[Wikipedia-l] Stamps, wiki and copyright

[Andre Engels]

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 07:49:48 -0600 Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:

>If you take a photograph or scan a postage stamp that image is not
>copyrighted even though the underlying design may be. Sometimes a nice
>image, for example of a butterfly or bird or even a person can be included
>in Wikipedia in that way. The Japanese stamp you reference is just a
>photograph or scan of a stamp which anyone can make and publish, although
>perhaps, in Japan, there might be some restriction as it is a Japanese
>stamp.

Anyone _can_ make and publish it. But that does not mean that it's legal. 
Making a photograph of something and copying that photograph is a way of 
copying, and disallowed just like all other methods of copying copyrighted 
works.

>It occurs to me that there is a sort of disconnect here. If you take a
>photograph of painting in an museum or someone's home that is copyright 
>free
>but if you scan a reproduction of a painting in a book it is not, yet there
>is very little difference in what you have done.

Indeed, there's little difference, and your statement is wrong.

Andre Engels