Copyright troubles

[frualeydis]

I'm working on my article for NESAT and one thing I need is the permission to print copyrighted material. Well, since copyright usually ends 75 years after the death of the creator (100 in some countries) and the painters concerned in this case have been dead for at least 700 years i can't see that I need a permission from anywhere. But I don't think the british publishers share this view. The problem is that one of the institutions who has important images won't answer their e-mail so now I don't know what to do. The images are really important to the article and it is stupid that an institution should be able to stand in the way of research (in this case it's the Pierpont Morgan library). It's not like it's a commercial publication.
But I know that there has been some court rulings about this, the copyright claims of museums vs the original meaning of the copyright law and I remember reading about this in articles of the internet.
And this is where I need your help: any links?

Comments

[m-nivalis.livejournal.com]

My rule is that if they won't answer e-mails, write a letter instead. If they still ignore you, I have no idea what to do. It's a bit far to go to New York and knock on their door.

[pearl]

US copyright law: Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.
However, this doesn't apply to the UK, which is where the photos you're looking at were taken. According to the Museums Copyright Group, if someone takes a photo of a public domain work, the photograph is copyrighted to the photographer.

The Intellectual Property Office site has some information on fair dealing for the purposes of study

I hope the links are useful, although I have the feeling you already knew the information.

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

Actually one of the images is from an US collection. The germans have been nice and already granted the permission and I am now working on the russians.

/Eva

[penguininarmor.livejournal.com]

Can you post what you are looking for, where it's going to be published and your academic credentials? I may be able to get a hold of someone at the Pierpont Morgan library through academic friends.

[jillwheezul.livejournal.com]

Where is the journal going to be published? I would think that copyright laws for the country of publication would ultimately apply.

An option is to find an image that is public domain. I recently checked out:

"Author Fishman, Stephen.
Title Public domain : how to find & use copyright-free writings, music, art & more / By Stephen Fishman.
Publisher Berkeley, Calif. : Nolo, 2008.
Edition 4th ed."

Granted it applied to US law, but it had a very handy chart on how to determine if something were in the public domain or not, that seems to be succinctly summarized here:

http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/

Here are a couple of links for checking copyright renewal status in the 1923-1964 period:

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/
http://collections.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals/bin/page?forward=home

These are great resources that people are using to put old books on-line. So if you had an image from a public domain book, you could now use it (at least in the US) for your own work.

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

Where is the journal going to be published? I would think that copyright laws for the country of publication would ultimately apply.. Yep, that's the problem, the brits are really strict about this.

Thanks fro teh links.

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the offer, I'm going to make another try, but I need a lot of figures that I don't have but hopefully will get from the people att CTR (Centre for Textile research in Copenhagen). I am sort of hoping that the publisher's will take over this task too, since it must be much easier for them and because I don't like a method where I have to pay for the images for their report.
If I can't make them do it, I'll get back to you.
It's parts of two images from the Maciejowski Bible/Morgan picture bible that I need for my article on preserved garments, art and reconstruction in the upcoming NESAT (http://ctr.hum.ku.dk/nesat/) publication. (Abstract can be found here (http://ctr.hum.ku.dk/upload/application/pdf/f51d6748/Final%20Abstracts%20May6.pdf), I'm Eva I Andersson.)

/Eva

[marccarlson.livejournal.com]

Just a detail, what you are trying to do isn't get *copyright permission*, but rather usage permission from the owner of the actual item. The copyright has long since expired on these.

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

That's true, and that's partly why it's so annoying.

/Eva