Embroidery Industry Consumer Alert - We listened!

[GRiddick]

Embroidery Industry Consumer Alert

You asked us to take another look at our overall approach towards trying to reduce digital piracy in the embroidery design industry. We listened.

Although our new approach does not excuse anyone for unlawful conduct in the marketplace, we are now going to direct more of our focus on where we have discovered 95% of the infringing embroidery designs over the past four months of intense research, investigation, and documentation.

The most surprising thing to everyone we have talked to about this new focus thus far is the fact that the top nine (9) embroidery industry design developers, publishers, and re-sellers are all heavily engaged in copyright infringement activity and appear to have been so for many years. No wonder small embroidery firms do not have a clue what is legal and what is not.

Yes, names you thought that you could trust, like Bernina, Great Notions, Dakota Collectibles, Amazing Designs, OESD, Oregon Patchworks, Cactus Punch, Embird, Ann the Gran, Embroidery Library, Adorable Ideas, Artistic Threadworks, Embroidery Central, Brother International, Hirsch, and others, have been actively engaged in digital piracy and have collectively distributed tens of thousands of infringing embroidery designs into your targeted markets. Some of your own designs probably came from them as well.

In most cases, they have claimed they owned the copyrights for these pirated designs, themselves. Thus far, we have not found a single company who was willing to stop the infringing activity and notify their customers that they, too, were potentially liable.

As some of you have suggested, we are also carefully evaluating any and all major clipart software CD/DVD publishers and web site operators who may have misled you as to whether or not you could use Imageline’s copyright-protected digital illustrations and designs to produce digital embroidery design files for commercial distribution.

We invented the software category for digital graphic arts content (including clip art illustrations and designs) back in the early 1980s and we know practically everyone in this industry fairly well. We will notify you of our findings over the next few weeks.

We have led the charge against digital piracy in our industry for over twenty (20+) years. We have never lost a battle to digital pirates and we do not intend to start doing so now.  We will reduce and disclose the piracy epidemic that has swept across your entire embroidery design industry during this decade.

Your future depends on our success on this mission more than ours.
Perhaps you can help us.

George Riddick
Imageline, Inc.

[Oscar Michelen]

Dear George:

Glad to hear about this new direction. Keep us posted

[Larry Pike]

Wow.  I'm not sure to what I owe the honor of being included with a list of companies like Bernina, Great Notions, Dakota Collectibles, etc.   Our business is a mom and pop (litterally) company as is at least one other company on this target list.   We used clipart from a major clipart website AFTER asking them if it could be used for making embroidery designs for sale and being told (in writing) that it was a permitted use for the artwork sold on their website.  To this day this clipart website still says their clipart can be used for creating embroidery designs for sale although we no longer use anything from their site and have removed all designs based on artwork purchased from them.  

I applaud the change in direction and the decision to leave the small small business owners out of this catfight.  It seems to me like there's plenty of large companies to go after on this list where there is at least a chance of making some money off the efforts.  Like most of the hundreds of small businesses in this industry we would not be worth the effort to sue.  Let's just say there is no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.  We do however take this situation seriously and have handed the matter off to a lawyer for follow up as I am not an attorney.  

Larry Pike
Artistic ThreadWorks Inc.

[Oscar Michelen]

Good Luck Larry, keep us posted, we want to see if Mr. Riddick keeps his word not to go after the little guy.

[GRiddick]

Small "mom and pop" shops are the backbone of our society. I have spent almost my entire career running them and defending them against the larger companies in their industry who routinely take advantage of their size and inability to fight back.

As my last sentence in the earlier post states clearly, "Your furture depends on the success of our mission more than ours."

I applaud you for coming forward, posting your comments, AND hiring your own experienced attorney to give you professional advice. However, there are challenging times ahead for all of us who would like to see digtial piracy eliminated, or at least significantly reduced, in the embroidery design industry. Some of these challenges are quite complicated.

Unfortunately, you are now in a very dfficult position, but don't simply take my word for it. Ask someone who you can trust.

You see, you are likely going to be dragged into any litigation that involves whomever granted you these improper licensing and distribution rights, as well. Is it better for you to resolve all of these potential liabilities now with a settlement (and full release of you, your business partners, your company, and your end user customers) now, or later through the courts? Some people have made what we consider to be the obvious smart choice when faced with this same delimma. But many have not. Some have apparently gambled that Imageline is "bluffing" about our legal resources and our resolve. Obviously, those people do not know me very well, and did not believe me when I said earlier "we do not bluff".

