On Wed, 4 Aug 2004, Matt Brown wrote:
Exactly; and he's hoping we name someone we got them from that he CAN sue.
Out of curiousity; does anyone know the status under English law of this type of thing? There is US case law saying that a mere photographic reproduction of a public-domain artwork does not have sufficient expressive / creative content to create a new copyright claim. However, this may not be true worldwide.
One must be aware that owners of artworks (such as the NPG) routinely claim rights under copyright law that they do not have, or at least are based on readings of copyright law that currently have no actual cases to back them up.
IMHO, the whole matter couldn't be any more in a mess than it currently is.
My personal library contains about 20-30 museum or exhibit catalogs, & notice of copyright in them is entirely inconsistent & baffling for those of us who want to observe ownership rights. For example, my copy of the (U.K.) National Gallery catalog has a copyright notice in the front by the 3rd party who selectd the works pictured & wrote the text: obviously, they do not own the copyright to the works shown, but by omitting any mention of the National Gallery's copyright on these works of art, this suggests that they are in the Public Domain.
My catalog for the Tate was written by them & is copyrighted by this institution, so it is fair to then assume they own the copyright on the works shown. Unless per the case quoted here, the law indicates otherwise.
One interesting case is an anthology of photographs, _Oregon then and Now_, which includes a selection of photographs taken around Oregon in the first decade of the 20th century, with contemporary photos of the same subjects -- a fascinating example of how the local landscape has changed. In this case, there is _no_ copyright notice! Obviously the 100+ year-old photgraphs are PD, yet there is the suggestion that the author wanted to release into the PD his newer photgraphs. (The prudent rule for reuse would be to assume that the author retains copyright on these newer photos pending a clarification from the author.)
Scanning these materials for Wikipedia -- & allowing their reuse for one & all -- is a thorny issue!
And I'm not even considering scanning my materials from German museums, as I have no sense what the copyright law is in _that_ country. (Is there a summary of copyright laws for various countries on Wikipedia somewhere?)
Geoff