Julie wrote:

Please 'scuse the phone numbers on my last -- if there's any way to edit out that part, I'd really appreciate it.

Your phone numbers have been in several messages you've sent, Julie. I was wondering if you wanted that badly to hear what your coworkers sound like. :-)

"Yes, they're in the public domain because I've put them there now. I created them from works that were not under copyright, most of which (the paintings and such) were created 100s of years ago, and my work in creating and manipulating the digital images makes them my own work-product, just as a photographer owns the rights to the pictures he takes but not whatever he takes the picture of."

Did Isis take pictures, or scan in pictures? Or simply resize images in Photoshop or whatever? Two of those would probably not be covered, though the photos probably would.

Montrealis then asked about the use of videotape covers, etc, and this was the response: "They fall under the "fair use" doctrine for documenting sources in scholarly works but, even if they didn't, the remedy for infringement is disgorgement of the profits, and there are none here. (The covers are like your face: When you're in public, anyone who wants to can take a picture of you, but if they try to use it to make money, you can either stop them from using it or make them pay you what they got from using it.) But the question is academic, because as a practical matter it's free publicity to entities that live on publicity. And if you've ever tried to report bootleg tapes to the companies that own the rights, you know that they don't care." isis

I can't speak for print media, but as far as documentaries go, you have to prove that you have the rights to use every snippet of music you can hear in the film as well as every image and bit of film that you didn't produce yourself. (The only exception I know of is newsbroadcasts, which can be filmed and shown without paying royalties. And this rather stringent requirement may be one that came about as a means of avoiding lawsuits, even ones that the filmmakers could win. But HBO, PBS, film festivals, etc. will not play your film if you don't have the paper trail for all of the above.)

Ridiculous, I know. I would like to see a light at the end of the tunnel, so I hope it's not as bad as all that in terms of video covers etc.

kq