Before I go on, let me state a few things that apparently have gone unnoticed by many of the embrodiery design companies we have contacted thus far this year. We want you to have all of the facts straight so you can make the right decision for you and your company.

1. We are the largest developer of original vector-based clip art illustrations and designs in the country, and the pioneer of the entire industry from some 25 years ago. We have millions and millions of dollars invested in our digital archives. Imagine how we felt when we found that over 95% of our own digital images we found posted online in a detailed survery we conducted last year were pirated. Less than 5% were properly licensed.

2. How can anyone stay in business with those kinds of alarming statistics?

3. We know the copyight laws as they pertain to the digital "visual arts" industries, which includes digital embroidery designs, better than any software or content development company we know, as weel as most of the people up in Washington who work on these copyright issues all of the time.

4. We have NEVER licensed a single company, big or small, the rights to sub-license or distribute via CD/DVD, or the Internet, a single one of our proprietary designs for use as digital embroidery design files. Anyone who has told you otherwise SHOULD be held acountable for ALL of the downstream damages they have caused. We will not be the only ones to lose based on the discovery that our copyrighted digital artwork has been stolen. You wouldn't if you were in our shoes either.

5. We are not talking about simply a handful of digital designs here. Our researchers have found thousands of our digital images in embroidery file formats and all we had to do was announce our intentions to enter this market in 2009 for them to start pouring out of the woodwork. It is shameful.

6. We have not pursued anyone who wasn't continuing the "cascading infringement cycle" in the market by displaying and allowing our protected images to be downloaded by their customers, or bundled into sets on CDs, DVDs, memory cards, and now even USB drives. No "end users".

7. In order for us to be properly, and fairly, compensated for the obvious market damages we have sustained, we need your help. We do not need for all of the small embriodery design companies to unite, put your heads into the sand, believe someone who claims she drew our designs herself, criticize the few that have tried to help us, make up excuses, and/or refuse to cooperate with any of our efforts to clean up your industry, as your own leading embroidery industry companies have refused to do for many, many years. Don't you ever wonder why?

8. Please discuss this with your attorney. In order for you to go after someone who may have defrauded you, and told you that you could sub-license and further distribute proprietary digital designs owned by Imageline, you must be able to prove your damages. The way this has happened for us in the past is that companies who we caught in the act of copyight infringement worked with us to resolve/settle their infringement activities. We worked together to release all of their end user customers, who are all potentially liable as well, and then their attorneys took those damages, plus any other legtimate costs they incurred, right back to the software or Internet company they claimed had misled or defrauded them in the first place. We have found nothing else that works better to protect you, the small business owner, AND your end users, who are also likely now liable for additional damages that continue to accumulate in every single case we have investigated and are now pursuing aggressively.

9. If you are one of the many small businesses in the embroidery design industry who believe what hapened in the earlier post happened to you, then please have your attorney contact Imageline right away. We are in the process of filing a number of very large federal lawsuits and you will need to decide whether you want to be on the side of the company trying to reduce digital piracy or the companies trying to profit from it.

10. Please make sure your attorney understands that you are a dealer, a re-seller, and/or a distributor, not simply an end user, Several copyright defense attorneys we have spoken with recently have not had this important distinction explained to them clearly and concisely by their new clients. Those kinds of lawyer/client misunderstandings do no one any good. The truth ultimately comes out. It always does.

While Imageline, as a small company, and I, personally, as Imageline's primary executive officer, have had to suffer a lot of sharp criticism, "badwill", and marketplace harm, based on some of the "less than accurate" posts made onto this forum, and onto the Yahoo Embroidery Groups, as well, over the past three months, I do see some benefits now, with more and more people putting all of their cards squarely on the table, minimal expense to all sides, and people now choosing which side (copyright protection or piracy) they really want to be on when this "war" escalates. And if you've ever battled sophisticated "digital piracy", especially delivered over the Internet, you will know what we mean when we say "war".

We do not lose this kind of "war". Never have in over 20 years and don't plan to start doing so now, when the stakes for all of us are higher than they have ever been before.

