Are free textures actually free? advice please

[alfabruce]

HI everyone,

I apologise if Im dredging up old territory but Ive been searching for some info on this for a while and getting some conflicting ideas.

Im an amateur artist and use Rhino and Octane to make sci fi etc etc stuff. I often use the Live Db for textures but also sometimes find a, lets say, blue swirl pattern for example on google and use this.

If I show my art in a gallery or online or sell it, is there an issue with the use of a texture or pattern found on google ( some of these are reportedly free, some dont have any info at all).

Generally the texture would be scaled and possible lighter or darker with the gamma slider etc and sometime barely recognisable as the original.

More often than not the texture or pattern would cover less than %5-10 of the image.

I seem to remember somewhere that if the original changed in some way (scale, colour etc) it should be OK.

If we take a texture into photoshop and modify it a bit and in reality use it for inspiration, is it considered OK to use then?

Many sites list their textures as free but Im lead to believe that this may not be the case and could cause complications down the track.

Any info would be great as I imagine most people on here are in a similar boat and may have found more conclusive information about what can and cant be used.

Cheers

Tim

[alfabruce]

Any ideas people?

We must all be using a variety of textures and surely they arent all homemade or from the LiveDB.

Has anyone seen any documentation or heard of any copyright or intellectual property issues?

Cheers

Tim

[itsallgoode9]

from my understanding over the years, it's very much a grey issue and is usually up to court digression if an image has been altered enough to not be infringement or not. In the case of textures, they're generally generic enough or altered so much that it's a non issue.

[alfabruce]

Thanks itsallgood, yeah its hard to get some firm info. Thanks for your input.

Cheers

Tim