Here we go again. It seems the Internet giveth and copyright law taketh away.
I thought I would surf over to LACMA’s site and check out the modern art online. I’m interested in the SoCal light-and-space movement of the 1960s, so off I went to look at things by Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, and others who stomped around La Cienega Boulevard and Barney’s Beanery in their heyday.
Guess what? Under every thumbnail appears the following: Image not zoomable due to copyright restrictions. May be viewed onsite for educational purposes only.. I then checked out the Met’s website, and found the same thing there. WTF? Those things used to be online, I’m sure of it! What is the copyright owner losing when someone is able to view a museum owned work online?
This is a wild-assed guess, but maybe zoom-ins aren’t allowed to prevent would-be counterfeiters from using the internet to make, say, fake Jackson Pollocks?
If prevents people from going to the museum, or from buying a book where the art is featured.
But that, of course, is irrelevant. You’re asking the wrong question. The website is not allowed to duplicate the work without the permission of the artist. Period. Money or payment does not enter into it.
The sites may have permissions to use the thumbnails only.
Doubt it–how would you make a convincing copy of a Pollock, with the appropriate bumps and ridges that betray brushwork? And it doesn’t explain this with respect to assembage and sculpture. From what I can tell, this goes back at least as far as the 1920s.
Perhaps most ironic and infuriating is that I first found these unclickable thumbnails in an “online exhibition”!
But art is not a mass medium. Unlike a book or CD, the creator doesn’t get a sum of money for every copy sold–because there are no copies. . If you own the object, don’t you have the right photograph it, and publish the photograph as you see fit? Furthermore, how can a picture of a work of sculpture be construed as a duplicate? Not that the copyright law specialty is home to the most insanely zealous of practitioners.
In between the few media conglomerates who own pop culture and the rarified foundations who administer high culture (both assisted by the same flavor of savvy, amoral, black-suited lawyers), the immense cultural legacy of the 20th century is going to be sewn up tighter than a gnat’s asshole until all of us, and our children, are safely in our graves.
Say goodbye now while you still can. And pray for Sonny Bono’s soul in Purgatory.
Modern artists or their estates generally own copyrights to their works of art no matter who owns the work itself. This prevents unauthorized copies of the works to be produced. (Their are, for instance, more copies of Degas’ sculptures on public display than his biographers think he authorized.) I can say this with complete confidence, as I was at one time responsible for getting approval from artists or their estates for making postcards, notecards, and posters of works owned by a museum. Some wanted a percentage of sales, some wanted a quantity of the product, and others were happy to cooperate at no cost. There are two organizations which act as clearing houses for many artists or estates for these purposes. I would get in touch with them and they would get in touch with the artist or the estate.
There are some differences depending on country, but the magic date in the US is anything published here before 1923 is automatically in the public domain. Things published after that may also be public domain depending upon if they followed copyright laws active at the time in question.
Other countries have life of the author plus a certain number of years, something like 75 years, depending on the country.
Died in 1917, so no, shouldn’t be covered by copyright anywhere.
Photographs are automatically copyright if they have any originality. If it’s a picture of a three dimensional work the photographer chooses an angle, lighting, etc., so would definitely have copyright on the photo. Iif the original work is still under copyright the copyright of the photo can only be expressed within the rights given by the original copyright owner of the sculpture.
Note, though, that thanks to Bridgeman v. Corel in the US (and untested in court but almost certainly true elsewhere), photos/scans/etc. of two dimensional works in the pubic domain are also in the public domain, because there is no original creative work added to making a copy. There were official rulings in the US, and in any case they were just clarifying what was already in international copyright law, so it should apply everywhere. Should and does aren’t always the same legally of course. Many museums and other similar institutions either do not know about this principle or (usually) actively ignore it to try to get people to pay for licenses on what should be public domain works.
But, modern sculptures? Clearly covered by copyright, as are any photos of them.
But, is the originality in the photos considered to emanate from the photographer who takes them, or from the artist who created the work? If the former, then I would think a museum would be in its rights to create and publish any two-dimensional depiction of a three-dimensional work owned by it, in particular on its website for which the audience is not being asked for money and none is being paid.
OTOH if you mean the artist’s copyright extends to pictures of sculpture, then I’ll just have to put that down to those crazy lawyers. Copyright law, seriously. I mean, did they ever actually go out and ask any music fans if Come Together really sounded anything likeYou Can’t Catch Me? Or was it just a gleam in the eye of some attorney whose only contact with popular music was from hanging out with composer friends who worked in the Brill Building?
I’d better go and watch all those old TV clips I love of 1950s and 1960s bands before they get pulled…
Both. The original has a copyright based upon when it was created, and the photo would have a separate copyright based upon when it was created. Since the second is derivative of the first (the photo wouldn’t and couldn’t exist without the original artist’s creation), it can’t be used for many things without the original copyright owner’s permission, because doing so would infringe those rights. Once the original is out of copyright, the remaining term of the copyright on the photo would still be valid and the photographer could do with it whatever he or she liked without the original owner’s permission.
Copyright law is quite sensible overall, even if a lot of people don’t understand it and don’t think about the reasoning underneath it all. About the only thing I think is wrong with it is that the current terms of copyrights are a bit too long to be reasonable, in my opinion.
I’m pretty sure that the answer to this is, if the work can be zoomed and viewed online, it can be downloaded and used for purposes that clearly violate copyright (like using it on one’s own website or printing it on T-shirts or postcards).
It could…if someone decided to do that, in which case they would be violating fair use. By the same logic, they would have to take all art books out of the libraries, because somebody could easily do the same thing with them.
Not that I believe that actual financial loss/harm has to be proved, or anything like that.