Thank you for listening. I hope we can work things out.

George

George Riddick
Chairman/CEO
Imageline, Inc.

griddick@imageline2.com

[Oscar Michelen]

George:

As you state, I think this forum has proved a very worthwhile tool for getting the issues out into the open in this area. You make some very  valuable comments about the distinction between end users and re-sellers and distributors and your motivation for pursuing your course of action. Please keep the forum posted on the progress of your litigation as I feel the internet does not have enough sites that focus proper attention on this growing area.  I feel if we can keep out the name-calling; angry rhetoric and finger-pointing, we can have an intelligent, thought-out conversation on a very important issue. I hope everyone involved will post their views and analysis so that this discussion can take place on  a higher level than it has in the past.

[dhall]

I would just like to add that Mr. Riddick contacted at least one of those companies listed above several months ago.  I won't tell you which one.  Regardless, this company contacted an attorney who looked into this matter.  Attorney's advice?  Ignore it.  There is no case.

While the small companies may not have the resources for personal legal counsel, the big guys do.

[bullyriddick]

dhall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> While the small companies may not have the
> resources for personal legal counsel, the big guys
> do.

That's why George is not going after big guys. According to his posts on other forums and research from Imageline, Google is the biggest copyright infringer in the world via its Image Search function. BUT, there is no lawsuit against Google. Gee, I wonder why not go after the biggest infringer, why bother with family businesses and companies that barely make ends meet in a very competitive industry. Why don't you challenge Big G, George?

George, if you are "the largest developer of original vector-based clip art illustrations and designs in the country", how come you don't have a functional web site since September 2008. Isn't that strange? March has almost passed, and there is no major upgrade of your site as it states there for several months now.

Please let us know when it will be up, because it would help many people if they could see all your collections and take them down from web sites around the world. If people had insight in your protected artwork, maybe they would take images down by themselves. Or, do you intentionally hide your artwork from everyone and by not providing information to the potential infringer, you are hoping they would accept your indecent proposals.

[GRiddick]

I usually do not respond to people who are unwilling to identify themselves. If there is a reason for this bizarre behavior, please tell me. I have never experienced anything quite like this before.

As you can see, I try to answer every question that is asked of me politely by people secure enough in their convictions that they are not afraid to let others know who they are and how they feel. I find your kind of "complain, but hide my true identity" behavior in an intellectual debate of this magnitude, unconscionable.

Just so you know, I have indicated this displeasure to both Oscar Michelen and Mathew Chan, as well. I believe anonymous posts are unhealthy for a truly beneficial exchange of information in a forum such as this one.

Three things in your e-mail today got my attention, however, so I decided to make an exception and respond.

First of all, you ask two very good questions. First, I have tried hard to contain the majority of my comments on this forum to the embroidery industry, and not a single embroidery design company has indicated to me that 'Google image search' was the origin of the Imageline proprietary digital illustrations or designs identified on their web sites, or in their software products.

Second, we just doubled the size of our vector-based digital archives in early March of this year, and are working as fast as we possibly can to get our new web site up and running. Our lead developer on this project has taken ill, and that has caused us some delays, as well. Be assured, we are as anxious to publish some of our new announcements as you are.

Last, it is precisely your use of the phrase "indecent proposals" that drives intelligent people trying their best to learn away from this forum. How would you know any of our proposals are "indecent" if you do not know all of the facts. In fact, in a recent post I sent to the owner/operators of this web site, I carefully explained how our "per end user" settlement numbers, and global releases, are lower costs, and provide more peace of mind against future claims, than anyone else in our entire industry ... and by quite a margin, I might add.

Again, please consider, and encourage your business associates to do so as well, identifying yourself so that this exchange of copyight information can be more useful to everyone in the embroidery design business.

Thank you.

George Riddick
Imageline, Inc.

[Matthew Chan]

George,

You have been given a great deal of latitude on this forum to post your messages.  Almost too much.  You will notice I have been silent.  I have been silent but watching.  Once again, you want to take a swipe at Oscar and me.

This particular forum has been very quiet for many days.  But you decided to further your own PR agenda by making your "wonderful public announcement" here on this forum.  As I suspected, because of the incredible amount of negative karma and badwill you have generated prior, it was inevitable someone would challenge your statements.  It is not "bizarre", it is almost expected.  You are either naive or oblivious to people's reactions.  And when you say you have "never experienced anything quite like this before", that is because very few gave a platform to empower people to report and air their grievances about you and your actions.

