Lavolta Press wrote:
As for pictures, not only are they usually complete in themselves, bear
in mind that under US law (I understand that the laws of some foreign
countries are different, but do not know the details for each country)
photographs of paintings and other works of art have their own
copyrights, indepedent of the copyright status of the work of art
itself. Suppose a Renaissance painting is in an American museum, and the
museum photographs it. They can, and often do, charge for the use of
that photo. If a different photographer photographs it someday, that
photo has its own, different copyright.
Not as black and white as all that anymore -- see Bridgeman v. Corel, as
I mentioned yesterday. It is possible that such exact photographs of
public domain works are no longer copyrightable in the US unless there
is some additional creative content. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp. for a
relatively accessible explanation of this. But as it mentions, "it has
yet to be cited by any appellate-level circuit court"; it's not
*officially* the law of the land yet.
This does mean, however, if you copy an exact photograph of a
Renaissance painting for your SCA Renaissance costuming class, you are
probably going to be OK -- in the US. Probably. But not certainly.
Anything can happen, and at some point, this might be tested at the
Supreme Court level, and it could be you who gets sued in the process.
But Bridgeman v. Corel at least means (to me, anyway) that you can use
those types of images in the US with a clear conscience, as the original
works are public domain, and the photographs themselves are probably not
copyrightable based on Bridgeman v Corel.
(The sad thing is, even if you are in the right, you can still get sued,
and it can still cost you a lot of money. But that is up to each of us
to decide whether to take that risk, I guess.)
W
(For what it's worth, I think this decision is correct; once works are
in the public domain, an owner of the physical work should not be able
to de facto "re-copyright" them, as many museums have essentially
attempted to do. I know they get income from it, but "hijacking the
public domain" is unethical, and in a way contrary to the general
mission of most museums. But that is just my opinion.)
*-----------------------+---------------------------------------+------*
\ Wendi Dunlap-Simpson | litlnemo at slumberland.seattle.wa.us | dear/
/ Seattle, Wash., USA | http://www.slumberland.seattle.wa.us | 23 \
*--"Somehow everything will be a little different than you thought"----*
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