Copyright/public domain question

[Trifletraxor]

Hi guys!

I just bought a book which essentially is a collection of illustrations from the middle ages of armor, weapons, etc.

Now, all these images should be in the public domain, but the publisher claim copyright.

...so my question to you who know anything about this, is it legal? Can you publish a book public domain images and claim copyright of those images?

:beetle:

[vagabond]

It depends. Does the publisher own those images? Did the publisher

license those images from the owners? Without knowing the source

of the original images, nor without looking at the book itself, it is

difficult to determine.

In other words, are you sure those images are in the public domain?

Because it is very possible they are not. For instance, the Mona Lisa

may appear to be in the public domain, but in reality, it is owned by

the Louvre. They just don't challenge most uses.

-V

Edited October 18, 2008 by vagabond

[DirkD]

It's an interesting subject. If they print some old drawings, they probably used free stuff and cannot claim copyrights. But they may have used filters and worked them over and that may make it more complicated. For example the German- and some other Gutenberg projects claim copyrights to their versions of the books, because they converted them to html. It probably wouldn't stand up in court if someone seriously challenged them, but it's normally not worth the risk.

[Trifletraxor]

Hmm... I don't think they own the pictures no, it's just a collection of old ones from various century old sources. But DirkD might be onto something. Too bad, it would have been a great resource.

SGL.

[DirkD]

Does anyone know how Chaosium and Pegasus do it for Cthulhu? They often use old pictures and maps from books and I doubt that they get permission for every single one.

[NickMiddleton]

Hmm... I don't think they own the pictures no, it's just a collection of old ones from various century old sources. But DirkD might be onto something. Too bad, it would have been a great resource.

Is the copyright assertion a blanket one for the whole book on the frontispiece, or s specific one on each image? You may well find that what they are claiming copyright on is the complete work (the layout, accompanying text and presentation) which doesn't preclude specific images they've used being (and remaining) public domain.

If you believe the images are public domain, contact the publisher and ask, but be clear it is the images you are asking about.

Cheers,

Nick

[cjbowser]

Does anyone know how Chaosium and Pegasus do it for Cthulhu? They often use old pictures and maps from books and I doubt that they get permission for every single one.

A lot of Chaosium's images, at least for the Dark Ages books come from the Dover Design series. They produced printed books of images and give the purchaser of their book the permission to reprint 10 images from any one book in any publication.

In other words, if you buy Dover book A, you can use 10 images in your Book 1, 10 images (can be the same or different) in your Book 2 etc.

If you buy Dover book A and Dover book B, you can use 10 images from A and 10 images from B in your Book 1, 10 images from A and B in your Book 2, etc.

Dover also has a lot of free stuff on their website you can use without buying their books.

[RMS]

Hi guys!

I just bought a book which essentially is a collection of illustrations from the middle ages of armor, weapons, etc.

Now, all these images should be in the public domain, but the publisher claim copyright.

...so my question to you who know anything about this, is it legal? Can you publish a book public domain images and claim copyright of those images?

:beetle:

They can copyright the picture they took of the images. The images themselves may well be in the public domain, but the pictures taken of them will be covered by copyright of the person that took them. So, if you go to a museum (or similar) and take your own pictures then you're good to go. (Note: many museums don't allow this, thus making it impossible to obtain those images.)

For example, if I take a picture of the landscape around me, I own a copyright for that picture. Someone else can take their own picture of that landscape from the exact same location and they do not violate my copyright. OTOH, if they take my picture and use it somewhere else without my permission, they have violated my copyright.

[Trifletraxor]

They can copyright the picture they took of the images. The images themselves may well be in the public domain, but the pictures taken of them will be covered by copyright of the person that took them. So, if you go to a museum (or similar) and take your own pictures then you're good to go. (Note: many museums don't allow this, thus making it impossible to obtain those images.)

For example, if I take a picture of the landscape around me, I own a copyright for that picture. Someone else can take their own picture of that landscape from the exact same location and they do not violate my copyright. OTOH, if they take my picture and use it somewhere else without my permission, they have violated my copyright.

Sounds resonable. What counts for photographs probably counts for scans too. Well, well. :cool:

SGL.

[RosenMcStern]

There are plenty of public domain images about the Ancient Age and the Middle Ages on the internet. I used many of them in Stupor Mundi but there are many more.

The NY Public Library has a lot of old book scans that you can download and use freely.

[peterb]

Hi guys!

I just bought a book which essentially is a collection of illustrations from the middle ages of armor, weapons, etc.

Now, all these images should be in the public domain, but the publisher claim copyright.

...so my question to you who know anything about this, is it legal? Can you publish a book public domain images and claim copyright of those images?

As a general rule a mere mechanical reproduction of a work in the PD does not give the reproducer a copyright. The question then becomes: what is a mere reproduction? A photostatic copy or a unmodified scanned image are both just mechanical reproductions and no copyright can arise from them.

If the copy has been altered it might have become an adaptation or a derivative work. The amount of alteration needed would vary btw common law jurisdictions and civil law jurisdictions. In Europe (excluding Ireland and the UK) you would need to adapt the image in such a way that the result becomes at least somewhat unique. You need to create an adaptation. Making a few simple choices is not enough. Applying filters or other features common to image editing software is not enough. Being a little bit creative is not enough, you must be creative in a individual, personal and original way.

In the UK it would probably be enough to just apply some editing, the same goes for the US.

So the answer depends on where the book is published, how the images was produced and also on where and how the images would be used by you.

As has already been pointed out, ask the publisher, that might solve the problem.

[Atgxtg]

One other thing to be aware of is that many publishers, movie studio, television companies, etc. often make claims that are not true-or at least not entirely true.

Often, they do this in a "blanket" way, putting the same warning on everything regardless if it actually applies to the work in question.

There are a lot of old movies, Nosferatu, for example, in the public domain that are sold on DVD these days, with anti piracy warnings that don't really apply.. With Nosferatu it is especially ironic since not only is the film old enough to be in the public domain, but also that the original court verdict against the film required that the film be destroyed. How can some one copyright something that is, itself a violation of another copyright?

What I would do is look around and see if you can find some of the same images used somewhere else and if they are listed as in public domain. That way, you can always cite the alternate source. I had to do that with clip art, since there are a few websites that are more than willing to take money for PD clip art from the uninformed.

To makes things worse, just what is in public domain varies from country to country, as do the copyright laws. So you can run into situations where a bit of art is perfectly okay for you to use on a site in, say, Norway, that is not okay for me to use in the U.S.

So be careful, try to confirm something as being PD before you use it, and then hope that someone with deep pockets doesn't decide to go after you anyway.