Jimmy Wales wrote:
Gareth Owen wrote:
Does anyone know the status of photos taken of
works in museums/galleries
(in this case, the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Vancouver)
I think this is a very good question.
If the work is already in the public domain, then there should be no
copyright problems with taking such a picture, although museum rules
for photography would presumably come into play. If a museum forbids
photography, and you take a picture anyway, then you've probably
broken the (implicit?) contract for admission to the museum. But this
is not, strictly speaking, a matter of copyright.
If the work is not in the public domain, then a photograph at
web-resolution probably meets "fair use" as well as anything possibly
could. I'm assuming here that you mean a photo that YOU take, of a
potentially copyrighted subject. If a photographer takes a picture of
the Mona Lisa, we can't assume that that *photograph* is in the public
domain, even if the *Mona Lisa* is.
--Jimbo
I agree that violating museum rules is not a matter of copyright. If
you do so, you do it at your own risk. If you get away without the
museum seizing your film, then whatever copyrights go with the
photograph would be yours.
Canadian copyright law, which applies here since you are talking about a
museum in Canada, makes a specific exclusion in the definition of
"publication" to photographs of sculptures and architectural works. Of
course this does open the question of just what do we mean by
"sculpture". I would venture to say that dugout canoes and Haida masks
qualify as sculptures, but a lot of modern mixed media productions that
do not fall into the traditional carved concept of sculptures.
Copyright in photographs also links to the ownership of the original
negative or plate. Two independently photographed images of the "Mona
Lisa" would not impinge on each other's copyrights. If I remember
correctly the Louvre does not ban photography, but does ban flash
equipment and tripods.
Eclecticology