Re: A mere photograph

On 5/2/97, Robert Cumbow <cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> wrote:
>
> Larry Urbanski mentioned in passing "a prime example of copyright changes
> decreasing a rich public domain."
>
> I don't dispute the fact; only the implication that copyright decreasing
> the public domain is necessarily a bad thing. We should not assume that
> works are more readily available because they are in the public domain.
> Sometimes the copyright monopoly will encourage publication and
> distribution of a work by the owner and his licensees, while the same
> work might not be deemed as valuable or as marketable once it goes p.d.,
> and hence may ironically become LESS available to the public than it was
> when it was still under copyright.

Which works are more available in the public domain and which are more available when under copyright are results of functions that must take into consideration who wants them. People who use the public domain often have different interests than those who use copyrighted works.

For example, Dover publications make available many public domain images for use by artists and art historians. If artists had to pay royalties to use these images in their commercial works they might conceivably search elsewhere.

If it is held (as some would have it) that the teaching of art history with images and the collection of images to enable teaching are not activities protected through fair use, then it is quite possible that public domain and copyright-free archives will be built to fill the needs of art history and other academic disciplines.

In addition, because the costs of publishing images in scholarly articles are high, and are almost always carried by the author, any public domain source of images will be an important one when authors are not permitted to claim fair use.

On the other hand, commercial enterprises in publishing, television and film will most probably use copyrighted images for their currency, quality, ease of acquisition and the clarity of legal status.

What is true, however, as far as pictures are concerned, is that the public domain is less accessible in proportion to its lack of orderly presentation. That is why it is feasable to license public domain images such as those provided by the Bettmann Archives. The fact that these images are mostly in the public domain is less important than the fact that they have been catalogued, can be found, and can be delivered cleanly.

Robert Baron
rabaron[_at_]pipeline.com Received on Tue May 06 1997 - 16:51:10 GMT