Copyright infringement for stop motion videos

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momof5sons

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My teenaged son makes stop motion videos using Transformer figurines he buys. He is concerned with copyright infringement issues. He writes his own scripts and has quite a following on youtube. He is basically doing parody, but would like to do fan movies. But he is concerned that since he is using the figurines that are trademarked, he is guilty of copyright infringement. He is not making money or selling anything- just having fun. Is this copyright infringement?
 
That is very creative of him!
You must be very proud of his efforts.
Perhaps in his film credits at the end he could list the trade name of the figurines.
In that way his films are actually helpful advertisements for the product,
and he needn’t worry at all.
Tell him to keep up his creative efforts! 🙂
If he still has doubts, he could contact the manufacturers.
The figurines, though, are just a tool for his creative efforts, he isn’t plagiarizing taking credit away from the manufacturers.
 
momof5sons said:
My teenaged son makes stop motion videos using Transformer figurines he buys. He is concerned with copyright infringement issues. He writes his own scripts and has quite a following on youtube. He is basically doing parody, but would like to do fan movies. But he is concerned that since he is using the figurines that are trademarked, he is guilty of copyright infringement. He is not making money or selling anything- just having fun. Is this copyright infringement?
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Taking pictures of a product is not copyright infringement.

Your son ought to avoid using the manufacturer/brand name in advertizing the videos. That could potentially be a trademark infringement. Using the products with original character names should be safe.

I make videos, and have invented my own brand names for avoiding trademarks. 🙂
 
Thank you! That is very helpful! He is also concerned with using sounds or clips from movie soundtracks in his videos. Is that copyright infringement? He is somewhat OCD and scrupulous so this is a big concern to him.
I
 
momof5sons said:
Thank you! That is very helpful! He is also concerned with using sounds or clips from movie soundtracks in his videos. Is that copyright infringement? He is somewhat OCD and scrupulous so this is a big concern to him.
I
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Using sounds that other people invested time and money in could be. Here are some sites that I’ve used with sound effects, many of which use “Creative Commons” licenses, or are in the public domain. I also included some favored free stock photo sites which may be helpful.

Sounds
Images
Creative Commons is a wonderful program, where authors and artists allow others to freely use their works with only minimal conditions (such allowing or not allowing modifications, or requiring attribution of the author, or not allowing the work to used in commercial (for profit) projects). Generally, attribution in the “credits” following the video should suffice, as these videos are just a hobby for now. 🙂

Generally, if your son creates all his own sound effects and images, or sticks to content from sites like these, he should have nothing to worry about!
 
momof5sons said:
My teenaged son makes stop motion videos using Transformer figurines he buys. He is concerned with copyright infringement issues. He writes his own scripts and has quite a following on youtube. He is basically doing parody, but would like to do fan movies. But he is concerned that since he is using the figurines that are trademarked, he is guilty of copyright infringement. He is not making money or selling anything- just having fun. Is this copyright infringement?
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You have two choices:

Contact the people who make the Transformers toys. Look at the back of the package, the name of the company is right there. Here’s their contact info:

hasbro.com/customer-service/contacts/

Understand what the term “Fair Use” means:

copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Most people have no clue what “fair use” is or how it applies to what they want to do.

Hope this helps,
Ed
 
Thank you all for your help! Running Dude and Ed, those sites are very helpful. We didn’t know anything about fair use. This is certainly generating a lot of discussion!
 
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