Re: Fine Art Reproductions

On Wed, 21 Apr 1999, Robert A. Baron <rabaron[_at_]pipeline.com> wrote:
>
> Mr. Tim Arnold-Moore misses the point. Of course a photograph of a
> work under copyright is an infringement of the copyrighted work. The
> question under discussion is whether a photograph of a painting in the
> public domain is separately copyrightable.

No, Dr Arnold-Moore does not miss the point. If it is a reproduction and not a derivative work it is not separately copyrightable.

If you care to read the rest of my post you would see that the judgment clearly refers to the photographs as "reproductions" and not "adaptations" (the English term for derivative works) and also that English law, then and until last time I checked, did not protect against adaptations.

Therefore, in order to find infringement, they had to classify it as a reproduction, not a derivative work, and therefore not separately copyrightable.

-- 
| Tim Arnold-Moore, Ph.D., LL.B., B.Sc. (Hons)
| Postal address:  Multimedia Database Systems, RMIT
|                  GPO Box 2476V
|                  Melbourne 3001
|                  AUSTRALIA
| Tel: 		+61 3 9925 4116
| Fax: 		+61 3 9925 4098
|	simul iustus et peccator
<tja[_at_]mds.rmit.edu.au>