Re: Use of a portion of a painting in a brochure

At 04:55 PM 2/21/2005, Joseph Pietro Riolo <riolo[_at_]voicenet.com> wrote:

>On Thu, 10 Feb 2005, Graham Henderson <shenders[_at_]wellesley.edu> wrote:
> >
> > The image of "View of Mexico City" that they would like to use is from a
> > book, published in 1997.
>
>Sorry that I was not able to provide a timely response.
>
>Now that the image is an art reproduction, the next question
>to answer is whether the original work of painting is in the
>public domain. The date when painting was first made is not
>sufficient to form a basis for the public domain. Under the
>old copyright law, the clock starts when a work is first
>published. What makes it more difficult is that the copyright
>law has strange meaning for "publication".

Understanding that no one should take information posted to this list as legal advice, I'm still curious about a couple of things and I don't have that book you mentioned.

When was copyright first applied to paintings? It seems somewhat odd because you can't really copy a painting.

For a work whose clock did start prior to 1900, is there any way that it could not be in the public domain today?

Assuming that a photograph of a painting is considered to be a copy, if a painting is in the public domain does that mean that anyone is entitled to photograph the original painting and publish that photograph regardless of where it is hanging without violating copyright law?

Thanks,
Mike Received on Wed Mar 23 2005 - 04:20:01 GMT