Comments on: Copyfraud

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:18:17 +0000

I dislike copyfraud as much as anyone, but you have to be careful with your assertions. You write: “this painting was done in the early 1900’s, 1911 to be exact. What that means is that the copyright term on that painting has expired.” This is only true if the work was published in 1911; if it was published later, it could still be protected by copyright. (In the western states, even a published work by the sculptor Pierre-Auguste Renoir from 1917 has been found to be still protected by copyright.)

And faulting ARTstor for adding the copyright notice is also a mistake. They are required to post whatever rights statement the museums that supply the images to them care to state. If they didn’t, the museums wouldn’t give them copies of the images. The museums may be placing fraudulent copyright notices on works of art at the request of the artist’s estate, in order to keep them happy – but don’t blame ARTstor for this practice.

The comments about Bridgeman are out of place. If the museum was trying to claim a copyright in the reproduction in contravention to Bridgeman, then there would be a statement asserting a copyright that belonged to the museum. There isn’t. The Artist Rights Society is only claiming a copyright in the underlying work, and not in the reproduction made by the museum of that work (which is what Bridgeman controls).

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:56:41 +0000

@Darwin:
Sorry, I failed to say that I remember their being a link to download the image, only it was greyed out.

And “If they did claim copyright (which they may have), you forgot to mention so.” Umm, see the paragraph that starts with the sentence “Back, again, to that painting by Chagall.” Right before the “BZZT WRONG”

That was the point of this post :) They claimed copyright when there is no copyright to claim.

——

@Herr:
Actually, what you just said would make their case weaker. If their actions (lights, angle, etc) were done to more accurately produce a faithful reproduction, then their photographic reproduction shows even LESS creativity/originality, thus it is even less “copyrightable.”

By: Herr Irrtum

Herr Irrtum — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:17:32 +0000

Hey,
very good job to point this out!
But I am sure if one seriously sues those ArtStor ignorants , their lawyers will put it like this: Yes, we know, the picture itself is not copyrighted by us, but we did the photo – the way we did the photo, i.e. setting up the lights to get a high quality reproduction – that is, what we’ve copyrighted, yeah! –> and than the lawyers of the suing party may proof that instead it was scanned from a cheap art book…
I’d say: We are in need of heavy weapons for copyfraud destruction! ;)
Greets and regards,
Herr Irrtum / Italy

By: Darwin Survivor

Darwin Survivor — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:43:45 +0000

While I do agree with you about all of your arguments on copyfraud, I fail to see how your example (first paragraph) relates. Sure you were not able to copy it, but not due to statements regarding copyright (at least as far as you said in the post), but due to a bad website design (flash is bad). Just because you couldn’t get the picture, doesn’t mean that was ever the intention of the person showing it to you, they just suck at making websites.

If they did claim copyright (which they may have), you forgot to mention so.