Any artwork/content displayed on IVAO is understood to comply with the following Intellectual Property Policy. If you are the author of artwork being displayed without your permission, please contact IVAO Public Relations to request it's removal.

IVAO Creative Intellectual Property Guidelines

These guidelines are intended to provide a basic understanding of intellectual property rights, and how they effect our organisation. Staff or members involved in the creation, use or distribution of images should read and understand these guidelines.

1a) Introduction to Copyright
- Copyright protects the rights of authorship of any artistic, photographic, dramatic, musical, literary and visual works.
- Copyright is attached on creation of the work, and is an automatic right and does not require paperwork, registration or an explicit statement.
- Copyright gives the author the sole right to: reproduce the work, display the work publicly, edit or alter the work and distribute copies to the public by sale, rental or for free.
- Giving credit to the source does not substitute being granted permission to use the works.

1b) Introduction to Trademarks
- A trademark is a sign which distinguishes goods and services from those of competitors.
- It can be words, logos or a combination of both.
- A trademark must be recognisable as a sign that differentiates goods or services as different from someone else's.
- Trademarks seek to protect the commercial rights of the 'power' of a brand.
- Therefore, trademark 'infringement' tends to only occur if: A) public confusion is caused when a similar party other than the registered owner uses a trademark or B) alternatively a trademark is used by a dissimilar party, however this causes reputational damage to the owner of the trademark, even without public confusion.
- "Fair use" may be a defense on two grounds, either that the alleged infringer is using the mark to describe accurately an aspect of its products, or that the alleged infringer is using the mark to identify the mark owner.

2) Implications/Guidelines for IVAO
Creative artwork (images, videos, banners etc) used for any IVAO activity (under the name of IVAO, or any functional division, department or sub-section) must be created using either:

A) Artwork created by the author (photographs, illustrations, drawings, video footage etc.)
B) Artwork that is free from copyright restrictions
C) An image for which permission to alter and create derivative works has been granted. (The author must grant permission with the knowledge that a non-profit organisation may distribute the derivative image internally or externally.)

Images must be free from any registered trademarks, unless explicit permission has been granted by the registered owner to use the trademark.

Any author submitting his/her own image(s) as a whole (or part) work for IVAO is granting IVAO a license to use this image internally and externally, for free, until notified otherwise by the author.

Anybody creating, providing or using artwork in the name of IVAO (or any functional division, department or sub-section), must be able to demonstrate that the image is free from intellectual property (copyright and trademark) restrictions if challenged.

3) Practical Advice
It is not difficult to seek permission to use copyrighted images. Websites such as airliners.net provide contact details for authors of images. Many authors will happily allow their images to be used, especially within other aviation hobbyist circles. Authors must grant permission in the full knowledge that IVAO may distribute the derivative image internally or externally.

Alternatively, recommended sources of copyright free images:

http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
http://search.creativecommons.org/

Our aim is to fix the root-cause and educate members, not to create a hostile 'checking-up' culture. However, any 'challenges' to this policy will be handled solely by the Public Relations Director (PRD.) Any member wishing to report some artwork for breaching these guidelines should submit evidence to the PRD. If a breach is observed, the author will be asked to demonstrate his compliance with the policy. The PRD will then decide whether the image is compliant or not. If it is not, the artwork will be withdrawn from the competition/usage.

For any further assistance or questions, please contact:
IVAO Public Relations Department Director - prd@ivao.aero
IVAO Public Relations Assistant Director - prad@ivao.aero
IVAO Board of Governors - bog@ivao.aero

Effective immediately, issued by the IVAO Board of Governors, 15th April 2013.