public domain art

Re: [spiers] public domain art

Jeff,

What you have is a copyright law issue. You are guessing at the answers and
that is very dangerous if you are going to invest a lot of time and money.
You may have to forfeit the money, and more, if you guess wrong.

Get the name of the artist and the painting. Do a little internet surfing to
see what you can find.

If you cannot find out with certainty whether the material is or is not
copyrighted, call the State Bar in your state and ask for their lawyer
referral service. They will ask you what you are looking for and give you
the names, usually three, and numbers of lawyers in your area who have
advised the bar that they do copyright law. Usually, lawyers who sign up for
the referral service have to agree to give the potential new client a
half-hour of consultation at a reduced rate. In Virginia, for example, it's
$35.00 for the first half hour. If you ask the right questions, you will get
a lot more than $35.00 worth of value.

Copyright is both a federal and state law issue. U.S. Copyrights do expire
(after 50 years?) but can be renewed.

If you are going to reproduce paintings from foreign lands, you also may
have international copyright issues, which can be complicated.

There is also something called compulsory copyright, which means you can use
the work without the copyright holders permission but you must, nonetheless,
pay royalties to the copyright holder.

When you retain a copy artist to produce the template copy you are going to
sell, you will want to retain the copy artist under a written contract that
gives you the copyright to the work he or she is producing in exchange for
the money you are paying.

Finally, if I recall correctly, when a copyright expires, the work enters
the "public domain" and can be used without restriction.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, I am a lawyer, But ***NO***, I am NOT your lawyer, and I am
NOT giving you legal advice. I DO NOT practice in the are of copyright law.
With this email, I am simply sharing information I recall with dubious
clarity from law school.

Invest some upfront time and money in a copyright lawyer's services. You'll
learn more than you pay for, and it may well save your posterior if you move
forward with the project.

David


> From: wileyccc@aol.com
> Reply-To: spiers@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 22:34:19 -0400
> To: spiers@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [spiers] public domain art
>
> Hmmm.. I think at this point the image belogns to the graphic artist...
>
> John
>
> How does someone own an image of French or Russian art
> of the 1900's or even let's say some one older like
> Van Gogh and assume he has no decendents if I buy a
> poster and have a graphic artists make a replica the
> image is now mine isn't it???
>
> Jeff

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