Hello guys,
I’m building a non-profit pet rescue website, I wanted to use cartoon pets in my website’s header, google search led me to some nice looking character photos from the movie “the secret life of pets”.
I wanted to know how can I know if its possible to use these images? is there anyone I should try to contact about it?
Thanks!
You would need to contact the copyright holder - presumably the production company or the distributor.
It might be easier (and much cheaper) to look for royalty-free images licensed for reuse. There are multiple sites offering such things either free of charge or at a very small cost.
Well in the meantime I contacted them, should wait a response 
hopefully to get one.
Do you have any sites you can recommand? because I tried to search for quite some time and didn’t find any decent cartoon characters of dogs / cats.
Examples of fair use in United States copyright law include commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship.
It sounds like you’re wanting to use this for branding. This will absolutely not be covered under Fair Use. You will likely not get a response from Universal. If you do get a response, you won’t be granted permission, because this would mean you would look like you are associated with the movie or sponsored by Universal or whatever else, when you’re not. The reason they do this, is because if you decide to start donating money to fund wars in the Middle East, then Universal’s name would get drug down with you.
Hey @mawburn, thanks for the detailed response.
I know its not likely to get a response (at all or positive) but tried anyway, universal does have a special contact form for this purpose so maybe at least a response I would get.
Other than that, the website is non-profit like I mentioned, when I was searching for the word profit inside the article you gave, I found this line:
Likewise, the noncommercial purpose of a use makes it more likely to be found a fair use
Rather confusing since they mention “likely to”, giving example of some non-profit site that was giving away copyrighted work for free, something I will for sure not do, I may even include a statement telling that the photos I used were taken from that movie and the rights remains theirs, the question is if I understood it well…
Did you send along proof of the sites Registrar of Corporations certification when you contacted them?
Both of these are from the movie OP was talking about.
No I ddin’t send a certification, my intention was to first get a response about it, I believe they would then ask all the questions they need, as it would probably contain more stuff such as the domain name, purpose of use etc…
Anyway I do hope to get a response otherwise i’ll have to decide what I do alone, is it going with the wikipedia statement telling that it might be a fair use or trying to find other photos to use 
pixabay.com has free images, including illustrations. It has an easy-to-use search facility so you can look for cat, dog or whatever you need. (Just keep an eye out and make sure you stick to the free images, as the site also shows “sponsored” images from Shutterstock, which are not free.)
I’ve also used dreamstime.com - not free, but reasonably priced and with a huge selection, including cats and dogs.
I don’t vouch for them, but these two sites seems alright:
http://www.freeimages.com/about
There are some nice cartoons of cats and dogs. With a small charge you might be allowed to omit the dedication of the work. You can try them out and of course follow the permissions attached to the images you choose.
Of course they were. 
Notice though that yours does not go under the radar…
…unlike…
All I am suggesting is that a restructured image may be OK to use…
coothead
I’m pretty sure that altering an image without the permission of the artist (or copyright holder) is also a breach of copyright.
According to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law)
Restricted acts
It is an offence to perform any of the following acts without the consent of the owner:
- Copy the work.
- Rent, lend or issue copies of the work to the public.
- Perform, broadcast or show the work in public.
- Adapt the work.
So in my understanding - No this is not true, you cannot alter an image to get around copyright
The act of copying or adapting someone else’s work is a restricted act. Any adaptation will be legally regarded as a derived work; so if you simply adapt the work of others, it will still be their work, and they have every right to object you if publish such a work when they have not given you permission to do so. They are also entitled to reclaim any money you make from selling their work.
The only safe option is to create something that is not copied or adapted from the work of others, or seek the permission of the rights owner (you should expect to pay a fee and/or royalties for this).
https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/copyright_myths
Thanks for the sites @Erik_J and @TechnoBear I will check them out to see if I can find something.
But I’m already aware of such websites, from previous xmas event here in sitepoint there was a free voucher for 14 images on fotolia if im not mistaken, where I did download photos of cartoonic pets.
But still, editing is (if allowed) a pain for me, i’m not an expert and nowhere near it when it comes to graphics / image editing / photoshop etc, specially when you need to take care of pet’s hair which is a pain on its own, sometimes its a pixel work…
What I liked about secret life of pets photos, is that they come ready for use, just search google for “secret life of pets max”, you will find photos of that dog with many different poses, most of them with the background already stripped, and even include shadows that are transparent so any color i’d use in my website as background will go through.
I even want pets with sitting pose so it will look like they are sitting on my navigation bar, and there goes Max, Duke and Chloe, all siting and all with transparent background, just permission to use is needed and i’m good to go 
I’m not looking for images like @coothead suggests, I just need the character itself with no background or anything.
In the image search results, all of the sites using images directly from the movie that I checked were either reviewing the movie, the character or some type of “fair use”.
IMHO, using the image, whole or derived, with or without attribution, as a logo or as mere decoration for a site is most likely to not be considered as fair use.
But as you posted, getting permission is the main thing here.
…so where does that leave me?
I have just posted four images without consulting anyone. 
Should I expect to get a rather unpleasant visit from a very
disgruntled S.W.A.T. squad in the middle of the night? 
coothead
Most likely no, but why to have a feeling that such a thing is possible?
Specially when you build a website for someone else.
Yes, my guess is that as long as there are no “damages” eg. financial loss, misrepresentation of brand, etc. in most cases a “take down” would be issued.
AFAIK in most cases Court decisions are based on precedence established by similar previous cases.
But, that alone does not guarantee the outcome of any particular case.
So if an entity decided to pursue legal action, a defendant could very well be facing anything from a fine, incarceration, or both.
I know I sleep better at night not worrying about that possibility.
One possible issue I see with the use of a US source for an Israel site is there are two sets of Law that need to be addressed. It could get messy, but I think as long as you get permission there should be no problem.
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