From: "Mirko Thiessen" mt@mirko-thiessen.de
All images on that site are drawings from a 1905 field guide, and so they should be public domain. BUT all images were (as they describe on their page) scanned and reworked with a graphics tool in order to change contrast, lightness and hue. I don't know, if this makes the owners of the website new copyright holders.[...] Can anyone tell me, if I am allowed to use these images?
Hi Mirko, If you rework them yourself also I would think you'd be just as much a re-author of the images. I'm not sure of the legalities, but I was under the impression that if you use other images to create a third image but not for profit that this was allowed under artistic expression. Again, I'm not sure of the legalities but projects I've worked on for schools have followed this procedure, of course the field of education can get away with a lot in this regard... akin to cutting and pasting photos from magazines to make a collage for a class project.
Are there sites which one could look up the legalities of this issue?
I can pass it by our school district legal advisor and I'll see what I can learn about it... It's definitely a situation that could come up again and again...
Cheers, Jay B.