Regarding posting anonymously on the Internet, you are naive if you think anyone can force anyone to reveal their identity.  No one is required to do so to have an opinion, civil discussion, or comments.  From what I have seen, no one has yet crossed the line in their conduct or behavior in this thread.  

Make no mistake here, you started this line of discussion.  Don't complain if someone posts disagreements and dissenting opinions.

If you don't like what you get by posting here or don't like the rules, LEAVE and DON'T POST AGAIN!  Go post on your website.  Quite frankly, this discussion forum was never planned to be created.  It was done to simply segregate these posts from the other.  This forum was certainly not created for you to further your agenda.

I don't think too many people who read this forum would be unhappy if you never came back or posted again.  Quite frankly, I think your presence only stirs the pot and reignites the negative energy surrounding your presence.  Do everyone a favor and stop posting.

As much as I generally like having my websites with increased traffic, I can certainly do without your participation here and the inevitable negative responses that will follow.

MatthewC


GRiddick Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I usually do not respond to people who are
> unwilling to identify themselves. If there is a
> reason for this bizarre behavior, please tell me.
> I have never experienced anything quite like this
> before.
>
> As you can see, I try to answer every question
> that is asked of me politely by people secure
> enough in their convictions that they are not
> afraid to let others know who they are and how
> they feel. I find your kind of "complain, but hide
> my true identity" behavior in an intellectual
> debate of this magnitude, unconscionable.
>
> Just so you know, I have indicated this
> displeasure to both Oscar Michelen and Mathew
> Chan, as well. I believe anonymous posts are
> unhealthy for a truly beneficial exchange of
> information in a forum such as this one.

[GRiddick]

Dear Matthew Chan,

I have told you several times before exactly what I thought about your skills and your appitude at being a "quasi IP lawyer" and a "quasi investigative reporter". Need I say more?

I have been contacted directly by several people in the embroidery design industry who do not agree with you, Matthew. They have read the most recent posts and encouraged me to keep posting my views as to how the infrmation and communications was so poorly handled regarding this issue from the get-go.

You have criticized me unduely ever since I told you I thought you were, indeed, guilty of copyight infringement of Getty Images from what I learned by reading your own story. You never posted those comments. I wonder why?

Your comments to, and criticisms of, me are completely uncalled for. I did not take a "swipe" at anyone. I actually like Oscar. I simply told this anonymous lady/gentleman the truth.

Oscar has handled himself like a true professional lately and given these people some very good and valuable legal and pactical guidance.  Honestly, I cannot see what value you bring to this debate at all.

You do not own any proprietary graphic arts content that I am aware of, you are not a lawyer, and you are not an embroidery designer or digtizer. Please do us all a favor and monitor the web site, not make comments about things when you have abolutely no clue as to what you are saying.

BTW, what are you telling people your new theories about Imageline might be now that we have filed four (4) new federal copyright infringement lawsuits after you assured your audience we wouldn't, or couldn't, file any?

George Ridick
Imageline, Inc.

P.S. I personally think these embroidery industry folks are smart enough to hear both sides of a debate such as this and make their own choice and decisions. They need you like they need a hole in the head. Discussions were much more productive while you were MIA ove rthe past few weeks. You are simply pushing them into further legal trouble with your super-senstive and non-sensical responses.

[Larry Pike]

Many people used images from clipart.com for years to make embroidery designs.  Most of us first verified with them that making embroidery designs for sale with their clipart was acceptable use before doing such.  We have retained their affirmative responses in our archives.

We no longer have any designs available from clipart.com on our website as your email brought to my attention that is was time to review the quality of designs we sold.  We realized that our designs made in 2001 and 2002 were looking very dated.  

Here is an email exchange between us and clipart.com re-confirming that they still allow use of the clipart obtained from their website for creating embroidery designs for sale.




---------------- begin emails ----------------------------


-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Pike [mailto:larry@artisticthreadworks.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 12:38 PM
To: Kisha Woods
Subject: Copyright question


TO: Kisha Woods / Jupiter Images Inc
FR: Larry Pike / Artistic ThreadWorks Inc
DT: 3/4/2009
RE: Copyright Question


Hello Kisha -

My friend xxxxx xxxxx passed the following information to me and I want to verify that it is correct before I rely on it.  I basically have the exact same question as xxxxx had about using images from clipart.com in creating an embroidery design.

