Does anyone know the status of photos taken of works in museums/galleries (in this case, the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Vancouver)
Gareth Owen wrote:
Does anyone know the status of photos taken of works in museums/galleries (in this case, the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Vancouver)
I think this is a very good question.
If the work is already in the public domain, then there should be no copyright problems with taking such a picture, although museum rules for photography would presumably come into play. If a museum forbids photography, and you take a picture anyway, then you've probably broken the (implicit?) contract for admission to the museum. But this is not, strictly speaking, a matter of copyright.
If the work is not in the public domain, then a photograph at web-resolution probably meets "fair use" as well as anything possibly could. I'm assuming here that you mean a photo that YOU take, of a potentially copyrighted subject. If a photographer takes a picture of the Mona Lisa, we can't assume that that *photograph* is in the public domain, even if the *Mona Lisa* is.
Here's a web essay about this issue -- we should probably find more: http://is.gseis.ucla.edu/impact/f95/Papers-projects/Papers/taylor.html
Most of the issues that have arisen in this area pertain to access to high-quality reproductions. That's not an issue that affects us much, since for our encyclopedic purposes, any old picture will pretty much do just fine.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Gareth Owen wrote:
Does anyone know the status of photos taken of works in museums/galleries (in this case, the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Vancouver)
I think this is a very good question.
If the work is already in the public domain, then there should be no copyright problems with taking such a picture, although museum rules for photography would presumably come into play. If a museum forbids photography, and you take a picture anyway, then you've probably broken the (implicit?) contract for admission to the museum. But this is not, strictly speaking, a matter of copyright.
If the work is not in the public domain, then a photograph at web-resolution probably meets "fair use" as well as anything possibly could. I'm assuming here that you mean a photo that YOU take, of a potentially copyrighted subject. If a photographer takes a picture of the Mona Lisa, we can't assume that that *photograph* is in the public domain, even if the *Mona Lisa* is.
--Jimbo
I agree that violating museum rules is not a matter of copyright. If you do so, you do it at your own risk. If you get away without the museum seizing your film, then whatever copyrights go with the photograph would be yours.
Canadian copyright law, which applies here since you are talking about a museum in Canada, makes a specific exclusion in the definition of "publication" to photographs of sculptures and architectural works. Of course this does open the question of just what do we mean by "sculpture". I would venture to say that dugout canoes and Haida masks qualify as sculptures, but a lot of modern mixed media productions that do not fall into the traditional carved concept of sculptures.
Copyright in photographs also links to the ownership of the original negative or plate. Two independently photographed images of the "Mona Lisa" would not impinge on each other's copyrights. If I remember correctly the Louvre does not ban photography, but does ban flash equipment and tripods.
Eclecticology
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Copyright in photographs also links to the ownership of the original negative or plate. Two independently photographed images of the "Mona Lisa" would not impinge on each other's copyrights. If I remember correctly the Louvre does not ban photography, but does ban flash equipment and tripods.
I don't like such policies, but I do understand them. The museums say a lot of sanctimonious tripe about wanting to protect the public from poor reproductions, but that's code from "protect ourselves from someone selling high quality reproductions without paying us".
But, for our encyclopedic purposes, a pretty decent photo is really all we need. We're not really the right place to serve as a repository of GFDL extreme-high-quality digital photos of not-copyrighted art, although such a thing should exist and I would be excited to hear about it if it did.
But, we're doing something different I think.
--Jimbo
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