In 05/07/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
The polite expression for what they have been telling you is "bullshit".
The minor variations that you cite are often of no consequence to the user who can remove the so-called creative effects by changing browser settings or cropping out the ruler. This should effectively remove the "copyright" material from the picture.
Except, sadly, this isn't the case.
The photograph is, in effect, indivisible. It's not that there's "copyright material" and "non-copyright material" put together to form a composite copyrighted document, which would be the case if - for example - I quoted the Lindisfarne Gospels at length, but inserted my own commentary between sections. In that case, copyrightable and non-copyrightable material can be trivially separated, and a court would likely hold that any minor changes I'd made to the original (punctuation, spelling homogenisation, &c) could be considered not deserving of copyright outside of the context of my commentary.
With the photograph, as I discussed with Haukur earlier today, there are two aspects to consider. Firstly, as you comment here, we have the "compilation" copyright - where copyright is held by virtue of the original assembly of components for the photograph.
However, we also have to contend with the originality of the photograph as a whole, which is where problems arise. It is inevitable - simply by virtue of the age and value of the document in question - that any photography of it is an involved, organised effort, involving a professional applying skill and judgement to the situation. The book will have been prepared for photography, a page will have been chosen, the book arranged carefully, lighting set up... &c. It's a non-trivial exercise, this stuff.
Under British copyright law, as I understand it, it is very difficult *not* to consider the final photograph an original work, even disregarding the existence of the added scales. It's not the law I'd like it to be, but it's there, and it is at least somewhat defensible from the point of view of the photographer.