Legal Information - last updated 09.05.05

Custom Wood Toys™ is not responsible for content shown on advertisers banners on our website. All content on this website [not including advertisment banners] is the sole property of www.customwoodtoys.com™ and may not be borrowed, loaned, leased, copied, reproduced, sold, tampered with or used in any way without explicit consent from Custom Wood Toys™. All webpages and imaged contained herin are the property of Custom Wood Toys™ and will be protected with the full extent of US law. All items created for and shown on this website [not including advertisement banners] are original one of a kind items, and any similarity to any existing product or example is purely coincidence. All referances and images are pertaining to the creation of and replication of scale models and is owned by perspective said company.

All checks will have to "clear" before we will begin on any custom project. Checks posted on a Friday or Saturday may take until Monday to "clear". money orders will have no waiting period, the same goes for cashiers checks - no waiting period. Please do not send cash thru the mail.

We may require some or all of needed payment for any particular project up front, depending on cost and labor involved as well as circumstances and our particular relationship to the customer. For example: We may do a custom job for an existing customer for no money up front, and not allow this for a new customer, and this is NO WAY means we are in any discriminate means twords any party. We reserve the right to choose the payment arrangement and options for every project on a one by one basis, with no liability allocated twords www.customwoodtoys™ or any existing party involved in any transaction herin.

If you provide an image to us - WE "meaning" Custom Wood Toys™ assume that YOU "the customer" own the said picture or image. CWT™ assumes no liability for copyright infringement involving any image given to us to replicate, although this seems far fetched in most circumstances, we understand that the situation could occur, and CWT™ assumes absolutely no liability in any cicumstance or situation. We simply provide a service, we do not create or pretend to own the source images given to us to replicate. And we aslo cannot assume liability for any customer who may or may not be involved in any business transaction with CWT™ at any time, present or in the future.

This website is a custom template made exclusively for CWT™. The original template pages and all content is owned by CWT™ and will not be available thru any website template service anywhere at any time ever, and if is found to be is in direct violation of US copyright laws and subject to penalty from within Wisconsin state copyright law or Us reserved copyright law and/or both. If you like this website and are looking for a custom template design, please click HERE.

What is copyright all about? A Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Material not protected by copyright (or otherwise protected) is available for use by anyone, without the author's consent. On the other hand, an author of a copyrighted work may prevent others from copying, performing or otherwise using the work without the author's consent. Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works.

How much new art is truly original? Author(s):
Michelle Kaminsky

A new song we're listening to or a new book we're reading often reminds us of something we've heard or read before. In the case of so-called "appropriated art," our cases of déjà vu are right on. Appropriated art is when an artist "borrows" another artist's copyrighted work to create something new. But, is this legal? A federal district court in New York had to battle with this very question. The source of the controversy was a work by feminist artist Barbara Kruger. Kruger is famous for her collages that combine photographs and words. The work in question is a cropped image by the German photographer Thomas Hoepker. Hoepker's photo of his friend Charlotte Dabney shows her holding a magnifying glass over her right eye. Kruger added her signature red block lettering over the image: "It's a small world but not if you have to clean it." Hoepker's original photograph was entitled "Charlotte As Seen By Thomas." The photograph had been published once in 1960 in the German magazine "Foto Prisma." Kruger created her untitled work in 1990. She then sold it to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum featured it as part of a larger Kruger exhibit. The exhibit then showed for three months at New York's WhitneyMuseum. In 2000, Hoepker sued Kruger, her dealer, and the museums that had shown the work. The basis for his claim was copyright infringement. Dabney joined Hoepker in his suit and sued Kruger for violation of privacy. The court dismissed both claims. However, the court also explained both decisions. Under the law at the time, Hoepker's copyright on the photograph was for 28 years. This meant the photo of Charlotte fell into the public domain in 1988. Kruger's 1990 creation was therefore lawful. Then, in 1994, Congress extended copyright protection to foreign works that had come into the public domain. This law offered 95 years of protection from the time of creation. Under the revised 1994 law, Hoepker's photograph is copyrighted until 2055. This seems to move Kruger to the guilty side of the ledger. Well, not quite. In the legislation, Congress anticipated those like Kruger who had relied on the old public domain law. Kruger was only subject to infringement actions if the copyright owner (Hoepker) notified her that the protection is reinstated AND she continued to use the copyrighted piece after one year. And Hoepker never notified Kruger about his restored copyright. So, the court ruled that he had no claim against her. Kruger's case is a well-known example. The bulk of potential copyright infringements about images and photographs probably occur on a more basic, everyday level. Thanks to the internet and image-manipulating software like Adobe Photoshop, the art of appropriating has gotten much easier. Even major museums that want to digitize their collections must consider copyright ownership before reproducing images. To battle infringement, many museums encrypt images. This allows users to view the images but not to download them. Other common prevention measures include the use of low-resolution images, the "burning" of contact and copyright information directly onto the images, the use of watermarks, and software that disables the right-click or fragments downloaded images. With the passage of the Digital Millennium Act of 1998, the net of potential copyright infringers has widened. Now, you can sue the infringing individual and the internet service provider if it fails to immediately remove the offending material. The Kruger case involved special copyright circumstances. However, there are some basic things to keep in mind about copyrights: An original work is protected for the life of the creator plus 50 years before it enters the public domain. For older works, rules differ, so check to see what law applies to the time of copyright. Copyright protection is automatic. The advantage to registering a copyright is that you may be able to sue for damages exceeding monetary loss. So don't treat unregistered copyrights as part of the public domain. The test for copyright infringement is "substantial similarity." Basically, would another viewer recognize the work as a partial or entire copy? This is shaky ground, so don't rely on this for a defense. The fair use doctrine allows borrowing another's copyrighted work "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, scholarship or research." But there is no magical percentage for acceptable use. Keep in mind that using someone else's work for commercial purposes tends to be unfavorably received in the courtroom. If you're thinking about using someone else's copyrighted work, you might want to protect yourself by consulting an intellectual property attorney. Few artists (and no judges) will accept the defense that "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

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