Several legal debates and court rulings in various geographical jurisdictions have considered whether an exact photographic copy of public domain images would be protected by copyright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deliberations have a significant impact on museums and archives that may seek to subsidise their services by selling reproductions of the original work within their collections. Would those reproductions themselves be protected by copyright?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s take an example: Leonardo Da Vinci\u2019s Mona Lisa. <\/em>The famous painting is no longer in copyright. The painting is hosted at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Are the posters sold by the museum\u2019s tourist shop covered by copyright?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The crucial point in the discussion is the degree of skills that the \u2018copier\u2019 had to apply to create the reproduction. In other words, how original is it? If the reproduction required specialised photographic skills, such as reproducing Leonardo\u2019s nuances and effects, avoiding reflections, etc., would the derivative work be protected by copyright? On the other hand, if the Mona Lisa photograph lacked originality, would it not be protected?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.<\/em><\/strong>, 36 F. Supp. 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 1999) was a decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York<\/span>, which ruled that exact photographic copies of public domain images could not be protected by copyright in the United States because the copies lack originality. Even though accurate reproductions might require a great deal of skill, experience, and effort, originality is the key element in determining whether a work is copyrightable under US law. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Several legal debates and court rulings in various geographical jurisdictions have considered whether an exact photographic copy of public domain images would be protected by copyright. Deliberations have a significant impact on museums and archives that may seek to subsidise their services by selling reproductions of the original work within their collections. Would those reproductions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copyrightliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copyrightliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copyrightliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copyrightliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copyrightliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1110"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copyrightliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1427,"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copyrightliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110\/revisions\/1427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copyrightliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copyrightliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.coventry.domains\/copyrightliteracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}