copyright infringement/product of educational book.

[wildthing423]

Hi all

I am a doctoral student. I am a masters level art instructor as part of my educational core. Being off for the summer, I bought a/n educational book of projects for beginner through intermediate learners in fine art. each project in the book has specific instructions with a desired outcome ie. draw this ,use this, apply this, and it should end up like that. with the authors finished product as the end result. I took one of the projects, a charcoal/watercolor pencil project and being experienced, created a back drop of a volcanic jungle scene and placed the Macaw parrot with in the scene. The Parrot is the project. The author has diseminated this particular chapter or parrot drawing tutorial in over 2000 places that I have found separate from the instructional book. anyway the project came out great, better , and this is saying something as most artists are hard on themselves and believe their work never finished. I placed the completed project on an online visual artist forum for display. people have offered me money for it. the latest being 5000 usd. The author is a member of this community and became upset with thae fact that I was offered 5 grand and her book is only selling for 33.00 U.S. the author is trying to claim ownership and seeking damages, and I have received a cease and desist letter from her. I refused. This is my creation. It is the product of my education and it bares no true resemblage to the project/lesson in so far as that all Macaw parrots resemble it. They are particular colors and size and live in specific areas. Can she claim copyright over my creation? It is scenes a"faire, it is the only expected outcome. It is the expected outcome of the educational text. It is first sale doctrine. some body talk to me here. this is crap. this author actually puts this same lesson on the art forum as an online free lesson as well. Bull crap.

[able1]

...the exact parrot from the book or your version of it?

[wildthing423]

Originally Posted by able1

...the exact parrot from the book or your version of it?

No, The method is to create a Macaw parrot. Any macaw rendered by you or I with the same means and materials will look similar. It is not dis-similar to any other 50 macaw parrots rendered elsewhere.
Futhermore, As I have stated, It is rendered in a totally different way, and in fact is almost photorealistic, but applied to an imaginary scifi genre. The intent of the book is almost like ...the directions to build a model. clearly it was written for a more basic user but is not listed as such by any search of a library science category search, It is listed as how to, arts, fine arts, fine arts instructional, etc. etc.

[annjd]

She would have a hard time successfully suing if the work is intended to be used for others to draw from and replicate, if that is what you are saying.