Copyright, Plagiarism and Ethics in Visual Arts

Hook: it's online, so it's free... right?

You find an amazing photo of a fox in the snow. You trace it, colour it, and enter it in a contest. You win! Then the photographer sees it.

Who owns that image? Was it fair to use it? Does it matter that you changed the colours?

C3.1 asks you to understand the legal and ethical issues in visual arts: copyright, plagiarism, permission, appropriation, privacy and respect for cultures. These protect you as an artist, too.

Copyright in Canada

Copyright is the legal right to copy, publish, sell, adapt and share a creative work. In Canada:

• Copyright is automatic. The moment you create an original work in a fixed form (a drawing on paper, a photo, a digital file), you own the copyright. Registration is optional.
• It usually lasts for the creator's life plus 70 years (to the end of that calendar year). Canada extended this from 50 to 70 years on December 30, 2022.
• After that, a work enters the public domain: anyone may use it. Works by artists who died long ago, such as Tom Thomson (died 1917), are in the public domain in Canada.
• Owning the object is not owning the copyright. If you buy a painting, you own the painting, but the artist usually keeps the right to make copies, prints or posters of it.
• Images on the internet are not automatically free. Most are protected by copyright.

Moral rights

Canadian law also gives creators moral rights: the right to be named as the creator (or to stay anonymous) and the right to the integrity of the work, meaning it can't be changed in a way that harms the artist's honour or reputation.

A famous Canadian case: Michael Snow's sculpture Flight Stop (1979), a flock of 60 Canada geese hanging in Toronto's Eaton Centre. When the mall tied ribbons around the geese's necks for Christmas, Snow went to court, arguing it damaged his work and reputation. In 1982 the court ordered the ribbons removed.

Fair dealing, licences and permission

You may use parts of copyrighted works without permission for fair dealing purposes: research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review and news reporting. It must be fair: use only what you need, and for criticism, review and news reporting, name the source and creator.

You may also use works with a licence. Creative Commons licences let creators say how their work may be used (for example, CC BY means you may use it if you give credit). Or simply ask the creator for permission, in writing.

Plagiarism, reference and inspiration

Plagiarism is presenting someone else's work or ideas as your own. It's an ethical problem in school even if no law is broken.

Artists learn from others all the time. Here is the difference:

• Copying to learn (a master study in your sketchbook, labelled "after Emily Carr"): fine and traditional.
• Reference: using photos to get details right. Best practice: take your own photos, or use public domain or licensed images, and combine several references.
• Inspiration: taking an idea, mood or technique and making something new.
• Plagiarism: tracing or copying someone's work and presenting it as your original work, without credit.

Forgery is making a fake and passing it off as the work of another artist. It is fraud. In 2023, police in Ontario announced charges in a large investigation into fake paintings sold as works by Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau: forgery harms the artist's legacy, the buyers and the community.

Other ethical issues

• Cultural appropriation: taking sacred or culturally specific designs from a community you don't belong to, without permission or understanding (Grade 8 looked at this closely). The Igloo Tag trademark is used to identify authentic Inuit art and help buyers support Inuit artists.
• Privacy and consent: get permission before photographing people or posting their images, especially children.
• Appropriation art: some artists deliberately borrow existing images to make a point, such as Marcel Duchamp presenting a factory-made urinal as art, Fountain (1917), or Andy Warhol's soup cans. Whether a borrowed image is transformed enough can be a legal and ethical debate.
• AI image generators: they are trained on huge numbers of images, often without artists' consent. Laws are still developing. Be honest: say when you used AI, and follow your teacher's rules.
• Censorship and free expression: artists can make work about difficult topics, but there are legal limits (such as hate speech), and galleries and schools make decisions about what to show and to whom.