Re: A question of copyright
Hi Don,
Thanks for the informative reply. Due to the
age of these things I'm more concerned with the 'morality' of
reproduction of these works. I think it becomes even more of a concern
if prints from these slides are sold. I am slightly uncomfortable
with that aspect at the moment, although the chances of me ever selling any
artwork are somewhat remote! It seems such a shame to me that these
images, which were supposed to be displayed to a large audience, may
be lost forever. It's a balancing act.
Regards
David
H
On Mar 7 2007, Don Sweet wrote:
I
think there are two legal issues, copyright and moral rights. Dealing with
copyright, the law takes a pretty standard form around countries using the
common law system (such as USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand), and the
position here seems to be:
1. If the lantern slides are
pre-1945, then copyright has expired, so the lantern slides are in the
public domain and may be freely reproduced.
2. If the lantern
slides are incorporated in new images, then the new images would be
entitled to their own copyright, but only if those new images modify the
lantern slides in a significant way.
3. If the new images are
simply copies of the lantern slides, then the new images are in the public
domain too.
4. Although the new images as a whole may not be
in the public domain, the included reproductions of the lantern slides may
be copied by anybody else without permission (provided they can be
separated out from the new images).
There are also generally
acknowledged moral rights of artists, which include the right to be
identified as the producer of one's own work; not to be identified as
the producer of anyone else's work, to protect the integrity of the
work against mutilation and distortion, etc. Moral rights have no set
duration, and may be said to last as long as the artwork survives. In some
countries using the civil law system such as France, moral rights give the
original author control over an enormous ranges of peripheral things, such
as the polilical context in which the artwork may be displayed, performed
etc.
Moral rights are not given equivalent legal protection in
countries using the common law system. There is some recognition of moral
rights in USA under the Visual Artists Rights Act, but it is really just a
slight broadening of copyright protection, and subject to the same time
limits and exceptions (such as "fair use"). Much the same applies
in the UK under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.
Beyond
the legal principles everyone will have a view on the propriety of
reproducing other peoples' work in the public domain. For myself I
cannot see that it does any harm, and on the positive side it may have the
benefit of making heritage items cheaply available to a wider audience.
Copying great artworks is an activity long permitted in european art
galleries (there must be lots of photos of tourists standing in front of
Starry Night looking at the photographer not the painting). It may help
develop new artists too - although I heard that in the years before
Courbet's L'origine du Monde was put on public display, d'Orsay
museum let some budding artist have lengthy private sessions so he could
copy it, but one day he abruptly packed up and stormed out and was never
heard of again, so there is probably a lesson in that.
Don
Sweet
----- Original Message -----
From:
"BOB KISS"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 3:36
PM
Subject: RE: A question of copyright
> DEAR
KATHERINE,
There is the famous case of Neil Folberg (sp?) > whose
photos were
made into paintings by someone in Europe without >
Neil's permission. He
did
> sue and won his case.
Soooooooooooo, one must definitely not think > that
reproducing a
work in another medium avoids copyright > questions. Also
"changing a few things" in a work does not make it > O.K. to
copy it and
call
> it your own. Court precedent threw out
that argument soon after the > "new"
copyright law took
effect in the US (around 1983?) Neil's > case makes it
clear
that changing media doesn't help either.
> Here in Barbados
where aesthetic sense is a bit backward, many
> painters used to
poo-poo photography as an art form. Then these same
> painters
would make EXACT copies of our photos as paintings and sell > them
for thousands. I got fed up and wrote an article in our local > art
magazine
> indicting them by accusing them of believing that,
if we didn't put > paint
on
> canvas, we aren't
REAL artists but then they steal EXACTLY what makes > us
artists...our VISION...and make exact copies in > paintings...which
they
feel
> are REAL art because you apply paint on canvas
by hand. I used to feel > I
was in a time warp at the beginning of
the 20th century! Well, > needless
to
> say, I made some
enemies but things have changed for the better since
> then.
>
> CHEERS!
> BOB
>
> -----Original
Message-----
> From: Katharine Thayer
[mailto:kthayer@pacifier.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 2:31
PM
> To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
> Subject: Re: A
question of copyright
>
>
> On Mar 5, 2007, at
11:26 PM, Judy Seigel wrote:
> >
> > There's
also the fact that when a prior work is *changed* it
> >
becomes freedom of expression, parody, quotation, fair use,
> >
whatever.... Photographs are often used in other art. When I was
>
> an illustrator I used a "scrap file" for reference....
Sometimes
> > folks actually recognized my original (I liked
famous photo
> > portraits by Penn, Avedon & company from
Vogue... that was before
> > we all had cameras and could snap
our own reference.) And
> > perfectly legitimate, no law suit
possible.
>
I think sometimes artists get "fair
use" mixed up with > "derivative
work;" they are
two different things. Fair use is > allowed, as in
copying short
excerpts or using pictures of work for > teaching or
critical
purposes, but the right to make a work that > derives from
other
work is reserved to the author of the original > work, under US
copyright law. There are five rights protected under > US copyright
law: the right to reproduce the work, the right to > prepare
derivative
works, the right to distribute copies of the > work,
the right to
perform the work, and the right to display the >
work.
The US statute (code 17) defines derivative work as >
follows:
A "derivative work" is a work based upon
one or > more preexisting
works, such as a translation, musical
arrangement, > dramatization,
fictionalization, motion picture
version, sound > recording, art
reproduction, abridgment,
condensation, or any other > form in which a
work may be recast,
transformed, or adapted.
>
I am acquainted with a famous
photographer who was not amused to > find
one of his photographs
represented in a painting that was > exhibited
at the Whitney
Biennial several yeas ago, and he > certainly had
grounds for a
lawsuit, although I doubt he pursued > it, as he's not a
litigious kind of guy and wouldn't want to spend > time on it. But
he
was NOT happy, and felt (legitimately, as I read > the law)
that his
copyright had been violated.
And > recently,
in a local example, the designer of a coin celebrating
> Lewis and
Clark used, as a basis for his design, a photograph by a
> local
photographer that he found on a website. When the
> photographer
brought the similarity to the U.S. Mint's attention, the
>
designer admitted that he had in fact used the photographer's work >
as
the basis for his work. I don't think there was any lawsuit,
but > the
designer and the Mint did at least acknowledge the
photographer > as
the holder of the copyright of the original work
that the design > was
derived from.
Katharine=