craftgrrl | copyright question (Reply)

I recieved notice from my image hosting service that one of my images was in violationg of a copyright and they deleted one of my albums. When I checked what album it was, I realized it was my art album. MY ART. Everything I had done with my own two hands. Photography, paintings, quilts, etc. Then I realized... MY QUILT!

Hoping to spruce up my bed, I made a quilt. I took an old picture of Marilyn Monroe (the same picture Andy Warhol used), altered it in photoshop, created a screen, and printed 60+ squares. I made a quilt and pillows for myself.

Let me first say, I greatly altered the original picture and also changed the proportions some because it would look a bit funny printed.

I am VERY proud of my quilt (spent my entire winter break working on it and +$200 on it) and didn't think I was stepping on anyone's toes by making it. I thought since I was making it from myself, abstracting the image, and wasn't making money off of it, I would be fine.

Is it just the displaying of the image that is copyright infringement? Or is it wrong for me to have this quilt? I made pillows for my friends, will it be wrong for me to give them away as gifts?

I had a filmmaker/employee of PBS tell me I was walking a fine line, but if I got taken to court, the bottom line is I'm not doing anything wrong because it's a cultural icon and chances are no one renewed the copyright.

I now have my images hosted by a different site (the other site just deleted on of many albums, but now I'm nervous to upload anything to them) and am reluctant to post my pictures of my quilt, but obviously want to show it to people.

Can I post the images? Do I need to get rid of my quilt?

I checked out websites on copyright laws and they were all sketchy. I couldn't tell if I was doing anything wrong. I'm sorry if you are tired of posts regarding this, that's why I used a lj cut. I did check the FAQ before posting this and still wasn't completely sure.

THANK YOU!