Copyright?

Are you allowed to take someone’s photo/art and make it into a theme and then copyright it as your own? Without mention of them at all? I feel that is not fair.

  1. Your Obligations

You represent and warrant that:

© Intellectual Property Rights. You have and will maintain all necessary copyright, trademark, patent or other proprietary or legal rights to post, display, perform, use, reproduce, distribute and transmit Your Add-on, worldwide, as well as the rights to authorize others (including Mozilla) to do the same.

You should ensure that you have the relevant rights and legal. If someone claim it with Report Abuse, Mozilla will review it.

I have seen themes with some one’s artwork exactly copied and no credit is given, it is instead copyrighted by the theme artist. That can not be OK? I would not be happy if that was done to me. I would never do that. I am asking because I have seen it done. One step further I saw the art work being sold by the original person, then someone else can just copyright that? Make a theme and claim it as their creation? I think that should be not allowed and I believe it is not supposed to be. Yet it is done.

I guess you have to be the copyright owner to ask for an audit. Maybe you can try to contact the authors / artists. You can not assume the add-on authors is not licensed, e.g. purchasing from a legitimate third party, or an authorized open license.

Many thanks for the explanation. That helps my concerns completely and I can enjoy the themes again.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Reviewers/Guide/Reviewing#Step_1:_Review_Add-on_Metadata

Step 1: Review Add-on Metadata

Our review process does not involve reviewing for copyright infringement of any kind. The DMCA gives us protection from liability for hosting content that infringes copyright because of how hard it would be to review each add-on we host for copyright infringement. If you see something egregious, feel free to escalate it for super-review but we do not specifically review any content for copyright concerns.

If you have any concerns about the legality or legitimacy of an add-on, please email amo-admins AT mozilla DOT org.

I can’t imagine how long it would take if each was checked. Understandable not possible to do. The original artist can be notified if someone is concerned and they will know if it is used properly. ( Bought , permission or whatever…)Thank you again for explaining.