A few years ago, I sketched a picture
of a mother and child. I called it, “Mother and Child, Layers of Love". In
some unexpected ways it is one of the most successful pieces of art I have
created.
The mother in the picture, informed me that
the picture has been used for commercial purposes. She asked me if I knew of it
and if I had permitted it. I was surprised and investigated it and found that
it was true. I took the necessary action to see that those who had infringed my
copyright realised it and acted on it. Well, the matter is yet to be resolved
and I do hope to soon.
When I mentioned this to an artist friend,
he pointed out that there was a Facebook page with my picture as the profile
picture. I looked it up and, very helpfully, the person who had plagiarised my
work had helpfully put his phone number on the picture! I thought that was
funny. When I saw his page, I realized that he was using my picture to solicit
commissions for art work. That meant that the intent was commercial. I called
up the guy and asked him whose picture it was. He calmly told me that it was
his! He was perhaps hoping that he was about to get an order for a commissioned
work. When I told him that the work was actually mine and he was infringing my
copyright, he insisted that he had sketched it from a photograph. Then, I told
him that if it was so, he was infringing the copyright of the photographer! I
told him that if he does not remove the picture right away, I would ask the
photographer to call him and ask him to remove it. If he still did not, we
would both take action. All this must have sickened the poor chap and after
twenty-four hours, the picture was off. The cover picture of his Facebook page is
by an artist I found on the site Deviant Art!!
I looked further as to where else my
picture had gone. I came across something that really made me angry. It was
used on a blog to promote the celebration of Parents’ Worship Day and bad mouth
Valentine's day!! I wrote a comment on the blog claiming my right and asking
the blogger to remove the picture. I am not very hopeful of that being done. As
of writing this, it has not been done.
I would like to declare here in no
uncertain terms that I have nothing to do with the organisation that is behind
the half brained controversy about Valentine’s day! I want to have NO part in
parent worship, or for that matter, any worship at all! I am fascinated by
expressions a mother’s love (human or otherwise) I react to it from the deepest
recesses of my being, I do not look at it with rose tinted glasses. I see that
that the source of that love lies in the process of evolution driven by the selfish
gene. Does that make a it any less beautiful? I do not think so.
I also found my picture being used in glitzy
filmy websites along with syrupy glorification of a mother’s love. I find that
particularly offensive in a country where the sex ratio is all awry because of
female foeticide. Apparently the male of the species deserves the “divine” love
more than the female.
What these incidents and many others show
is that in India awareness about intellectual property is very low. Perhaps those
of us who are aware do not respect it all that much. When the existence of a
land mafia is proof enough that we do not respect the normal kind of property,
let alone the intellectual variety! I am not saying this as an IP professional
that I am. I have come across the attitude of indifference often. Many artist
friends, many professionals from different fields think that if it is on the
internet, it is free to use.
Once, some artist friends and I were
talking about copyright. When I said that one can not make a sketch from a
photograph that is protected by copyright and that anything not explicitly
declared as under creative commons licence or declared as copyleft we should
not use, people around were incredulous! They even argued that it did not
matter to the photographer in any way. The conversation was going all over the
place when a wise friend intervened. He said something like "It will look
different to you if the shoe were to be on the other foot. Just imagine that
you photograph something and an artist makes a painting with it as reference
and it sells for a million dollars." That is not the best of arguments but
it sort of brought the point home.
