The photograph is of a book over 1000 years old, so the art itself is in the public domain. The photograph on the library website is of the book, framed by a ruler and colour scale. And then, a nice little " Copyright © The British Library" down the bottom. Now AFAICT (and IANAL), there is nothing creative about that photograph. I find their claim of copyright spurious, to say the least.
Ah, but you see - British copyright laws may not require any creativity for a work to become copyrighted, unlike U.S. laws. Look at these definitions from the laws:
----------------------------------------------- "photograph" means a recording of light or other radiation on any medium on which an image is produced or from which an image may by any means be produced, and which is not part of a film;
In this Part "artistic work" means (a) a graphic work, photograph, sculpture or collage, irrespective of artistic quality, -----------------------------------------------
I am not a lawyer either. I'm not even British.
For the record I think the idea that the British Library can copyright this image to be evil. There are lots of pictures of old artworks at their website which I'd love to plunder. But it would be nice to establish the legal status of doing so under British law.
Another example. Look at the second picture on the [[Sleipnir]] article. I got it from the Danish Royal Library here:
http://base.kb.dk/pls/hsk_web/hsk_vis.side?p_hs_loebenr=4&p_sidenr=194&a...
And that's right, there's a nasty little Copyright tag there at the bottom of the page. They also have a copyright statement in English:
http://www.kb.dk/elib/ophavsret/index-en.htm
As for Danish copyright laws it seems from my non-lawyer reading that they "protect" any photograph, regardless of creativity. I hope this sort of non-sense wouldn't hold up in a Danish court but I really don't know if it would.
When I've asked questions about such things in the past I'm told that since the Wikipedia servers are in the U.S. we can rely on U.S. laws (in this case Bridgeman v. Corel). I'm fine with that personally, and it would be almost impossible to revert that policy by now. But people should at least be aware of the issues that may arise for someone publishing Wikipedia outside of the U.S. They're potentially more serious than a few clearly tagged used-with-permission images would be.
Regards, Haukur
Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote
<snip>
As for Danish copyright laws it seems from my non-lawyer reading that they "protect" any photograph, regardless of creativity. I hope this sort of non-sense wouldn't hold up in a Danish court but I really don't know if it would.
Swedish copyright law affords protection to photographs *iff* there is artistic input ("verkshöjd") in the creation of them, explicitly not to mere reproductions of two-dimensional images. The Nordic countries are normally keen to coordinate things in this sphere, so it's hard to believe they would vary drastically.
Bishonen
On 05/07/05, Haukur Þorgeirsson haukurth@hi.is wrote:
IANAL, but I'm sitting in a UK law library just now...
Ah, but you see - British copyright laws may not require any creativity for a work to become copyrighted, unlike U.S. laws. Look at these definitions from the laws:
...
For the record I think the idea that the British Library can copyright this image to be evil. There are lots of pictures of old artworks at their website which I'd love to plunder. But it would be nice to establish the legal status of doing so under British law.
Reading through "The Modern Law of Copyright and Designs" (a wonderful book, which keeps quoting poetry at unexpected moments) [1], we find that copyright in a photograph requires it to be both original and artistic. Artistic, however, is explicitly defined - any photograph is considered to be artistic irrespective of nature.
So, original. (3.37) "It is clear, first, that the mere fact that the work is in part derived from antedecent material does not deny it originality; a drawing of St. Pauls cathedral may be copyright even one might say most of the credit ought to go to Sir Christopher Wren."
(3.56) "Originality presupposes the exercise of substantial independent skill, labour, judgement and so forth. For this reason it is submitted that a person who makes a photograph merely [a footnote here emphasises "merely"] by placing a drawing or painting on the glass of a photocopying machine and pressing the button gets no copyright at all, but he might get a copyright if he employed skill and labour in assembling the thing to be photographed, as where he made a montage."
So, photocopying Magna Carta [2] doesn't give me a copyright over the end product, but photographing Magna Carta artistically displayed with a selection of other historical artifacts from the c13th would. No problems there.
(3.56 again) "It will be evident that in photography there is room for originality in three respects. First, there is originality ... which resides in such specialities as angle of shot, light and shade, exposure, effects obtained by means of filters, developing techniques etc. ... Secondly, there may be creation of the scene or subject to be photographed. We have already mentioned photo-montage, but a more common instance would be arrangement or posing of a group; this might also involve work in setting up or controlling the illumination of the subject to be photographed. Thirdly, a person may create a worthwhile photograph by being at the right place at the right time."
The third coverage, whilst v. important for news photographs, is not relevant here. It comes down to the first two.
We can assume that the original photograph was made by a professional, that it was planned to some degree, the material was handled carefully, &c. This allows us to say, as a result, that originality probably subsists in the first part - the "artistic" section, as it were. The photograph, as described, is not just of the book; it is of "the book, framed by a ruler and colour scale". This is *certainly* covered under the second part. The existence of a colour scale implies a technical attention to detail sufficient to class as "skill, labour, &c."; it's not a hurriedly tossed-off snap by someone with a Polaroid.
So, yeah. This is almost certainly covered by that copyright, which as far as I can tell would then subsist in the British Library - it's an original work under British copyright law.
I hope this has been clear. If not, please let me know and I'll teach myself some more and then explain it again...
Oh, and the obvious follow-on question - can we use it in the UK under fair dealing? No.
When I've asked questions about such things in the past I'm told that since the Wikipedia servers are in the U.S. we can rely on U.S. laws (in this case Bridgeman v. Corel). I'm fine with that personally, and it would be almost impossible to revert that policy by now. But people should at least be aware of the issues that may arise for someone publishing Wikipedia outside of the U.S. They're potentially more serious than a few clearly tagged used-with-permission images would be.
I have wondered about this - recently we've started having servers in France, and elsewhere, if memory serves. Does this then require simultaneous compliance with French law?
Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
For the record I think the idea that the British Library can copyright this image to be evil. There are lots of pictures of old artworks at their website which I'd love to plunder. But it would be nice to establish the legal status of doing so under British law.
And that's right, there's a nasty little Copyright tag there at the bottom of the page. They also have a copyright statement in English:
http://www.kb.dk/elib/ophavsret/index-en.htm
As for Danish copyright laws it seems from my non-lawyer reading that they "protect" any photograph, regardless of creativity. I hope this sort of non-sense wouldn't hold up in a Danish court but I really don't know if it would.
Many of these things cannot be settled without going to court in each separate country, and the putative copyright holders know that the mere idea of landing in court can be a deterrent even when the chance of the court upholding the copyright is negligible.
Lego is a good example of a Danish company that actively pursues intellectual property rights against Megablocks in one country after another, and consistently loses.
Ec
That is ALWAYS the problem with intellectual property law (not to mention modern court systems): they always require going to court to hash out the underlying question, and they allow the big fish (Royal Library, Microsoft, International Conglomerate #4, etc) to use the court not as a legitimate means of settling dispute but rather as a bludgeon - because even defending against frivolous lawsuits will cost money for paperwork and lawyer time and filing fees, and they've got an army of lawyers that can kick out a frivolous lawsuit variant every 5 minutes or so.
A. Nony Mouse
Many of these things cannot be settled without going to court in each separate country, and the putative copyright holders know that the mere idea of landing in court can be a deterrent even when the chance of the court upholding the copyright is negligible.
Lego is a good example of a Danish company that actively pursues intellectual property rights against Megablocks in one country after another, and consistently loses.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
_________________________________________________________________ It's finally here! Download Messenger 7.0 - still FREE http://messenger.msn.co.uk