Forum Administrator
05-22-2002, 09:42 AM
Okay - in the Tangency forum, I made a post a looong time ago that I intended to use public-domain images (namely the works of Heironymous Bosch) to illustrate my RPG. The thought behind this was simple: these works being public domain, no royalties or payments need to be made. Free art, essentially, embroidered by commissioned modern pieces. It lowers the cost of the production of the book, and Bosch's work is amazing.
Godfather Punk raised a question, just recently, about whether or not I need to get rights to the *museums* that currently hold the work, the photographer in whatever book I eventually scan the images out of, or the creator of online GIFs of the images.
It seems fair enough that I would have to obtain the permission of the photographer of pictures in a book of art (although not the author of the book), but I have some serious questions about where this right comes from:
1) Where in the world do museums get the rights to these paintings? I'm including a few quotes from the Berne Copyright Convention of 1971 that handles these sorts of issues, which I'll quote here:
Art. 9.2 It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to permit the reproduction of such works in certain special cases, provided that such reproduction does not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author.
Art. 14.1 The author, or after his death the persons or institutions authorized by national legislation, shall, with respect to original works of art and original manuscripts of writers and composers, enjoy the inalienable right to an interest in any sale of the work subsequent to the first transfer by the author of the work.
Art. 18.1 This Convention shall apply to all works which, at the moment of its coming into force, have not yet fallen into the public domain in the country of origin through the expiry of the term of protection.
Art. 18.2 If, however, through the expiry of the term of protection which was previously granted, a work has fallen into the public domain of the country where protection is claimed, that work shall not be protected anew.
While sitting here writing this, I suppose that I understand that they have a need to house the painting, grant access, etc. All of that costs money, so they're going to charge you if you want to come and take a photograph of it or puchase a photograph made by the museum itself.
Does this mean that the Public Domain is essentially full of crap, at least as it comes to illustration and works of art? The work is ostensibly in the public domain, free for use to anyone. Books that are in the public domain can be transcribed or scanned and OCR'd and remain perfect copies of the original. Paintings and illustrations, however, need to be photographed or otherwise recorded, supposedly in person. The museum has control of the painting, and charges the photographer (or publisher), and then the photographer has the rights of the photograph.
It gets more confusing for me. The copyright law, at least in the U.S., only covers *the original arrangement* of public domain materials. In other words, if I create a picture book of Bosch's art, only the arrangement of the book itself and anything I add to it is copyrightable. The pictures of Bosch's work, being exact duplicates of the paintings, to me, would stand as public domain, since they're entirely Bosch's work, and a photograph of said painting is not an *interpretive* work based on the painting.
So really, I'm very confused. Apparently, although these works are supposed to be 'free' in the sense that anyone can use (or abuse) them as often as they like, you can't because access to them is restricted and the only way to get a copy is to a) travel to the museum and pay for access; b) buy a copy that the museum prints; c) buy an art book and then request (and probably pay) the photographer for the rights or d) download the image (say from The Bridgeman Collection, which is an online service that has print-quality images of these works).
Even the cheapest option, downloading the image, costs $120 - and that is, in the words of the site itself to 'secure the rights' to the image.
WHAT RIGHTS?
My head hurts now.
It would appear that there is no such thing as a free lunch. :D
Go fig.
Godfather Punk raised a question, just recently, about whether or not I need to get rights to the *museums* that currently hold the work, the photographer in whatever book I eventually scan the images out of, or the creator of online GIFs of the images.
It seems fair enough that I would have to obtain the permission of the photographer of pictures in a book of art (although not the author of the book), but I have some serious questions about where this right comes from:
1) Where in the world do museums get the rights to these paintings? I'm including a few quotes from the Berne Copyright Convention of 1971 that handles these sorts of issues, which I'll quote here:
Art. 9.2 It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to permit the reproduction of such works in certain special cases, provided that such reproduction does not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author.
Art. 14.1 The author, or after his death the persons or institutions authorized by national legislation, shall, with respect to original works of art and original manuscripts of writers and composers, enjoy the inalienable right to an interest in any sale of the work subsequent to the first transfer by the author of the work.
Art. 18.1 This Convention shall apply to all works which, at the moment of its coming into force, have not yet fallen into the public domain in the country of origin through the expiry of the term of protection.
Art. 18.2 If, however, through the expiry of the term of protection which was previously granted, a work has fallen into the public domain of the country where protection is claimed, that work shall not be protected anew.
While sitting here writing this, I suppose that I understand that they have a need to house the painting, grant access, etc. All of that costs money, so they're going to charge you if you want to come and take a photograph of it or puchase a photograph made by the museum itself.
Does this mean that the Public Domain is essentially full of crap, at least as it comes to illustration and works of art? The work is ostensibly in the public domain, free for use to anyone. Books that are in the public domain can be transcribed or scanned and OCR'd and remain perfect copies of the original. Paintings and illustrations, however, need to be photographed or otherwise recorded, supposedly in person. The museum has control of the painting, and charges the photographer (or publisher), and then the photographer has the rights of the photograph.
It gets more confusing for me. The copyright law, at least in the U.S., only covers *the original arrangement* of public domain materials. In other words, if I create a picture book of Bosch's art, only the arrangement of the book itself and anything I add to it is copyrightable. The pictures of Bosch's work, being exact duplicates of the paintings, to me, would stand as public domain, since they're entirely Bosch's work, and a photograph of said painting is not an *interpretive* work based on the painting.
So really, I'm very confused. Apparently, although these works are supposed to be 'free' in the sense that anyone can use (or abuse) them as often as they like, you can't because access to them is restricted and the only way to get a copy is to a) travel to the museum and pay for access; b) buy a copy that the museum prints; c) buy an art book and then request (and probably pay) the photographer for the rights or d) download the image (say from The Bridgeman Collection, which is an online service that has print-quality images of these works).
Even the cheapest option, downloading the image, costs $120 - and that is, in the words of the site itself to 'secure the rights' to the image.
WHAT RIGHTS?
My head hurts now.
It would appear that there is no such thing as a free lunch. :D
Go fig.