Hi,
long story short, I shot catalog images of bow ties for local designer, who doesn't wanna pay. That is why I'm considering uploading them on stock sites to get some return of investment, in the end they are my images.
Many of those bow ties look 'generic', some variations in colors/shapes/patterns and such, some with flowers, some without ... but some look like they had their own textile printed or had some accessories added (little duck, and such). Should I worry if I sell them online, for that designer copyright issues?
Some examples to make things more clear, link to google drive:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8IPacTkCI8MMWZUbEVyV3ZlY2c&usp=sharing

@PhotoBomb
why do you think like that?
Do you think they are copyrighted all in general, or just ones I find that are with specific textile design?
Overall they seem to me pretty generic looking, to you?

I wouldn't do it. It's not worth it. You may own the photographs, but the designer own the designs, even if it's a bit generic.

I usually ask for 50% up front before doing any job for small players. I can trust a company who has a reputation to keep to pay me, but never trust an independent.

The only one that I would consider generic would be the black one with the ice cream cone cloned away.
Maybe you could do some colour substitute and make a red, blue or yellow one. But I wouldn't bother making 100 million different combinations

If I do a search on Shutterstock for bow tie photographs, excluding people shots, I get over 45,000 results. Some of it's pasta, but that's still a lot of bow ties.

Even if you disregard the issue of the fabric (which I think represents a risk to you and you should stay well away from), you'd have to have a very special bow tie to get much in the way of sales. Why would you take a legal risk on something with a low likelihood of any returns at all?

As a photographer, you can legally sell any photo you take, regardless of the content of the photo.

The infringement comes from how the photo is used, not from the person taking the photo. There are no copyright infringement laws regarding photographers taking photos or selling their work.

Copyright infringement can only occur if the work prevents the original copyright owner from earning money by selling a competing work.

It is not logical that a photo of a textile would prevent a textile designer from selling textiles. You are not taking their customers away from them. If you made your own textiles, using the textile design of another company, you would be infringing their copyrights, because you could take customers away from the original designer, who would buy your textiles (with a copied design) instead of the original. A textile buyer cannot buy your photo and used it to replace a purchase of a textile. Therefor, it is not infringing.


University of Alabama vs Daniel Moore. Court upheld that photographer can sell photos that include uniform designs of university athletes, which is similar to your case (textile patterns and designs).


My source for copyright law:

United States Copyright Office


Bad sources for copyright laws:

forums, the media, customer support staff, common knowledge, web pages of stock media companies, etc.


There is 1 case where your photo can infringe on copyright and that is if you take a photo of another photo and resell your photo. otherwise, don't worry.