Re: Public Domain?

Tyler Ochoa <tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu> wrote:
>
> You could not prevent someone else from copying the sculpture (even
> from your photo), but you could prevent someone else from copying your
> photo of the sculpture.

What does this mean in practical terms? I assume that copying the sculpture in the form of a drawing is OK, because this is commonly done in illustrations in scholarly works (in lieu of photos where copyright presumably could not be obtained). But what if a new work of art is created from an altered, computer-enhanced scan?

I ask because as a historian I want to use historical images in a forthcoming book. A massive, possibly impossible task of copyright search looms before me, and I am looking into having drawings made of sculptures, paintings, etc. for images whose copyright holders I cannot locate, or whose fees I cannot afford. My question is motivated by the clash of propriety concerns versus the right of the public to have access to historically significant (and difficult to find) images. How can there be comment on and exchange of ideas about such images without being able to reproduce them?

> ... it is unclear whether a photograph of a two-dimensional work is
> entitled to copyright...

Does this mean, for example, that a photo of a medieval manuscript may be reproduced in a historical work?

Max Dashu

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