Convergence 2: Coalesce / Collapse (Fionnbhara Convergence)
Sure, it’s a lot of disparate elements, but it’s all in a soothing pastel color scheme.
Convergence 2: Coalesce / Collapse (Fionnbhara Convergence)
Sure, it’s a lot of disparate elements, but it’s all in a soothing pastel color scheme.
Bad news for anyone wanting to rip off that cover design. The author copyrighted it.
Seriously?
But isn’t trying to copyright cover design rather tricky? If memory serves, as “design” by and large, isn’t copyrightable, but the text contained thereupon is? (For example, you can copyright the text of a website–but not the design that text sits in/on.)
You can copyright the artwork on a cover, just as you can copyright a painting or photo. If the typography is an integral part of the cover art (for instance, as my friend Steve Hickman often does) that would be included.
I probably should have used the word “art” instead of “design” in my original post.
If you mean custom art, of course. I meant…can you copyright, for example, a “custom” design created from stock elements, let’s say? Which portions are then copyrighted, do you know?
Clearly, when the Whelans of the world create a custom drawing, (say, Anne McCaffrey’s dragons), that’s clear and easy.
I’m curious about what I would call an “amalgam” cover? Created from (let’s say) all stock images?
Well…that is kind of a complicated question. It depends a lot on what rights you purchased in the first place. I have never bought any stock art myself, so I don’t know what sorts of strings might be attached when you license something. According to the US Copyright Office, “Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work. Accordingly, you cannot claim copyright to another’s work, no matter how much you change it, unless you have the owner’s consent.” Which is to say, no matter what you do with the original art, you need to either get permission or own the rights outright. So, you would need to be sure, when you purchase an image, that the necessary rights and permissions go with it. If you do not have outright control over all the elements in an image, than the copyright to every individual bit and piece belongs to the original owners. That’s why you will often see a list of sources in the credits for a cover on the back of a book (at least traditionally published ones that are doing things right).
Oh, the inanity!