No, you do not. Can you get away with selling such a painting at a local arts & crafts show? Very easily. I've seen hideously rendered Mickey Mouse and Bart Simpson lawn ornaments at craft shows. Do these people have a right to sell them? Absolutely not.
The NOS painting scenario brings up an interesting question. Some of the structures in NOS were patterned directly after specific French Quarter buildings in real New Orleans. The facade with the hanging baskets is almost an exact replica of a French Quarter building I've photographed. Could Disney be in some copyright trouble for that?
I mean, I can photograph these buildings and sell my pics, but I can't photograph or paint a pic of their knock-offs in DL and sell them?
Copyright protection is extended to architectural plans and, to a limited extent, structures themselves, but if visible from a public or quasi-public space, you can't prevent people from taking, making, displaying, or distributing pictorial depictions of the work (17 U.S.C. - 120(a)). Further, and regarding the point about Disney potentially infringing upon someone else's IP rights, there is the fact that very old historical structures are a) usually well beyond the legal timespan of copyright and B) often themselves pastiches of older, traditional, public-domain design elements. From a copyright standpoint, Disney's NOLSq is a unique series of derivative works based on public-domain structures; this doesn't mean that someone else can copy the Disneyfied facade layout in their own structures without infringement, but I don't think it means that you can't freely distribute your own photographs of the area, on general principle. After all, you're not reproducing the architecture in structural form, you're sharing pictures.
Now, people have made successful arguments for TRADEMARK protection of certain structures (like the Chrysler Building in NYC) - that protection theoretically extends to the distribution of images depicting the building and its architectural elements, but trademark protection ONLY applies to extremely unique, distinctive structures and design elements which are specifically attributable to and irrefutably linked to the business entity seeking the trademark protection (think Sleeping Beauty Castle, or the silver triangles from the aforementioned Chrysler Building). Further, the general understanding is that the value of having trademark ownership lies in the extent that it actually identifies the owner's brand. I don't see how the city of NOLA or most of the structure owners in the Vieux Carre would even be able to illustrate an inextricable link between a particular facade and their unique brand identities. Further, I'm not sure who, exactly, would benefit from attempting to establish the Vieux Carre or its component buildings as protectable trademarks - in actuality, the city and its various businesses benefit from the free dissemination of images of its beautiful old structures. I mean, is "New Orleans" really a "brand"? And if it is, what's the value of restricting images that actually encourage excitement and tourism? And beyond that, it seems even more difficult to be able to make a case for a Disney trademark in the facades of New Orleans Square, taken generally. On the other hand, structures like Sleeping Beauty Castle and CInderella Castle change things up - Not only are these structures used as corporate logos, they are inextricably linked with the Disney brand. And even though these structures are based on original architiectural elements which are generally considered in the public domain, they are unique and identifiable enough to create an unmistakable mental link between them and the Disney Corporation.
Intellectual property law is kind of a confusing beast - on one side, we have specific statutes (the United States Code) that indicate in a relatively basic way what copyrights and trademark ownership encompass, and on the other we have judge-made, case decision-driven precedents which are continually reinterpreting what the statutes actually mean when applied to real-life facts and circumstances. As a result, what's legal/illegal/right/wrong/actionable/not actionable is a lot more fluid and up to debate than we may realize - what is controlling precedent today could change markedly tomorrow. Further, what makes logical legal sense may not always serve the interests of the actual intellectual property owners at any given time; for example, Disney very likely views the sharing of noncommercially available theme park audio as useful marketing, so they don't bother policing it much (for the time being, anyway). While you don't have to lose money to prove infringement, money is a big consideration in the decision to police one's copyrights.
Further, it's important not to read too much into the ways that licensees and "fair users" and would-be infringers utlilize and present Disney's intellectual property - just because someone puts a big copyright or trademark symbol next to a Disney credit, it doesn't automatically make the usage legal...similarly, it doesn't mean that the usage is necessarily illegal just because Disney didn't give direct permission. Often, both IP owners and users (legal and otherwise) say, do, and claim certain things for CYA reasons, not for the purposes of satisfying specific or genuine legal requirements. It really is a game of posing, until someone gets up the rocks to actually file a lawsuit (and lawsuits have a habit of becoming expensive Pandora's Boxes, so IP owners are careful to choose their battles wisely).
It's also important to note that copyright law, trademark/servicemark law, and patent law are three very different branches of IP. Each bundle of intellectual property ownership rights addresses different public policy goals and different types of intellectual property, which means that the rights involved and the terms of enforcement will vary considerably. In some cases, one branch may "fill in the cracks" of intellectual property protection left by one or both of the others - for example, a cartoon's copyright term will expire eventually, but a cartoon character featured in the same cartoon may be protected in perpetuity, potentially, as a company trademark, thereby barring the free use of the cartoon in question even though copyright grounds for protection no longer apply.
Additionally, even within one branch of IP law, the rules apply slightly differently depending on the type of intellectual property you're dealing with. In all cases, in order to have a "copyright" in a work, the work must be an "original work of authorship" that is fixed in tangible medium (you can't copyright ideas) and is not in and of itself a "useful article." One significant exception to the "useful article" rule is the wonderful world of boat hulls, which was specifically legislated at the behest of boat hull designers - they felt their hard design work was being unfairly poached by copycats, but they couldn't demonstrate copyright ownership because they were barred by the "useful article" issue, and they couldn't reconcile their products with the requirements of patent law. Some elements of the fashion design industry are lobbying for copyright protection for clothing designs, which are currently not eligible for protection as clothing are deemed "useful articles." Fabric prints, however, as they are functionally separatable from garment design, and jewelry designs are protectable as they understood to exist independently from the utilitarian items they often accompany.
Are you talking about self-made recordings? I was talking about the sale of home-made video recordings. If someone sold home-made audio recordings it would fall into the same category.
Do you see a difference if I sold (1) a video recording of Country Bear Jamboree, (2) an ALD recording of the Country Bear Jamboree soundtrack, or (3) a video recording of the Country Bear Jamboree with the ALD recording synched to the video?
I don't see a difference between selling any of the three. I'm curious how others feel.
At best, they're derivative works of copyrighted material (most specifically, the videos, which presumably incorporate some modicum of new creativity via editing, &c...which creates a conundrum for the creator of the derivative work) - the show as a whole may not be considered a "copyrightable work," but various elements will be (like the audio, any films incorporated within the show, &c.). According to the Copyright Act, some of the exclusive rights granted to copyright holders include:
"To reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
To prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
To distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or
other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
*To perform the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic,
and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
*To display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic,
and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including
the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work; and
*In the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital
audio transmission."
(Quoted from the American Bar Association website)
I think what prevents Disney from taking action is the fact that others have mentioned, and I discussed above - it doesn't make sense from a marketing or income standpoint at this juncture. Further, while each recording example that Horizons mentioned above is on some level an infringement, legal precedent DOES perceive a difference between the varying degrees of faithfulness of the copy - you can redistribute segments of reasonably short duration for certain purposes under the doctrine of fair use, for example. Further, poor copies and the addition of new, creative content may lessen the damages calculated as a result of the infringement....
According to the summary provided at
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_...apter9/9-b.html, the amount of trouble in which you can expect to find yourself depends on the following:
1. the purpose and character of your use (did you gank a perfect, faithful copy, or did you add something meaningful in your usage?)
2. the nature of the copyrighted work
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market.
