Copyright/Ownership

Factual Questions
1

I do Fine Art Reproductions or Giclee prints for many of the artists in my town.
I do the entire process from the Photography/Slide scanning/Digital Imagery to color correcting, image manipulating if needed or desired by the artist, proofing, and final prints. Sometimes even framing and shipping. Sometimes the work bleeds over to other areas.

There is usually no question or issues with ownership and copyrights.

There are multiple skills involved and sometimes folks ask me to do just one or the other.
That leads me to this issue.

A friend of mine has taken to old maps. They have a gift shop and last year did a good job selling old maps they bought form various places. Most all over 150 years old or more. He is aware of my skills and was wondering if I could reproduce them and touch them up so that he could also sell prints in addition to the originals.

Hell Yea, this is fun work form me. Listing to “This American Life” while touching up old maps is great fun.

I know the maps are out of copyright for a long time. But now I have a issue. Do I own the work? Do they? Is there a copyright now because to the restoration and photography work I did. If I give them a digital copy of each map for records can they legally make copies of the maps. Can I make my own copies of the maps? For myself, others? Can someone make a copy of my copies legally?

We both have good intention and whatever the answer will not effect how we are doing business now. I am just sure something like this will come up again with some old stuff, and really just want to know.

2

I don’t know the answer but there was a series of SDAB reports on copyright, which are linked in my Unofficial FAQ. There are also a couple of other links to authoritative sources. If you do not get a specific answer in this thread poking around there might help.

3

If the copyright on the maps is expired, you don’t “revive” it by restoring them. If you did enough additional work to constitute a creative contribution, you have a copyright in your own contributions. You are free to waive this copyright, if it exists, and allow your friend to sell the maps. If someone else copies them and you want to stop them, you could attempt to assert your copyright in the changes, in which case it would be a legal question whether you had made a creative contribution (creating a derivative work).

4

You must add sufficient original material, or sufficient original alteration, to a public domain work to create a copyright in your “derivative work.” However, there is no general rule of how much new material or alteration is enough; it can be judged only on a case by case basis.

5

I am sure that the work I put into them would be considered significant.

On the other hand lets say it was just a bit and I saved it in PS layers. I would assume the layers would be fully copyrighted??

6

Well, don’t be too sure. The U.S. Supreme Court has already rejected “sweat of the brow” arguments about the originality of the added material, i.e., I worked long and hard on this. No matter how long or how hard you worked “restoring” the maps, as you say, if the end result is that the maps look like the they originally did when first published, you do not have sufficient original material.

Are you adding new material?

7

I did not add new material.

But I saved my work in layers. Each layer in PS is essentially a separate image.

Are my layers copyrighted?

Is this a loophole?

If I take all the adjustment layers and make a layer set called Fifty-Six Layer Set Copyright 2007. Would that limit the use of the work I did? Is that a way to protect myself?

So If I flatten it I no longer have protection?

8

Just my opinion, but to me it doesn’t sound like you have much grounds for a copyright here. Whether you save it in layers or not. There is a lot of work involved in restoring the old maps, perhaps, but none of it is original or creative.

9

You probably have no copyright claim. See United States District Court in BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY, LTD. v. COREL CORP., 36F. Supp. 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y., 1999), wherein it was found that:

“a copy in a new medium is copyrightable only where, as often but not always is the case, the copier makes some identifiable original contribution. In the words of the Privy Council in Interlogo AG, “there must . . . be some element of material alteration or embellishment which suffices to make the totality of the work an original work.”…“it is uncontested that Bridgeman’s images are substantially exact reproductions of public domain works, albeit in a different medium.”…There has been no suggestion that they vary significantly from the underlying works. In consequence, the change of medium is immaterial.”

The point is creative content. Although photographers and restoration people often claim otherwise, if your goal is to reproduce, maintain, or correct/clean up to such that the original creative content is preserved, then by definition you are not adding creative content. Copyright is not about enshrining work and effort, it’s about creative works.

This gets into all sorts of strange situations in the digital age. Someone goes to an art gallery and takes a photograph of a 300 year-old painting, trying to maintain the original creative content as accurately as possible. That is effort, skill, and work - but not adding new creativity. But that person will claim that the image they own is now their “copyright.” Then they’ll sell that to a book, and the book publisher will claim that this image - with no creative content added - is now “copyrighted.” Then someone out there will scan the book, make a JPG, and put it on their webserver, and claim they “own” the scan and it’s their “copyright.”* In all cases, no creativity is added, and in all cases, everyone thinks they have a copyrighted work.

So answering your questions:
“I know the maps are out of copyright for a long time. But now I have a issue. Do I own the work?” - you do not create a new copyright by slavish copying, or by doing things which do not add an identifiable creative contribution. So almost certainly, no.

“Is there a copyright now because to the restoration and photography work I did.” - almost certainly not.

“If I give them a digital copy of each map for records can they legally make copies of the maps.” - almost certainly, yes.

“Can I make my own copies of the maps? For myself, others? Can someone make a copy of my copies legally?” - almost certainly, yes.

“But I saved my work in layers. Each layer in PS is essentially a separate image. Are my layers copyrighted? Is this a loophole?” - almost certainly, not. The Bridgeman ruling noted that “the change of medium is immaterial”, which to me implies that it doesn’t matter how you save it, as long as you are not creating new creative content, then you have not created a new copyright.

The public domain is a great and wonderful thing. It means that at some point, the efforts of folks now exist not to make money for people, but to better mankind. In a way, your cleaning up these images is helping to better mankind, helping to preserve the works of the past creators of the maps. Don’t look at this as a lost opportunity just because you can’t lock away for 95 years these maps - I think you’d be surprised at how many people will buy copies of public domain works rather than just download them, if you package them properly and make them available. After all - Shakespeare has been in the public domain for hundreds of years, and anyone can download his works in a heartbeat. So why do books of his plays sell hundreds of thousands of copies, if not millions, yearly? Also note that this means you can use other public domain images to assist you. Imagine for example you have old maps of Civil War battlefields - you could put them into a book, with accompanying contemporary artworks, illustrations, and old photographs. You could include public domain text from innumerable published Civil War accounts. Just a couple ideas.

  • And remember, just because a website says “all scans copyright me, me, me” doesn’t mean it’s true.
10

WOW!

Thanks everybody. This thread was helpful indeed.

Una- I don’t look at this as a lost opportunity. I was happy to do the work and the person that hired me will sell plenty. I don’t plan on selling any for some time because it just seems honorable to let him sell them for a bit. I did charge for the work and charge for the prints.

It is good to know and seems a fair law.
My curiosity has been satisfied.

11

FWIW, if you’re interested in huge scans of ancient maps, there are some enormous ones at this site:

http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govinfo/collections/mapsofafrica/

The University of Texas has some largish-ones, but not as large as the ones in the link above. However, they have a much greater variety.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/

There was a huge scan of the Carta Marina of Olaus Magnus floating around with lots of neat animals and monsters on it (5016x3715 pixels, 5.5MB), but it’s been removed from the web as far as I can tell. I have a copy in my large online art gallery, but that’s private and I cannot give you a link in public. If you want a copy, e-mail me and I’ll give you a way to download it.

12

I agree with the others that it doesn’t sound like you have a copyright claim (despite the amount of hard work you may have done in restoring these).

And take note that there is a specific law about “false claim of copyright”. It’s not common for people to get in trouble over this, but you still should avoid violating it.