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Things You Need to Know

Before you start your first collage, you need to know two things: fair use and public domain. This is important for making your collages, whether analog or digital but more importantly digital, since you may feel inclined to just download any and every image you find on the internet.

Public Domain​

Since collage is highly dependent on the sources you use, the best source for your collages is the public domain. The public domain refers to any and every creative artwork, asset, or property that is either no longer or has never been protected by intellectual property (IP) laws. This means that all such assets that fall under this category are up for everybody’s grab–hence, being in the domain of the public. Being in the public domain means it can be used by anyone for any purpose without having to obtain permission from its original creator (Stim & Secor, 2023).

In order for something to enter the public domain, they have to have gone through one of four common processes:

  • The copyright expired
  • The copyright owner failed to renew the copyright
  • The copyright owner deliberately puts it in the public domain
  • Lastly, copyright law cannot protect this certain work

Copyright laws are different for certain countries and regions, but as a widely-known point of reference, US copyrights often expire between 90-100 years (Stim, 2021.) Which means right about now, every artwork before the 1920’s are mostly, if not completely copyright-expired, which THEREFORE means they are free for you to use as a source of collage. That means Van Gogh, Steamboat Willie, Carravagio, et cetera–just date it and you can use their artworks.

Fair Use​

But if the artwork or asset you have is currently owned by someone else, and there’s copyright involved—what you may have just done is copyright infringement. However, this is where fair use comes into play. Fair use means a person may make limited use of someone else’s work without the need for permission from the original author (Stim & Secor, 2023.)

Thanks to fair use, copyright infringement can be dismissed if the artwork you made is transformative enough: meaning that the artwork adds new expression, meaning, or message to the original work (Stim & Secor, 2023.) Collages can get away with copyright since the work itself is often transformative; after all, you are adding layers and layers of different sources together. However, armor does not make you invincible, and not all collages can get away with this if brought to court of law. I know I’ve been encouraging you to make your own collage throughout this whole time, but I do not also want you to think you can take any image off the internet, paste it on a white background, and call it your own.

If you checked the previous page, you would see all the links I gave you for all the sources you can use–including sources for Fair Use. Legally speaking, there are four factors that one should consider when applying fair use, which are:

  1. The Purpose and Character of Fair Use
  2. The Nature of the Copyrighted Work
  3. The Amount or the Substantiality of the Portion Used
  4. The Effect of the Use on the Potential Market for or Value of the Work

To find out more about these factors, I would rather link you to the source itself than put it in my own words.

Transformative​

This isn't about Transformers, as much as I'd like it to be (though I would love to see a Transformers-based collage–perhaps an artwork on how their bodies shift and change in the middle of transformation? You saw the idea here first), but instead about transformative artworks. Regardless of whether you're in the realm of public domain or fair use, you have to make sure that your collage is transformative. But what does that mean?

It means using a previous artwork and adding or redefining its meaning or context. How much you want to add or redefine that said meaning is up to you, but essentially, if you're not changing anything to the artwork—why make a collage using it? Why make art at all? Granted, some elements may just seem plainly cool and you might want to use that element for the sake of it being cool—there is no harm there. What I ask of you isn't a radical transformation of the material, but a transformation of what has simply already been presented. What do you see that the original author did not? How could you contribute to the message their artwork is trying to convey? How could you twist that message? Whatever you do with the artwork is fine, but why you intend to work with it is essential.

tip

Make sure to only use a part of the artwork, and not its entirety, as both a creative challenge for yourself and to prevent any issues with copyright as well.


Overall, keep in mind how you collage: you are after all an artist, not a thief, despite the famous adage. You shouldn’t literally steal—but if you do, make sure it’s transformative.

Either way, regardless of where you find your collage sources, I think it's a personal responsibility to find out where they come from. I think there’s an absolute treat to finding old and long-gone artists and bringing them back through your own work. By finding out more about where your sources come from, you end up becoming better informed, and you may even have a better idea of how to use your sources wisely. There is, indeed, magic in the arts, and collage specifically is a collaboration and conversation with the artists before you. It's paper necromancy. It's Frankenstein's artwork.

Now that all that's been discussed, it's time to start getting ready to do your first collage. Are you ready? If you’ve come this far, I think you’re more or less ready. Let’s get ready.

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