Alright, a lot of people seem to get touchy when it comes to copyright, especially when people are looking at signatures or photomanipulations. What are the actual laws dealing with this? People seem to throw around the words "copyright infringement" like people throw around the word "love". It seems to have lost it's meaning.
I wrote this in reply to a friend of mine, when we were having a debate over the ethics of signature making. So, if you have any questions please post them here and I will do my best to satisfy you with my answer.
This is a block of text, and does get fairly technical.
One last word: I wasn't positive where this should go, and I didn't see anything bookmarked along the lines of this, I feel it is something that should be examined, and questioned. So, I threw it here.
"the principal exception to the exclusive rights of copyright holders is called "fair dealing". Fair dealing creates a limited number of exceptions, including private study, research, criticism, review and news reporting. This list is exhaustive, such that fair dealing applies only to those categories of dealings that are specifically mentioned."
This means that, you may use copyright images without the expressed permission of the creator if you are using it for any of the things listed above; among which is private study. You could claim that, when creating a signature, you are privately studying the image, and photoshop, and in the end you are learning something. This is effectively studying.
So, use all the copyright pictures, models and renders you want for private study. But, that doesn't leave us with the fact that we post these signatures or works of art on sites.
"A transformative use is a use by which a work is used to create a new work possessing its own merits. That new work then enjoys its own copyright. However, the new work may infringe on the original. American law gives a range of factors that can be considered in evaluating this. For instance, if only a small portion of the original is used, if it is used for a purpose that does not compete with the original, and if the purpose is to benefit the public, it is less likely to infringe than if a considerable portion of the original is used to compete against the original in a commercial context."
Hmm, this part of the law is interesting, isn't it. It seems to be geared towards exactly what we do as "signature makers". A transformative use, creating something on your own. Now, lets say you have a full picture of a model taken by some photographer, and you use only the head and neck... Well that is only a small portion of the photo...
Are signatures competing with the original purpose of the photo? I don't think so.. They are on entirely different levels. Signatures are used to create a sort of identity, to have a creation associated with a name on generally forums, and that sort of thing. Where as, a photograph of a model by a photographer is used to create portfolios, to be hired and shoot more photos, etc. They are not competing in the least. You could argue that you are in fact advertising, not competing.
Are signatures to the benefit of the public? Well, thats for the individual to decide, but we can sure as hell say that they aren't harming the public.
Ripping is severe copyright infringement, stealing of someones work and putting your name on it. This is not a creation as I mentioned above, it IS competing against the original artwork, and it harms the public by creating controversy over who made the original and who it belongs to.