this swap for a while and have decided if I get my other swaps caught up I will join by the end of the week. In answer to your copyright question, as a librarian I work with copyright issues everyday and the rule of thumb is that you should never use a complete work without giving credit to the creator and if that work is copyrighted you should get premission from the artist to use it. This is most common when we use photographs off the internet...if the entire photo is used that could be a copyright infringement if you don't have permission to use it. That said, a portion of a work is not considered copyright infringement so if you have cut away any protion of the photograph you are no longer using a complete work. In other words, if someone has sent you a piece of watercolor background that is larger than the 2.5 X 3.5" piece used for the background of an ATC then you are not in violation of the copyright because you are only using a portion of their work . Additionally, copyrights must be applied for and granted to the original artist which I doubt is the case with most of us trading ATCs or other forms of altered art since it is time-consuming and costly. Crediting the original artist is just good manners in these cases, but not required by law. If someone goes to the trouble and expense of copyrighting a work, there will most certainly be a copyright symbol followed by the date.
In regards to magazines or other images we use in our art, as long as we are not using the complete image, I.e. a photograph, we are not violating any copyright laws. Remember that even though the photograph was in a magazine and your are not using the entire magazine you still run the risk of violation copyright because a photograph is an entire work to a photographer. Just because it was cut from a magazine or printed off the internet does not mean it is no longer a complete work. This is probably the most difficult part of copyright law to understand. Finally, these cards are not being sold in any way so no profit is being made from someone elses work.
Again, good manners will out, credit the artist who did the original work when you use it in your artwork. I hope this helps.

Thanks for the info!