[Wikimedia-l] Copyright on Xrays

[Anthony]

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 2:47 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Upperarm.jpg
>
> That photo, according to the licenses on that page, has copyright. Do
> you disagree?

It possibly has a very thin copyright.  And even that very thin
copyright would be unlikely to hold up under a fair use analysis.

It's hard to say for sure though, without knowing the details of how
the image was made.

If you're particularly paranoid about copyright, it would be best to
ask the putative author for permission.

> If you agree that that has copyright, why would essentially the same
> photo taken using a different frequency of electromagnetic radiation
> not have copyright? What is the difference?

I doubt it would be essentially the same.  It would probably be tighter.

Also, there would not be any lighting considerations that aren't taken
care of by the machine.

I'm not sure if there are F-stops and apertures and stuff to worry about.

I'm really not sure what there is which would hold up to an analysis
under the merger doctrine.

On the other hand, I'm not willing to say that it definitely
*wouldn't* be able to attract copyright.  If you're particularly
paranoid about copyright, it would be best to ask the putative author
for permission.