Copyright

Copyright is important to artists whose livelihood depends upon them producing artwork. Copyright Law was devised to help artists protect their artwork, and hence their income. We aim to uphold Intellectual Property Law (Copyright Law) ourselves and encourage others to do so.

OUR POSITION ON COPYRIGHT

AS TEACHERS

We both gladly give away a lot of information about techniques and regularly design certain images for the purpose of teaching through demonstrations, classes, workshops and art breaks (our teaching practices). Although these images have been designed with the student in mind, and have often been designed with the expectation that they will be copied, they are still subject to copyright law.
This applies to
•   Images we have produced by hand, e.g. paintings, sketches, templates etc.
•   Photographs we supply as reference material (since we only supply photos we have taken ourselves, we own the copyright to the image).
•   Images that we use in weekly classes, workshops, demonstrations to art groups, workshops to art groups, articles published in magazines (even ‘step-by-step’ articles), or images in our videos.

What you CAN do:
•   You can use photographs supplied by us through our teaching practices for your own personal practice and portfolio.
•   You can use paintings, sketches etc supplied by us through our teaching practices for your own personal practice and portfolio.
•   You can display your copy at any Moor to Sea Arts event without giving credit to Siân or Rob (as applicable), because we all know where the original image comes from.
•   You can display your copy in a third party public place (e.g. Facebook, your own website or your own exhibition) as long as you give credit to the original artist. An example credit would be ‘Based on an image by Artist Name’. If you are displaying it on the internet you would ideally provide a link to our website.
•   You can make significant changes to the original image and then do what you want with it, including selling it, without giving credit (although it would be nice).

To clarify what you CAN NOT do:
•   You CAN NOT make an obvious copy of one of our images or photographs and then sell it, either for your own personal gain or for charitable reasons.
•   You CAN NOT make an obvious copy of one of our images , then make print or digital replicas and then give them away or sell them, either for your own personal gain or for charitable reasons.
•   You CAN NOT make an obvious copy of our images and then use them as teaching material yourself.

So, how do we define an ‘obvious copy’?
That is a tricky one, as the answer is subjective, and therefore open to interpretation. AS TEACHERS we aim to support and encourage anyone who wants to learn to paint, and are often more relaxed about this compared with other people.

Some examples might help:

Think of Siân’s daisy paintings. Siân has produced ‘step-by-step’ lessons on this type of flower painting, including tutorial videos (See Daisy Backgrounds). The backgrounds are very loose, and it would be extremely difficult to copy them slavishly, almost impossible to produce an accurate copy. So changing the shape of the flower, the arrangement of them on the page or the colours means you end up with a painting that is likely to be significantly different to Siân’s. Added to that, lots of people paint daisies – it is hardly an original subject matter!
Now think of Rob’s barn paintings. He went out and found specific barn windows and doors, did his own sketches and took photos. He made very figurative paintings, sticking closely to his reference material.Rob has produced a step-by-step lesson based on one of these windows. In this case he supplied his reference material for use during the lesson, for the purpose of learning the techniques. Therefore you should not display your copy of this image without crediting Rob (unless at a Moor to Sea Arts event), and you should not sell it, or make copies to sell or give away.
If someone else can recognise that one of your paintings bears a strong resemblance to one of ours there is room for concern that you are in breach of copyright.
If you are in any doubt at all, please contact us.

Permissions
If you have produced a painting through being taught by either of us that you are proud of, and would like to give away, display or sell, we are likely to want to encourage you. It would be worth your while to contact us. Subject to various conditions we are very likely to give the necessary permission – who are we to hold budding artists back!
PLEASE do not take advantage of our generous spirit by assuming, having read this, that we are automatically granting permission. We are not. Should we find someone has breached copyright law we will take action.

AS ARTISTS

We would like to point out that our generosity of spirit will only extend to material we have produced for our teaching practices. We will always consider taking legal action should anyone breach Copyright Law by copying our other work and displaying, gifting or selling their copy.

IMAGES ON THIS SITE

All images on this site, unless otherwise stated, are copyright either Siân Dudley or Rob Dudley

MORE INFORMATION
Copyright Law is complex, and can be confusing, and to avoid any unpleasant issues we recommend that you familiarise yourself with it. We would suggest that you do not assume that you have never violated these laws as it can be quite easy to do so, especially if you are displaying, gifting or selling any of your art work. We do not pretend to be professional lawyers, so suggest that you do your own research. You might find the following sites helpful: