Someone questioned, Bill Alman, the White House curator who said:

Generally, the portraits are property of the federal government and are in the public domain. In the case of the White House portraits, the photograph of the portrait may have copyright restrictions, but that it should be generally okay to use the images as long as the publisher of the electronic image is credited.

The problem is that for some reason people in the discussion, are focusing on the fact that copyright and ownership are seperate rights - and refuse to acknowledge that the curator was clearly identifying the ownership of both property rights by saying "the portraits are property of the federal government [ownership of the portraits] and are in the public domain [copyright status]."

The curator then showed a very sophisticated understanding of US copyright law by making a distinction between the copyright in the work itself (which is in the public domain), and the copyright of a photo which may or may not be copyrighted depending on your view of the line of reasoning in Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. which held that exact photographic copies of public domain images could not be protected by copyright because the copies lack originality. Where there is signifant originality there would be copyright in the photograph seperate from the portrait.

The curator seems, very wisely, IMHO, to refrain from giving an opinion about the copyright of any reproductions (photographs) of the portraits while drawing the attention to the questioner that this could be an issue. He even very clearly identifies that the only copyright issue in question is whether one is claimed by the "publisher of the electronic image."

Thus, the portraits themselves being properly commissioned by the US and having the copyright transferred to the US govt - thus becoming "public domain" as identified by the curator are public domain works. The only issue is whether the photo itself is copyrighted.

This is also resolvable in one of 2 ways:

1. Determination that the photos lack sufficient originality, thus the photographer can not claim copyright in the photo of a public domain work (following Bridgeman)
2. Assuming that there is sufficient originality, so we need to find the copyright status of the photo seperate from the one in the portrait:
   1. If they are photos posted by the US govt and copied to wikipedia from there - then those are clearly in the public domain as a work of the US govt.
   2. If the photo was taken by a contributor - then we should refer to his license in uploading the work.