Image courtesy of Brett Sayles via the Pexels License. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/collection-of-colorful-photo-collage-on-wall-at-home-3816395/.
“Derived from the French verb coller, meaning "to glue," collage (pronounced ko·laje) is a work of art made by gluing things to the surface.”
A collage is a piece of art that incorporates a variety of materials to create a new artwok. These can be photographs, paper cuttings, fabrics, bits of wrapping paper cloth, or found objects onto a canvas or board and incorporating that into a painting or composition.
One question that often arises in this context is: to what extent does copyright law allow the use of other works in this context?
There are a number of considerations that come in play. First and foremost, if you are making a one-off collage piece of art that may be perfectly legal.
For example, if you were to buy a handful of vintage magazines, take cut outs and incorporate those into a painting or framed piece, that piece of art in its own right would not infringe copyright. The simple reason for this is that no actual copying has occurred. You have just bought a magazine, wrapping paper or fabric and used it to make your own art to hang on your wall.
However problems can arise if you put that art online or reproduce it.
For example if you were to buy designer stationary and make handmade greeting cards out it using a collage-style technique combining it with your own ink drawings. If you were to sell the individual cards that would not infringe copyright. That would be fine.
However, if you were to go a step further and then reproduce the cards for commercial sale, you could infringe copyright in the greeting paper if you used enough of it, that is if you took a “substantial part” of the designer stationery.
Alternatively, if you were to take a photograph of greeting cards and post it on your website or Instagram page, that too, could infringe copyright as it would involve “communicating the work to the public” which is the exclusive right of the copyright owner.
For this reason, if you are using other artworks, photographs or magazine clippings in artwork that you intend to reproduce and sell in numbers (rather than only the original), it is best to play it safe and seek permission from the copyright owner.
Bear in mind that you have to live with the answer they give you… they may not mind at all or even be flattered, they might ask you to credit them in some way, or they may just say ‘no’ in which case you would need to use another source image.
So the message is: If you create a collage from a substantial part of an existing work, you may be in breach of copyright.
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