Boxed set collage cover question

[alhawke]

I'm planning a boxed set for three books. Two of the covers were created by one artist, the last cover was done by another. My idea, which I've seen here and there with boxed sets, is to use one model, or image, atop the three ebooks below her. The ebooks will be unaltered. So...

Am I allowed to create a cover if the three book covers aren't altered in this collage? Or do I need to discuss this with each cover artist?

I think that as long as the cover isn't altered, it can be used for marketing purposes--in this case the covers.

[Bill Hiatt]

I am not a lawyer, but you definitely have the right to use a cover you've commissioned in advertising. Whether you have the right to use three of them on another book is...less clear. I would say yes, but in these circumstances, the ideal situation would be to ask the designers--or a lawyer, but the latter is obviously more expensive.

[LilyBLily]

I guess the real question is what rights do you have to the image, and that would depend on the image source. Of course you would have rights to advertise the covers themselves.

One of the many designers I have used insists that I purchase the main cover image. Having done so, I have whatever licensed rights I bought, which in a standard license do cover advertising. I can't give an image that is listed as for editorial use only to a designer to make a cover out of it. Not in this country, anyway.

For a different series, I commissioned original art and I bought all rights. I have reused parts of that art for multiple covers.       

[alhawke]

Hmm... I'm thinking it might be best to talk to my artists and see. But, technically, using them unaltered doesn't seem to be violating the initial license. Then again, it's a new product. Sort of...

[Bill Hiatt]

If the designers licensed stock photos themselves, in most cases, they can use the licensed image themselves but can't necessarily allow someone else to use it.(beyond advertising, as we've said). Is is probably why LilyBLily's designer had her license the image, just in case.

Another possible way to go would be to ask the designers where the image came from and license them yourself. Three images aren't going to be that expensive, and assuming the designers allow the reuse of whatever changes they've made to the images, you should be good to go.

[LilyBLily]

I did search for the main image after my first designer died. I bought a license; I think it was $12. I found the other images she used in DepositPhotos, where like most people I already had a deal, and I grabbed them, too. Since then, another designer has made many modifications to the cover.

I presume that the designer's heirs--if they didn't just throw out her computer--might want to claim creator rights on the concept, except that I was the one who told the designer what the concept was to be, so it was work for hire.

Some designers might argue with that. In my long experience with work for hire, including overseeing contracts for such work, commissioning somebody to do what you tell them to do in a specified parameter but using their own tools and creativity in the details definitely qualifies as work for hire. There are other markers of work for hire, but yada yada. I am well aware that some designers like to hold onto the original files of the covers they create and act as if they own them and only licensed them to us. But in fact, that is not the core of the typical contractual agreement for a cover design.

[Bill Hiatt]

Yes, if the cover is generated as the result of a work-for-hire agreement, then the designer has no rights, unless some kind of exception has been made in that agreement.

[alhawke]

Should have done this from the beginning, but this is the idea. It's the idea, guys, so just laugh at the appearance. It took 5min to set up. But this gives you my idea. Basically, I need rights to the above image (I was going to use part of a cover but then I realized that'd be against the license agreement  ). If the above is part of another cover, I can get that from the original artist.

The covers should technically be mine to use for promotion from the original contract, right? That's the main question. I believe it's only the above image that would be altered that would need a new license. But I don't know. The other legal argument here is whether this new arrangement constitutes an entirely new cover.

Anyway, just sent this to clarify and for others thinking of doing the same thing. I know the artists so I'll be in contact with them.