I'm sure you get emails all day long from customers with questions so to refresh your memory this is what the email to xxxxx asked.  Is it permitted to use images from clipart.com in making an embroidery design for sale.

Here is the basic info in the emails between you and xxxxx...


--------------------------


xxxxx 's question...

"So, it is permitted to create Embroidery designs from the artwork on Clipart.com, (for resale) and sell or distribute them for sale on a website, and on cd?

And as long as we do not modify the actual image copyright would belong to me on the actual embroidery design? or does Clipart.com claim copyright on any embroidery design that would be made from these images?"


Your answer...

"Clipart will always retain the rights for the images on the site. Of course we cannot claim credit on the product itself, just the image used. If you are going to post them on a website, then you would have to give credit on a credit page or adjacent to the image itself.

You are able to create your designs with the artwork on Clipart.com.

However, you cannot put these images on a CD as that would constitute "re-distribution" of the images.

You are able to post them on your website, but please make sure they are loaded at the lowest DPI possible (usually 72DPI).

Also make sure that you give credit as to where the images/clipart was obtained on a credit page or adjacent to the image."


And from an earlier email between you and xxxxx...

"You are also permitted to modify the images as much as you like. You are not permitted to claim copyright on the images that you do create using Clipart.com images. Intellectual Property laws do protect the artist and the original work including derivative works."


--------------------------


Thank you in advance for your time to respond to this query.

I just want to be sure that I got this right from my conversation with xxxxx.


Warm regards,
Larry Pike
www.ArtisticThreadWorks.com





Response back from clipart.com


Hi Larry,

I can definitely understand wanting to be sure about the usage of Clipart. Let me assure you that you are permitted to create, design and sell your embroidery design using Clipart images. The conversation between xxxxx and me is indeed correct.

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Kisha Woods
309-687-0138
kwoods@jupiterimages.com




-------------------- end emails -------------------------


Clipart.com said we could and clipart.com still says we can (although we no longer do) use their images.  


Larry Pike
Artistic ThreadWorks Inc.

[GRiddick]

Hello Larry,

I apologize for the length of this answer to your earlier posting this afternoon in advance. I truly am trying to get you to understand where we are coming from, and to keep as many small embroidery companies out of crippling litigation as we can.

Some people apparently think the exchanges posted on this web site are a complete waste of time. I started out feeling that way, but have since changed my mind. If small embroiderers are comfortable watching a level-headed debate take place in this fashion, rather than through direct one-to-one conversation, then that is fine with me at this stage of the game. We are spending most of our time on far larger, and more toxic, infringing fish right now, anyway.

I think you are sincere in what you are trying to do here, and I applaud you for that. I also think the entire issue (using clipart to produce embroidery designs) can get very confusing on occasion. Here is where you need to be ultra careful with both your logic, and in the decisions you make going forward with your business.

Rushing to judgment can be very dangerous these days, and no place is more dangerous turf than today's turf in the "digital world", in general, and on the Internet, in particular. Here's what I mean:

1. We never licensed Jupiter Images/Clipart.com to use any of our Imageline clipart illustrations and designs on their Internet display and distribution website, let alone provide any of them to others. Not in 2001 and 2002 as you referenced, and not now. Never. I could not see anything in what you wrote above that indicated that you actually downloaded the designs we identifed to you privately as ones owned exclusively by Imageline, Inc. that you had said you downloaded from clipart.com. You should check that out very carefully.

2. You and others in your industry probably do not realize the confusion that results even from some of your simple terminology and questions. Here is what I have learned from the embroidery industry in just a little over three months. You refer to embroidery designs generically to mean both the hard goods that you produce (either by hand or through the help of a computerized machine), as well as the digital files that are produced by computer to make the embroidery machines "stitch" a particular design in tangible physical form.

