Just to add to everyone else’s wise advice:
You need to decide how much risk you’re willing to take. It is possible that no one would ever see the mural and complain. But it is also very likely that you could have complaints and/or objections. In that event, you would have the option of immediately painting the mural out to avoid further conflict (assuming it's not been reproduced elsewhere and plaintiffs are willing to drop their objections) or fighting with whoever is complaining.
Without more information, it seems very unlikely that you would prevail on a fair use argument based on educational use. You might have an argument to be made based on parody or transformative use depending on the actual content of the mural. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that you would have to be making these arguments within the context of a dispute and possibly even court . . . where I imagine you don’t really want to be! It would not be surprising at all to get objections from publishers and/or copyright holders if not the authors/artists themselves and this immediately puts you in a defensive position. Not where you want to be . . . especially after paying for and installing the work!
Getting permission is always the best course of action in this sort of situation, even though you may have to change the work based on whether you can secure permission (and secure it for a reasonable licensing fee). Last important point: if you ask permission and are denied but decide that you’ll use an image anyway, you open yourself up to liability for increased, punitive damages based on willful infringement.
Hope this is helpful!
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On June 6, 2018 at 1:06:51 PM, Nicole DeWald (ndewald@greenbeltmd.gov) wrote:
Hello, colleagues. A local charter school -- not administered by the city -- has expressed interest in having a mural painted on the exterior of their building. Their initial design concept is to scale up an illustration from an existing,
copyrighted children’s book. I’d like to determine whether not this would likely constitute legal fair use, on the grounds of it being partial (a complete illustration, but only part of the book) and arguably educational. I suggested that their artist might
want to approach the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts for guidance, and I’d welcome input from the list as well.
Thanks.
Nicole DeWald,
Arts Supervisor
City of Greenbelt, Maryland
ndewald@greenbeltmd.gov
240-542-2057. greenbeltmd.gov/arts
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