"I scanned it, so now I own the copyright"?...

[Lady Day]

My intention is to thoroughly learn & absorb the "Look, Feel, and Methodology" of vintage 1930s-40s posters, for the purpose of being able to create new, original works, which DO NOT use any directly-copied portions of older works. That's why I stated in my original post, that I am also buying vintage 30s-40s books on poster layout techniques & typography / lettering styles. I have absolutely no interest what-so-ever in selling bootleg copies of vintage 30s-40s posters; only in Learning Techniques To Create New Works, true to the vintage styles.

This is perfectly legal. Having taken a class on copyright when I was an illustration major, you learned that for images that are classified as art, or still images, each image must have its own copyright. The idea of Mickey Mouse can not be copyrighted, but every image of him that has been produced can.

Now, if you were to create an image of a character that Disney though resembled theirs too much, they could sue you for infringement and either win or loose, but the idea of 'Mickey' can not have any legal basis. Its just the image's resemblance. You can't copyright branding.

The work that you seem to want to produce is basically 'inspired' from these original works that just happen to be public domain. Have at it :biggrin:

LD

 

[HungaryTom]

I'm not a lawyer, but I am familiar with intellectual property law.

Again: Putting a work of art of literature on display does not give away the copyright. That means the public can view it, but that doesn't give you/them the right to redistribute it and all of the other rights assigned only to the rightful copyright holder. In other words making it easy to steal something doesn't make it rightful borrowing because of the ease to grab it.

In the example of a magazine, reading it is not the same as reposting the article, for example, other than portions for "fair use."

So now back to my example - if I read a downloaded article or Gutenberg book.txt or image from a public internet gallery, storing it on my : D drive? Or if I watch some watermarked image? I never redistribute. I download because I want them with me and am not sure whether I will still find those thingies lets say after a year. I am making these questions since I never discussed it with anyone yet. Is it fair use?

 

[PrettySquareGal]

So now back to my example - if I read a downloaded article or Gutenberg book.txt or image from a public internet gallery, storing it on my : D drive? Or if I watch some watermarked image? I never redistribute. I download because I want them with me and am not sure whether I will still find those thingies lets say after a year. I am making these questions since I never discussed it with anyone yet. Is it fair use?

"Just looking" ain't cheatin' or stealin' as far as I'm concerned. Legally, you'd have to ask or consult the terms of usage on the website.

 

[MissMittens]

Copyright is often a gray area. I've been involved in several cases of copyright infringement online, and assisted in both defense and prosecution. However, as a general rule of thumb, if you save an item on your hard drive that you found on a public site, such as Gutenberg, or a news site, then it was meant for public distribution. That doesn't mean that you can RE-DISRIBUTE, but it does mean that you can view, copy and save the item for yourself, as you were an intended viewer. Hope this helps.

 

[HungaryTom]

Thanks for the clarification, I will keep it that way.
I watch often youtube and use it as source the same way as my favorite classic radio - whenever I find something interesting (good performer, good orchestra) I note the details and performer and make it sure to get a legal copy i.e. buy the CD from some music store.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The problem with all of this is the *assumption* by people that Public Domain is the de facto state of all materials they come across. It's like walking down the street, finding a billfold full of cash, and assuming that since it's just sitting there you have the right to help yourself to it. Unless you *know* something, for a fact, is Public Domain -- you should *assume* it belongs to someone else. Which, most likely, it does. If you intend on using anything as a component in your own work, it's your responsibility to properly determine its ownership. And for gawd's sake, DON'T assume random anonymous people on the internet know anything about how to define Public Domain status. I can show you dozens of people selling radio shows online who make flossy claims about "copyright checks with the Library of Congress confirm this material is in the public domain" who don't have the slightest idea about what they're talking about.

