photograph image on shirt of public property.

It's probably OK, but I'd ask whoever owns the building first. Some buildings are trademarked (particularly privately owned buildings). I have a shirt with an important building on it as part of the design; however, it's a public building and I know it's not trademarked.

In general just taking a picture of any building from public property in the US is OK, but if you publish it on a T-shirt I'd try to make sure there's no restrictions on using the image.

marco man said:

So here is my question. I want to take a photograph of city/public property, for example, street sign, buildings, sewer caps, etc... And photoshop it to be more like a design, not the actual image. Now is this legal. Do copyright laws go into play. Or any other laws i should worry about. What are the rules and regulations on photography of this type, or photograph to shirt design.
Thank You,
Marco

Click to expand...

:welcome:

A couple things come to mind, first your the photographer so you own the imagery and for all practical sense the photo you take is copyrighted when you snap the shutter, it's yours no if and's or but's, problem is the subject matter of the photo you don't own, while public buildings that are owned by your city (you as a tax payer) unless famous I would believe are fair game to use, famous buildings like the Chrysler building or Empire State building would probably not be a good idea to use.

Generic items like street signs, manhole covers, street lights, stop lights, etc would be fine IMHO, the more recognizable the item to it's location the more likely you could run into problems, like a sign that says Rodeo Drive its recognizable to a specific location.

Hope this helps

Thanks a lot, great info. So now i need to go find who i need to talk to, to use what i have in mind. This will be fun. Thanks again and more reply's welcome. And if you know of any good books or web sites on this subject matter, if any, please let me know.
Thank You,
Marco