As I draw near the publishing date of my novel, I have to make sure all of my legal rights are balance so that I'm not blindsided down the road. I wanted to use an image of the ankh symbol as an overlay to a quote that is a sort of "preface" for the novel in general. I searched the forgotten bastions of antiquity across internet for the perfect one and surprisingly found it right underneath my nose on Wikipedia. The issue I'm having is that I am unsure whether or not I can use this image. I know technically the ankh symbol itself isn't copyrighted (as the symbol of the cross and so many others) and the image is a simple black and white drawing yet I still have reservations. I did check some royalty free sites but (go figure) they want you to pay for the privilege of downloading/using them. I'm not exactly sure what to do in this case and I'm hoping someone has some insight that could relieve me of my worries.
Although an Ankh isn't protected in broad terms (anyone can use one), any given drawing or photograph of one may be subject to copyright protection. The copyright will rest with the author upon creation. If the drawing you want is on Wikipedia, you might read through their License and see what, if any, restrictions they place on commercial use of the materials on their site.
Sadly, tracking down the source of the image has proved to be next to impossible. Here is a direct quote about the legal matter regarding their images straight from the Wikipedia homepage "Important note: since the Wikimedia Foundation does not own the copyright to the articles on Wikipedia, it is useless to email any of our contact addresses for permission to reproduce articles or photographs. Emails to those addresses about this issue will be returned with a generic message to see relevant licensing conditions. Due to the complexity of copyright licenses, and the variety of copyright legislations across the world, we cannot answer inquiries about how to apply a certain license in specific circumstances; if you need legal advice, we advise you to seek it from a lawyer." At this point, it might be easier to draw one myself.
Here's a guy with three Ankhs on his page. He says to contact him for commercial use. They are available for non-commercial use with attribution without contacting him: http://python.net/~goodger/projects/graphics/ You are right - at some point it may be easier to just draw on if you can create a nice image.
since your book is not 'non-commercial use' you will either have to google for free clip art or pay for the use of someone's copyrighted artwork... there's no alternative short of drawing it yourself, i'm afraid...
Eureka! I think I found the solution to my problem. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coa_Illustration_Cross_Ankh.svg It says there under the Generic 2.4/2.0 license that I am allowed to make commercial use of the work if I attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor. Question is, I'm not exactly sure how to attribute the work exactly. Who/what do I cite?
The only author info I see for it is Madboy74, so I suppose you could say, somewhere at the beginning of the book like where you have the copyright notice, who did the cover art, etc., something along the line of "Ankh graphic by Madboy74, commons.wikimedia,org." Other than that, I don't know. I don't see anything by the author that indicates a specific manner of attribution.
Once again Steerpike, you prove to be my hero, I'm need to get you a cape and mask so that we may go out together and fight for justice!
