| Limitation
of copyright ownership |
"If a painting
is no longer under copyright, a colour transparency (and probably a
digital scan of that transparency, though some scans have 'watermarks'
which are copyrighted) is also not under copyright according to a 1998
case between the Bridgeman Art Library and Corel Corporation."
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| Duration
of copyright (nothing before 1957) |
According to the
intellectual property lawyer Ivan Hoffman: "if a work was published
on or before December 31, 1922, then it is likely to be in the public
domain."
The International
Berne Copyright treaty (Paris text 1971) states that copyright lasts
until 50 years after the death of the author so I have presumed that
I only have to be concerned about artists still alive in 1957. Hoffman
was being very c onservative with his 1922 date.
|
| Ownership
of copyright is only held by the artist and not the owner of the work |
"Ownership
of a book, manuscript, painting, artwork, audio or video record does
not give the possessor the copyright. A Museum owning a unique original
painting of Van Gogh, is in exactly in the same situation: transfer
of ownership of any material object that embodies a protected work does
not of itself convey any rights in the copyright. This little-known
fact is documented unequivocally in many places, including the USA Copyright
Office and the USA Artists Rights Society"
|
| Copyright
of photographic reproductions of artwork |
There is no copyright
of a photographic reproduction of a painting. In Bridgeman Art Library
v. Corel Corp., 36 F.Supp.2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), the United States
District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that exact
photographic copies of public domain images could not be covered by
copyright because they lack originality. Even if accurate reproductions
may require a great deal of skill, experience and effort, it is a process
that lacks originality, a key element for copyrightability under U.S.
law. The decision applies only to two-dimensional images such as paintings
and it applies to electronic reproductions such as jpegs, tiffs and
others.
|
| Fair
Use |
More relaxed conditions
of "Fair Use" apply if an image is used to illustrate text
where the main intelligence is in the text rather than the example image.
Furthermore, free use is much more likely in a non-commercial application.
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