 

[MissMittens]

Sadly, Lizzie, you're totally correct. If you can download it, it doesn't mean you can sell it, or give it to other people. This is the worst assumption people can make. I've heard of entire websites coming down because they were sued over one image that someone thought was public "clipart" :/

 

[Mojito]

All I wanted to say is that those exhibits, museum lots can be digitalized and should be made available for the public. I know it takes a large effort but if you involve volunteers production time can be shortened.
The output should be done in a CD ROM series for instance -a copyright product where the author is the museum and only the museum- since nobody would buy it in with all the color reproductions in a coffee table book quality.
The price should be set by the producer.
That way the fragile oil paintings or rare mounted animals etc. wouldn’t be exposed to light for too long and fade still they would be there in a visual form.
I know this is difficult but yet feasible.

I can relate to the pain when dealing with people donating lets say mid range artifacts wanting to see it “on the wall” or in the showcase instead of top range or fist class artifacts just because it is theirs. For instance 15-19th century had thousands of European painters but the future can only remember lets say a few from each “ism” or century. The rest are also in the Museum but can not be exhibited – this is the reason of my suggestion.

I think digitalisation of collections is one of the major projects/challenges facing collecting institutions today - the Director of our museum is on a committee spearheading attempts to coordinate a national effort to record and make digitally available as much of our national collections as possible. Digitalisation is also one of the projects we encourage small private museums to undertake through our grants program.

There is a recognition in the international museum community now that "visitors" are not just those people who actually walk through our doors - increasingly, we're focusing on virtual visitors and trying to cater to the needs of those who cannot physically make it to our location, but who wish to access our collection. It is an expensive and time consuming process, but it is one of our priorities and I think is a major topic of discussion at both national and international museum levels, as institutions seek to coordinate their efforts and come up with best-practice standards. Increasingly, though, we're seeing not just archives of written/print material online, but also photographs of objects and art. I often use sites like the Met and the Powerhouse for research in costume, for example.

This doesn't mean relinquishing intellectual property rights, though. I was absolutely shocked by the "Cooks Source" scandal - not just by the arrogance of the editor's attitude, but that an editor in the print media could apparently believe that anything published on the internet was automatically "public domain" (although that might have been the poor phrasing of her email that made it appear she was asserting this). I used to publish a fair amount of original research online, but have largely pulled back from that thanks to the cavalier attitude of users. Having gone to time, trouble and expense to locate and gain permission to use previously unpublished letters, photographs etc in online articles, it was more than a little off-putting to see them reproduced without any acknowledgement of the source at all. In some cases, photographs that I had been given permission to use for a specific article were taken and reproduced without acknowledgement either to my article or to the person who owns the image. A bit legally grey depending on the age of the image, but certainly something that doesn't exactly induce one to want to share information when you see your own research produced under someone else's name. The pity of it is, had they approached me and just asked for permission and given an acknowledgement, the odds are I'd be happy to let them reproduce it. As it was, it's quite bizarre to see an extract from the text of a personal letter written to yourself reproduced without any acknowledgement of the source.

 

[Undertow]

...people that have invested time, effort and expense to bring these works to web sites or may actually be selling prints such as on Ebay would much prefer that others don't simply take these images that the poster has worked on to put up on the web. If people are selling prints of the work it makes no sense for them to post an image another can click and save then print on their own...

I don't think anyone has commented on this, but I have to agree with John. I believe this is really more or less the situation. It's not so much a question of "Are people trying to claim copyright on a public-domain piece", which is more of a legal action, so much as it is, "People are trying to protect their product from mass reproduction", which is more of a trading action.

Certainly, you or I could print these images on shirts and sell those shirts in direct competition with one of these companies, but on the other hand it does make some sense that a seller wouldn't want his product easily "stolen" and reproduced.

On the other hand, the irony of the situation is a little humorous. "Don't steal this free, publicly-available image from which I'm trying to make money!" Then again, the bottled water industry is booming, after all.

 

[Edward]

...and Evian spelled backwards is 'naive'.