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Hello,
Im a digital artist and I am using Emojis in my abstract pieces. Please see image attached. The emojis are very small and I’m not sure whether they are Apple’s emoji set or not. The emojis are from a Apple Store app called Glitché. Could I use these emojis in my work and sell the work? Or is this a copyright infringement?
That's a much more complex question than you would think. While the Unicode Consortium decides what emojis go where in the set, and describe what each one should basically look like, it's up to each OS vendor to draw their own version. Full list here:
https://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html
As an example from the list, here's face with glasses:
Since I'm on an Apple device, Browser (the one in use on your platform) and Appl will always look the same. But all of the others are different since they were created by an artist for that platform. In other words, Apple drew/created all of the emojis used in its set. As such, you could easily infer that Apple owns the copyright for every emoji character they created.
And it gets more complicated than that. Here's a list of every organization or individual who contributed the artwork.
https://www.unicode.org/charts/fonts.html
Most notable on that page is the big, fat notice:
I'm no lawyer, but it sure looks like, as with many other fonts, there are copyrights to consider.
You can contact Apple legal and ask for clarification, but with so many hands in the creation of emojis, that may not be enough.
You should contact a lawyer. Emojis are described by the unicode consortium but each company then creates their own image set. Those are certainly copyrighted by each company (it's why emojis on iPhone look a bit different than Android, etc.). At the same time, art may falls into fair use, unless you make money (but not always). Yeah, a lawyer is your best bet.
Another option is at JoyPixels (the group who create the Adobe EmojiOne vector version of the standard emoji set). Used to be free, but is now a freemium option.
https://www.joypixels.com/licenses
Since you're using emojis for art, and therefore as a for profit venture (art for resale), you would need the enterprise license. As a single user, the cheapest route for you is the Business - Micro pricing for each of the four emoji fonts.
Also contact the company that creates/is selling them to ask about copyrights.
Using Emojis in abstract art
