Re: Fwd: [AAUP-R] between the National Portrait Gallery and a Hard Place

If the graphic artist copied the 1811 sketch from a public domain source, the artist should be able to point it out. If the artist didn't get it from a public domain source, you might still be okay as long as the artist didn't copy the image obtained by your author. That would likely be a violation of the NPG's limited license. If the artist copied it from some other publication, neither the artist, the author, nor you were parties to whatever limited license governed the publication in that other source even if it was also licensed by NPG. Then it is purely a question of copyright infringement, rather than a license violation. NPG's copyright in the photo or scan of the 1811 sketch is pretty thin, if it exists at all, given the vanishing measure of its originality, which I think will have vanished altogether in the reproduction of the reproduction that was published by the source the artist copied from.

John Noble

At 5:30 PM -0400 6/7/05, Laura Young Bost wrote:
>I am forwarding this on behalf of a colleague who isn't on CNI. Any
>thoughts on how to proceed would be appreciated, especially from
>those of you familiar with UK copyright law.
>
>Would it make any difference if the book is only sold in the US?
>
>Thanks,
>Laura
>--
>Laura Young Bost, Rights Manager
>University of Texas Press
>P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819
>tel:512/232-7625; fax:512/232-7178
>email: laura[_at_]utpress.ppb.utexas.edu
>Please visit our NEW website at http://www.utexaspress.com
>*************************************************************
>Dear Colleagues,
>
>We recently published a book on Jane Austen, the author of which wrote
>to the National Portrait Gallery in London to purchase a reproduction
>of and receive permission to reproduce an image of an 1811 Cassandra
>Austen sketch of Jane Austen. The National Portrait Gallery provided
>a reproducible copy of the image and granted permission for its
>inclusion in the interior of the book only. The author signed her
>agreement to this stipulation and paid the fee.
>
>Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a freelance graphic artist submitted a
>cover design which had several well-known images of Austen, including
>a colorized image of the 1811 Cassandra Austen sketch. The artist had
>gotten that image and others somewhere in the public domain. Our
>production department however, in crediting the cover design, noticed
>the similarity between the one on the cover and the interior one and
>so repeated the credit to the National Portrait Gallery for one of
>the cover images.
>
>The National Portrait Gallery is now charging us over 500GBP for what
>they call "secondary copyright". (Their fee includes punitive
>charges--one for colorizing--but these are another matter.) I have
>written them explaining that their being credited for one of the
>cover images is an error and that we'll take it out when we reprint;
>that the interior one was requested and paid for but the cover one is
>in, and was gotten from, the public domain.
>
>From their response: "Although the original work is out of copyright,
>there is secondary copyright in any photographs or scans taken of it.
>The NPG does not allow anyone else to photograph or scan our work,
>and we do not licence our images through anyone else at present.
>Therefore, any image found elsewhere will have originated from one of
>our own photographs or scans, and the copyright belongs to us."
>
>Any advice on or help with this will be appreciated.
>
>Thank you.
>--
>
>
>Margaret A. Walsh
>Subsidiary Rights and Permissions Editor
>The University of Wisconsin Press
>mawalsh1[_at_]wisc.edu
>
>1930 Monroe St 3rd Flr Madison, WI 53711-2059 USA
>Ph 608 263 1131 FAX 608 263 1132
>
>Our website is @ http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/ Please visit.
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Received on Wed Jun 08 2005 - 23:30:45 GMT