Re: Fair Use Question?

Christine, the points you raised about copyrights for images that are in the public domain are good ones, but it is my understanding that we are dealing with two separate issues when we talk about an image of a work in the public domaine that is published in a recent book. The first is the copyright on the work itself--not a problem if the work was done before 1918, but the second is the photograph of the work. Since the copyright rests with the photographer not the art work (if the artist's copyright has run out), that issue could come up if one were copying a work out of a recent publication, but it would not come up if the publication itself is before 1918. I am not sure if the publisher could argue that he/she has a vested interest in the image that they published. They might argue it, but could they win? Probably not, but a lawyer's opinion is needed on that one. Fair use is another question all together. My concerns at this point are on things that we can use for whatever purpose we want, and we are, I think, safe with things published or created before 1918.

Kathy Cohen
<cohenka[_at_]sjsuvm1.bitnet> Received on Wed Mar 16 1994 - 00:41:05 GMT