Egon's Ghost

I'm surprised there are no threads here for Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi custom covers. I seem to remember some time ago seeing custom designs using the old cinema one-sheet designs. Is this a no-no here? I'm interested in them, if anyone has any.

Mike Adams

Lucasfilm has been pretty agressive in trying to keep those off the internet, but last time I checked they can still be found in lots of places on the web. It used to be that the only way you could get the films on DVD was as bootlegs, so any SW DVD cover automatically meant bootleg. That changed in 2004 when the first boxed set was released, and of course now you can get official DVDs of the theatrical versions, but I don't know if Lucasfilm has relaxed their enforcement against fan-made covers or not. As I'm typing this, the unaltered Special Edition versions are still only available as bootlegs.

Egon's Ghost

I would think then that would go for any custom-made cover. Is it because of the plethora of slick bootlegs the last several years? Has this website been approached, or something?

OK, let me put it another way. Does anyone know where I can find decent-to-high-res scans of the cinema one-sheets of Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi?

Mike Adams

That's been my argument, because it's always a violation of copyright. The only time it would be "fair use" is showing the front cover in a DVD review (i.e. as a visual representation of which DVD was being reviewed) and possibly the back cover to show things like bonus features, specs, etc. and maybe to point out errors in those details. A valid argument has yet to be made for making the full cover art available as one continuous image at a resolution that would yield an actual-size replica when printed, especially when the artwork has been altered, which is often the case.

That's probably the best way to phrase it, although that material is still copyrighted artwork. I doubt that's gonna be an issue in this forum since you didn't specifically say you wanted to make bootlegs, so I'm sure someone will be able to help you out.

Egon's Ghost

Again, if I wanted custom covers for bootlegs, then this sub-forum shouldn't exist, right? (I'm not arguing with you, Mike, just raising the question)

I bought the Star Wars, Empire and Jedi limited releases. Now that I have the trilogy in its original form, I'd like cover images of the original cinema one-sheets, as I think these Photoshopped covers suck donkey balls. I'll put the question another way: where can I buy good quality, masterprint-size reprints of the one-sheets? (approx. 11 x 17")

EvlAsh

Amazon (not 11 x 17" but good size for scanning)

Egon's Ghost

Pretty sweet book.
Small reprints of the classic one-sheets would still be nice, though.

Mike Adams

No offense taken at all, I completely agree with you. Basically the problem is that creating covers for the original discs is just as much of a violation of copyright as creating covers for bootlegs. The only difference is that with bootlegs there's the added violation by copying the actual content. It's like copying a rental videotape for your own use -- it's technically illegal, but since you're not distributing that copy nobody is likely to find out and therefore you're not likely to be prosecuted. Doesn't make it right, though. As far as making covers goes, the only 100% legal thing you could do is find a book reprinting the original movie posters, tear out the page that shows the poster art you want, and then cut it to size so you can insert it into the graphics sleeve of an Amaray case.

As I tried to explain before, the moderators of this forum allow discussion of covers, so regardless of the legal technicalities, don't worry about asking for covers for the SW trilogy or anything else. To be absolutely clear, though, I had to point out that the reason discussion of covers is allowed here is because the assumption is being made that these covers are all just for personal use. That means you're not gonna get banned from the group for discussing covers, so if that's what you're most concerned with, you're fine. You're also pretty safe from prosecution if you don't distribute the covers, as I explained above. I just wanted to make sure you understood that the existence of this forum doesn't necessarily mean that custom covers are 100% legal, and that the purpose they're put to doesn't make them any more legal.

The Cow

Not true.

It depends on what image art is used (if any).

Mike Adams

Care to elaborate? I can't see why this would be true.

Do you mean creating a custom cover that just uses royalty-free clip art and text, no logos? Sure, that would be legal, but I've never seen an example of that on any "cover site". For that matter, I think we've established that in this case (and most if not all others, look at the posts in this forum), some copyrighted "image art" is going to be used.

Mike Adams

For example, even the use of a movie studio's logo or even the "DVD Video" logo is illegal, even if you scan it off a cover that uses it legally.

The Cow

Sure, there are ton of illegals. But your statement was not true.

Mike Adams

Oookaaayyy... -notrolls-

Look, I can see being corrected on things like "Sorry, that case is not made by Amaray, it's actually an Alpha product", but just because it's POSSIBLE to make a cover that doesn't violate anyone's copyright, it doesn't mean I'm here spouting nonsense. For the benefit of the nitpickers, I'll rephrase my assertion:

Making a custom cover by scanning the original cover or other copyrighted art is just as illegal as scanning covers to print out as covers for bootlegs. The only way you can make a legal custom cover is if you don't use any of the original logos or artwork, thereby defeating the purpose of creating a custom cover in the first place.

You see, my statement wasn't really wrong. It simply assumes that the process of making a custom cover involves scanning artwork that is protected under copyright, which it basically does. There are THOUSANDS of covers out there, and I have never seen *ONE* that did not use some kind of artwork related to the original DVD release, VHS release, or the movie poster. To create a cover for STAR WARS that just has clip art of a generic space ship and the title in a generic font would be pretty pointless... so much so that it really doesn't fit the term "making a custom cover", because we all know what the point is to making these covers.

I honestly don't know what the hell it is about me that makes people want to insult and harass me. I do my best to provide useful information and valuable insight, or in the case of posts that are just opinions, I offer them in threads where all that's being asked is everyone's opinion on something. I simply don't understand why someone takes such great pleasure in pointing out that regardless of the fact that NO custom cover falls into the category of being completely infringement-free (except the one you're creating right now to act like you've proven me wrong), the fact that a cover MIGHT fall into that category if you specificially created it for that purpose apparently gives you a reason to bash me in a public forum.

It's pretty much a given that custom covers are made from existing artwork, so by definition they infringe someone's copyright. Even if you do a painting of STAR WARS characters, it's still copyright infringement, because the likenesses of those characters need to be licensed from Lucasfilm. Therefore, you're not pointing out anything valuable here, you're just splitting hairs to piss me off. Feel free to make as many covers as you want using royalty-free clip art and generic fonts, but until that represents the vast majority (um, like the 100% of them that are illegal as of right now), I'm not going to acknowledge your ridiculous assertion as something that means I must not know what I'm talking about, as you are trying to imply. In fact, it could be argued that titles of films are protected under copyright, so even if you do produce a plain white cover that just says "STAR WARS", you don't actually have the right to use the title on the cover you've created.

Jesus Christ, I don't know what I have to do here to not be insulted for no reason or to not have completely negligible omissions in any statement I make be blown out of proportion as if I'm making some outrageous claim here. As I'm typing this, a "custom cover" that uses no infringing artwork whatsoever is simply a hypothetical that you've used to try and discredit my entire argument, not anything that actually exists, and therefore not worth consideration when evaluating the validity of my argument.

Ric Easton

Try these

Egon's Ghost

Sweet Zombie Jesus! Awesome.

I'll probably just use the front covers, as I don't want "Episode__" or "A New Hope" anywhere.

Michael Corvin

Another great book.