Coloring and Copyright

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR COLORING PAGE COMES FROM??

I wanted to take the time to address a very hot topic in the online coloring world as of late. Copyright. What does copyright mean? It is an exclusive legal right to print, publish, perform, film, or record library, artistic, or musical material. We all know what that means in terms of music! If you remember when the online music service Napster was taken down, you have already seen Copyright Infringement at play!
But what does COPYRIGHT meant in the Coloring world?

There are so many gorgeous Coloring books on the market right now, I think I have lost count!! For those people who don’t have colouring books, or are looking for different content, there are also countless coloring pages on the Internet! This affords practically everyone to take part in coloring !!! And while it is fantastic that coloring pages have become so accessible, it has also been to the detriment of those who make this passion available to us all… The ARTISTS!
Copyright Infringement is generally a domino effect! It only takes ONE person to scan a picture from a book and upload it to one of a million places online, and it quickly becomes a runaway train! Many people think it is a victimless crime! You download and print a picture to color for personal use, and nobody gets hurt! RIGHT? But in actuality, when hundreds and thousands of people do that, it takes food off the table of the artists that work insanely hard to support the coloring community! It compromises their income! And is disrespectful to the time, energy, and love they put into their craft!
As you continue your coloring journey, I want to leave you with a few tips on how to protect yourself from unknowingly breaking copyright.
– BE VERY CAREFUL using social media sites to obtain coloring pages for download. Pinterest is one of the biggest offenders in our community as anyone can upload just about anything! If you use Pinterest for inspiration, please make sure that you are backtracking and finding the original source of your picture. If it doesn’t directly come from the artist or publishing company, please don’t print it. Most every artist releases free pages, so you can always go directly to their websites to find pictures they have given permission to use.
– Grayscale Pictures on the Internet are often modified without the artist’s or photographer’s permission! And modifying a picture to grayscale in order to color it is NOT allowed without written permission. So again, if you cannot identify or cite the source of the artwork, please do not colour and post it online.
– When you are excited about a new book and you want to show online friends the pictures inside a book, you can be breaking copyright if you take pictures and post them online! Artists WANT you to share their work, but it needs to be in a respectable way that doesn’t allow people to reproduce their artwork. Always lay a few pencils or a marker across the page, or partially cover the image with your hand before you take a picture. You can also take a picture of a SMALL portion of the page before you share it with others. That way you can share your excitement, let others take a peak, AND you are protecting the artist at the same time!!
– WHEN IT DOUBT, ASK! If you see a free page in a Facebook group or on a website, it is okay to ask where it came from. Artists have business pages and groups on Facebook with free colouring pages. You are absolutely safe to print them off from there! Dover Publications also has TONS of free pages! If you subscribe on their site, they will send you free samples every Friday!
– DO NOT ever print and colour a picture that has a watermark in the centre. Generally it has been put there as protection by the artist.
– Do not copy and print images from Amazon! The ‘samples’ there are only to give an indication of what is in the book, they are not to be copied and used.
– Don’t print and color a page that has a disclaimer or warning printed on it that says such.
– If you can see photocopy ‘lines’ at the top or bottom of the page, someone has copied it from a book and uploaded it. Artists take pride in their work and wouldn’t release a picture like that.
AND if anyone has questions, I am always here to help!! Please leave a comment below if you have any specific Copyright questions and I will do my best to answer them for you!!
We can be responsible colourists and STILL have access to, and enjoy ALL that is COLORING!!!!
THANKS SO MUCH FOR sticking it out for a few minutes with me! Now, back to Coloring and making beautiful colouring masterpieces!!