[OpenGLAM] FW: Wellcome (Laurel L. Russwurm)

Fri Jan 24 10:47:48 UTC 2014

Hi Laurel

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 01:34:43 -0500
> From: "Laurel L. Russwurm" <laurel.l at russwurm.org>
> To: open-glam at lists.okfn.org
> Subject: Re: [OpenGLAM] FW: Wellcome
> Message-ID: <52E20983.6070905 at russwurm.org>
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> *There is no question about it: any decision to apply CC BY to Public
> Domain material is wrong. **
I agree on everything you say about the copyright status of Da Vinci's 
painting of Mona Lisa.

But that is not what the discussion is about. The question is about the 
possibility of copyrighting a digital photograph of Da Vinci's painting 
of Mona Lisa.

As you wrote:
 > While the Louvre can not legally copyright Mona Lisa, artists who create
 > Mona Lisa derivative artworks are legally entitled to copyright them.
So the question boils down to the question, if the person who took the 
digital image of a painting in the Public Domain (such as Da Vinci's 
Lisa) or the museum who paid him or her to take it can assume a 
copyright on this reproduction as a derivative work or not.

In some countries, the question seems to be a clear no 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp.), 
while in other countries such as the UK this might be a possibility 
("sweat of brow": According to this doctrine, an author gains rights 
through simple diligence during the creation of a work, such as a 
database, or a directory. Substantial creativity or "originality" is not 
required., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow) and no one 
can say for sure until such a case has been fought up to the highest 
courts or the laws are changed to remove this ambiguity.

So specifying a license (e.g. CC-BY) for digital reproductions serves a 
purpose in countries like the UK where the copyright status of these 
reproductions is unclear if no explicit license is stated. On the other 
hand, one would always expect a Public Domain license from digital 
reproductions of Public Domain works from US institutions where 
additional restrictions don't seem to apply.

Daniel Burckhardt