| Clip art illustrates virtually every medium in the modern | | | | copyright-free library. Because the industry relaxed its |
| graphic arts. Whether paid or free, clip art has become | | | | high quality standards of clipart, copyright became less |
| the stock in trade of both amateur and professional | | | | of a concern as clipart creators became more willing |
| desktop publishing. Originally, clip art received its name | | | | to part with their art. In 1996, for example, Microsoft |
| from the production process. Design teams would build | | | | Word 6.0 offered clipart files as part of its program |
| scale models of a given layout as a "paste up"-that is, | | | | suite. |
| a larger version of the layout that would eventually be | | | | Modern clipart sprawls itself across the web, whether |
| printed. The team photographed the paste up and | | | | as decoration for a website or as actual web content. |
| used the negative to create the actual printing plate; | | | | Image and graphics libraries seem to spring up as |
| however, previous to this, the paste up needed some | | | | readily as weeds in the summer, ranging from |
| pasting up. That is where the clip art came in. | | | | lower-end groupings of images to high-quality, |
| Whenever the layout editor needed a graphic for the | | | | high-volume clipart libraries. Stock photography has |
| paste up, two options were available: produce it or find | | | | also started to come into vogue as an alternative to |
| it. In both cases, the graphic was located separately | | | | clipart, which is usually illustrated by hand or computer. |
| before being cut out or "clipped" to fit the space on the | | | | Of the several ways that clipart can be accessed, |
| paste up. This clip art procedure carried over to the | | | | clipart in the public domain-where the creator has |
| introduction of the first desktop computers with VCN | | | | divested her or himself of all copyright and donated the |
| Execuvision developing a professionally-drawn digital | | | | art away-tends to be the most popular. An interesting |
| clipart library in 1983. Throughout the '80's and '90's, the | | | | problem arises, however, whenever clipart in the public |
| popularity of clipart grew to fill the increasing need | | | | domain is downloaded and edited. Technically, a person |
| made by the rise of desktop publishing. Soon, gone | | | | who edits clipart creates his or her own copyright for it. |
| were the days of physical camera-ready paste | | | | More and more, though, courts and laws are working |
| ups-though, as with clipart, the term persisted-and in | | | | to help facilitate the easy spread of clipart while |
| came the days of Illustrator, PageMaker, Publisher, and | | | | preserving the rights of those who want to hold on to |
| more. | | | | it. Generally, image copyright gets its lease royalty-free |
| Of course, clip art is intellectual property. As the areas | | | | so that clipart users can tackle their project with one |
| of distribution spread-especially with the advent of the | | | | payment and no worries. Of course, free clipart still |
| CD-ROM in the early 1990s-clip art needed a solution | | | | bounces around online and is often a viable alternative. |
| to maintain its accessibility without losing usefulness. | | | | All the way from pencils and paste ups to photos and |
| Clipart's focus started to aim more for quantity over | | | | desktop publishing, clipart makes its mark in the arts. |
| quality in 1995 as T/Maker introduced a 500,000-image | | | | |