[Foundation-l] Wikimedian image restorations exploited on eBay

[Robert Rohde]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 10:16 PM, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk at eunet.yu> wrote:
> Дана Wednesday 16 September 2009 00:26:18 Cary Bass написа:
>> These works are Public Domain. Anyone can use them without credit. Since
>> your restoration work did not add any additional copyright, there is no
>> requirement even to credit Wikimedia Commons.
>
> Since restoring an image could include some amount of creativity, a
> restoration could be copyrightable. Certainly, there are people claiming
> copyright on digital restorations.

<snip>

It is settled case law in the US that restorations are not
copyrightable as they lack sufficient originality.  The intent is to
create a slavish copy of the original work.  Even if it takes a great
deal of skill and judgment to do that, there are insufficient grounds
for copyright in the US system.

This may not be the case in other jurisdictions (such as the UK) which
place a greater emphasis on effort in determining eligibility for
copyright.

-Robert Rohde