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Ask HN: Question of Fair Use of a work for personal use

1 points by lelandbatey ↗ HN
Does it fall under fair use for me to print a poster of a work that someone else made, as long as I do not sell or give it away to anyone else?

I actually asked the original author if I could create high quality renders of their work and share it online, but they explicitly said "no". I've respected their wishes, but I would like to get a poster printed for my wall of one of their works. I'm allowed to do that, right?

3 comments

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cscharenberg
No. You have no right to use the image. Copyright doesn't distinguish personal versus commercial use, only fair use (parody) and educational use. Sorry.
Broken_Hippo
Does the artist sell posters or prints? If they do, then I would say you are in weird territory, about the same as watching a movie illegally. If they do not, then I don't see the problem because it is not on public display and there is no financial loss.

The only other issue I can possibly see you having depends on the who prints your poster. Some places will try to reject if they think it is copyrighted, mostly because of fear of lawsuits from photographers and artists - but this might not be an issue at all.

lelandbatey
The artist isn't an artist at all actually. It's Mike Bostock, the creator of D3, and it's a couple of visualizations he's posted here[0]. So it's not like these are being sold, or even really distributed as art in the first place.

[0] - http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock