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legal issues in using U.S. money scanned in, and compositing it in
thinking about having a charaqcter composited into the oval where the dead presidents faces are in money, and maybe a few other close up scans of some of the details on money. is this public domain?
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8 Replies
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I thought it was illegal to scan currency. Apparently Adobe added code to Photoshop to prevent it:
https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/01/09/financial1934EST0365.DTLSteve
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this doesnt really indicate whether it is illegal to scan and use parts of the iconography from us money. of course counterfeiting is illegal. i tried googleing it, but nothing definitive.
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Yes … unclear.
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It’s not illegal to scan currency (at least in the US), although the government requires companies like adobe to put code in their software to prevent people from scanning it. The images themselves are of course public domain. The US treasury department once had a site up where they posted some images of currency that artists can use in their work, though I dont recall the url.
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https://www.moneyfactory.gov/newmoney/main.cfm/media/
On the left sidebar click one of the denominations and “materials to download”, and it will take you to a page that has images of the notes for you to use.As far as the actual law on the subject, here it is: https://www.treas.gov/usss/money_illustrations.shtml
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We once did a Lottery spot where a swarm of dollar bills came blowing in all around. We shot real money and scanned money to be applied to particles and aired it. No complaints.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
I recall from the time that unwanted plugin was added at certain photoshop version (CS1, I think):
-You are allowed to print money with the size of 125% or bigger than 125% of real bills or 75% smaller.
-You are allowed to print only one sided bills.Sorry, I don’t remember if both conditions are selectable or must come together, or if there were more specifications. Perhaps that could help googling it.
This only applys to US money, as far as I know. Each state probably has its own legislation about it.
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Just a link away from the Adobe story:
https://www.rulesforuse.org/pub/index.php
The Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992, Public Law 102-550, in Section 411 of Title 31 of the Code of Federal Regulations, permits color illustrations of U.S. currency, provided that:
…it goes on to talk about reproduction-size for printed work.
No word on the TV screen, but it’s clear from the legal context that you’re safe:No-one is going to mistake a miniDV tape containing footage of a 100 dollar bill for an actual 100 dollar bill 😉
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