My intention on the site is not to become rich as an artist but to enrich my life by following a hobby and improving my drawing ability in a way that I enjoy. My decision to market the end product of this hobby is for fun rather than income. The idea that someone would pay me for my work is a boost in lots of ways. However I do appreciate that the majority of the celebrity works on here have been taken from images found on the internet. These images may or may not have create commons rights applied to them, for the majority I expect not however I make sure I do not download and copy images that have any kind of copyright/credit/author that I can trace. I also do not feel that my reproduction of any of these images is suitably true to the original that it could not be considered transformative.

I’ve researched the net extensively for discussion of copyright on celebrity photography and there appear to be two issues, the rights of the original photographer and the rights of the person them self. For my own information I’ve saved various bit of advice below. Some may not apply so much in the UK.

Discussion of Intellectual property rights

This is actually one of the hardest questions that IP lawyers face in their practice. This is because the First Amendment rights of artists may conflict with the rights of publicity belonging to celebrities. While many courts have held that the first amendment right of artists will prevail if the artwork is “transformative”, determination of whether a work is “transformative” is often quite difficult and controversial. Andy Warhol’s paintings likely would be deemed transformative because Warhol plainly spoke with his own, unique voice when he transformed images of celebrities and/or trademarked products (Campbell’s Soup Can) into his original style. However, there are many other circumstances where determining whether the painting is “transformative” is a much more difficult judgment call.

Let’s talk practicalities, however. If you make a single painting of a celebrity and sell the painting, chances are the celebrity will not come after you. Sale of a single painting probably does not harm the celebrity’s ability to exploit his image and name commercially, and the damages that the celebrity would be able to prove from your use of his image in this single painting would probably be minor. Thus, if you plan to make a single painting of a celebrity and sell it, you probably will be ok (but this is not an absolute guarantee that you will be ok).

However, if you use a celebrity’s image or face to create a portrait, poster, or drawing and then you print thousands of copies of your portrait, posture or drawing for purposes of selling them to the public, there is a much higher probablility that you will be accused of violating the celebrity’s right of publicity.