3. As you probably know by now, Imageline invented the electronic clip art industry with joint ventures with IBM, Lotus, Microsoft, WordPerfect, Apple, Harvard Graphics, Xerox, and others back in the early 1980s, when the IBM personal computer was first announced. I can tell you first hand that although Imageline never did, some developers of electronic clipart would, indeed, let their licensed digital files be used to produce physical embroidery designs, such as a design stitched onto your sister's sweater or your son's baseball cap. However, I know of no reputable clip art developer (copyright holder) who allowed their digital designs to be converted to embroidery digital design formats and then be re-distributed or sub-licensed, as we in the software industry call it.

4. I do not know for sure, as I have not yet spoken to Ms. Woods or the executives I know at Clipart,com's parent comany about this particular issue, but I could tell from her comments about "CDs" and "re-distribution" (as you have described them) that Ms. Woods probably did not understand the exact question she was being asked by either you or XXXXXX. I think she was saying ..."sure, you can make as many embroidered ball caps as you want, and even sell them to others, but you cannot display, sell, or re-distribute ANY designs in digital formats".

5. I know this is NOT what you or the rest of the small (and large) embroidery designers and digitizers wanted to hear, but I am almost certain that it is the truth. Check it out more carefully yourself.

6. Take a look at Bernina, Great Notions, Amazing Designs, Dakota Collectibles, EmbroideryDesigns, Cactus Punch/VSM Group, Embroidery Central, and some of the other "big boys" in your industry today. Have you noticed that they are now selling their digital embroidery designs to the print market and general Internet market as "high end clip art"? Several of them call the images "Printables". What clip art developer is their right mind whould allow anyone to convert their digital files to another electronic format and then allow those converted files to be used to compete directly with their own original designs that look almost identical? I will answer this for you. They would not.

No wonder so many people rushed to judgment and got themselves into an uproar against Imageline for our sincere, and admittedly aggressive, efforts to help clean up this mess (we call it a "piracy epidemic") that has infected your entire industry with tainted goods for years.

If I thought Imageline was claiming ownership to someone else's work (1), or was accusing people who had a legitimate license of infringement (2), or was charging end user infringement settlement fees that were out of proportion with common industry practices (3), I would get very angry myself. But none of those three scenarios is what we have here, Larry.

The host of this web site jumped to all of the wrong conclusions about Imageline right away. Apparently he thought he had "discovered" another Getty Images, Masterfiles, or Jupiter Images he could pound on, and criticize, in his own self-interests. What he forgot to tell all of you in the embroidery design industy was the truth. We have explained all of this to him several times and he hasn't seemed interested in listening to a single word we have said. Why? We are still not sure.

I think Oscar Micelen now realizes we do not go after end users (only those we find distributing our exclusive goods to others). I truly believe that is why his tone towards Imageline has changed and I have had several productive "conversations" with him, even if some of them were online and shared by others.

I do not feel the same way about Mathew Chan, but you can make your own judgment as to whether he has helped you at all or simply tried to sensationalize this entire issue. What you end up paying to either Imageline or lawyers (or both) will probalby help you make this decision.

I hope this e-mail helps clarify a few things for you and others, Larry. Please send me evidence if you, indeed, find that clipart.com, or any other large company for that matter, actually licensed you any of the artwork Imageline has identified to you as proprietary. All of our digital artwork is registered with the U.S. Copyight Office, so it wil not take us even an hour to verify any of the statements we make to you as 100% truthful.

 Be sure to ask others if they can do the exact same thing for you. And especially XXXXXX, if that is who I think it is!

Thank you for trying to clear things up and educate others in your industry as well.

George Riddick
Imageline, Inc.

[Larry Pike]

1.  I answered your question.

Larry Pike
Artistic ThreadWorks Inc.

[dhall]

6.  Printables

I found this interesting, and so researched this claim.  I only found one company selling "printables", which are grahics to print and then iron on to a project.  The graphics look like digitized embroidery designs when printed.

As a digitizer, I do find it objectionable that a design site would also sell ANY type of graphic if the digitized designs are also being sold.  However, I can see that there is a reason for doing so.  Many people would love to use the designs, but don't have machine embroidery capabilities.  Or, a hand-embroiderer may want to do these projects by hand.  Having a design template to work from is what a lot of them look for, including from us digitizers.

The question that remains, is if Mr. Riddick is claiming that the original graphics for these "printables" also belong to him/Imageline.  If he is not making this claim, then I'm not sure what his problem is.  If the original clipart developer has granted permission for this end use, and we have no proof that they haven't, then there is no problem.