Re: Re: A little help...

At 06:15 PM 4/6/2005 -0400, Steve Jamar wrote:
>Assuming this is in the US, the copyrights have expired. But ownership of
>the physical copy carries ordinary personal property rights, including the
>right to exclude others from access for copying.
>
>On Wednesday, April 6, 2005, at 04:15 PM, Marsha L. Zavar wrote:
>>An individual is aware that a museum owns original photographic prints
>>that were taken of his family members in the 19th century by a famous
>>photographer. They were taken prior to 1923. The museum claims to own the
>>copyright to the photographs. The individual would like copies of these
>>photographs to place in a family history that he is compiling. Who owns
>>the copyright to the photographs? Are they in the public domain or does
>>the museum legally own the copyright?

You might also point them to the 1999 opinion of the Government Affairs Counsel of the American Association of Museums who writes (at http://www.panix.com/~squigle/rarin/corel2.html) about the then recent Bridgeman v Corel decision that

"In addition to economic concerns, an additional Bridgeman problem that Steve Weil (Emeritus Senior Scholar at the Smithsonian's Center for Museum Studies) raised is the potential for a museum to run afoul of the criminal provisions of Section 506 of the Copyright Act for the fraudulent use of a copyright notice. However, it was generally agreed that museums would be safe with notices placed on public domain works prior to Bridgeman, because to run afoul of the criminal provisions you need to have fraudulent intent."

I've been told that no one has ever used 506(c) to accomplish anything, so you may not be able to make the museum budge, but given the possibly overzealous stance of the museum, it could be that "zeal" is a language they understand.

Perhaps if you take a pet frog into the museum and point it at the picture, you can later retrieve the image from the frog's retina without disobeying any "no cameras" notice the museum may have posted.

Disclaimer: I am neither an attorney nor a zoologist, so please don't take this as advice on photography or copyright.

David Dailey Received on Sat Apr 09 2005 - 03:20:51 GMT