Hi - 

I actually professionally consult with GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) regarding the copyright of their images and the content within them and how copyright works. I have worked with everyone from the Smithsonian Institution to the Getty regarding opening their cultural heritage materials. 

To be brutally honest: the university can claim copyright over the photographs of those images all they want but they will lose that case in a court of law if the photograph is of an object that was created before 1923. 

The news about these images has been disseminated in the Open Culture (GLAM) community already, and they'll most likely end up being uploaded to websites like Wikimedia Commons, with proper attribution of where they came from (the university) but because the objects are public domain (1923 and before) there will be little to nothing the university can do to control that. 

For example, a Wikipedia edit uploaded thousands of images from the National Portrait Gallery in London. All of artworks in the public domain. NPG tried to sue this editor (who is still an active editor). They failed - it was determined that the case had no chance. Basically, a museum or library can sit around and claim copyright over photographs of public domain images all they want, but, they can't win in a court of law.[1] 

So regardless, they'll end up on Commons eventually and be disseminated. I can go on and on and on about this, it's my big passion - professionally and personally. 

-Sarah

[1] http://www.dmlp.org/threats/national-portrait-gallery-v-coetzee#description

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 9:11 PM, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond@gmail.com> wrote:
Maybe I am missing something (USA copyright law is not my area of expertise) but I see recent photographs of old things, which would make the photos the copyright of Dovie Horvitz (who is described as the person who took the photos). If the copyright has been assigned to the university, the university's website asserts copyright over things in electronic format (which seems to cover anything on a website!).

Sent from my iPad

On 22 Oct 2014, at 9:13 am, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch@gmail.com> wrote:

Fabulous collection of images, see below. 
Most are public domain - meaning ripe for uploading to Commons :) 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carol Stabile <carol.stabile@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 4:11 PM
Subject: fembot: Announcing a new pictorial digital women's history collection
To: media & technology collaboration gender <fembot@lists.uoregon.edu>


Thought some of you would be interested in this.

best,

Carol A. Stabile, Professor
School of Journalism and Communication/Department of Women’s and Gender Studies
University of Oregon
Editor, The Fembot Collective

>
> Dear WMST-Lers
>
> I am pleased to announce the availability of a wonderful online collection of photographs of women’s everyday possessions in the 19th and early 20th centuries, plus numerous digitized texts (magazines, books, postcards, posters, and more) concerning women during that period. The objects and printed works themselves were amassed by Dovie Horvitz, and Illinois-based collector who hopes to find an institutional home for the entire collection some day — perhaps the presence of the photographs and digitized works will spark that interest. We hope so.
>
> Objects in the collection include clothing (dresses, hosiery, bustles, garters, swimwear, undergarments, aprons, and more), accessories such as shoes and boots, hats, gloves, purses, fans, handkerchiefs, furs, and parasols; menstrual and other health products; cosmetic and grooming kits, powders, and related make-up items; dresser sets (combs and brushes); curling irons and other hair care devices; perfumes; boudoir pillow covers; eye glasses; and exercise equipment. The printed matter includes numerous women’s magazines, Sunday supplement illustrations, sheet music about women, suffrage postcards, World War I and II posters, photographs of teen parties, and pamphlets about sex, health, and menstruation. Page after page of ad-filled women’s magazines, as well as packaging elements such as hairnet envelopes, hosiery, handkerchief and hat boxes, constitute an important part of the collection. Most of the material is American in origin.
>
> The collection seems of most immediate interest to women’s history classes, but American literature, communication arts (especially marketing), medical history, design, and other fields should also find it useful. It is also simply a pleasure to browse!
>
> Please pass this message along to others at your institution.
>
> The fully searchable and browsable  online collection homepage is athttp://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/GenderStudies.DovieHorvitz
>
> An article about the collection is at http://www.library.wisc.edu/news/2014/10/13/dovie-horvitz-collection-showcases-extraordinary-evolution-of-ordinary-women/ .
>
>
> Phyllis Holman Weisbard
> Women's Studies Librarian Emerita
> phweisba@wisc.edu

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--

Sarah Stierch

-----

Diverse and engaging consulting for your organization.

www.sarahstierch.com

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_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap




--

Sarah Stierch

-----

Diverse and engaging consulting for your organization.

www.sarahstierch.com