InfoD-Cafe: ReadHowYouWant.com paperback editions

[Deborah Taylor-Pearce]

Gunnar,

> Sorry for the slow reply.

Perfect timing, actually. <bg>

Just now getting back to e-mail myself....

> Does anyone know the legal
> basis for such claims?

I certainly don't.

> Some museums have assured
> that they own the rights
> to the only photographs
> of an object in their
> possession thus any
> reproduction is an
> infringement on that
> photograph. Has that
> been tested in court
> anywhere? Specifically in
> the US? Is there any other
> legal theory that gives
> them control?

Again, I've not made a study of this, and am unaware on what
grounds museums make such claims.

They do make them, though (esp. about *high-resolution*
photos/facsimiles).

E.g., a couple of years ago, I was contacted by the editor
of a specialist magazine published in conjunction with the
California State Coastal Conservancy.

His is a non-profit group, and the audience for his journal
is full of working professionals, many of whom are
preservationists working to protect the ocean environment.

The editor had wanted to use the image of the Marshall
Islands sea chart that I have posted to my website for an
article on ocean mapping in an upcoming issue.

I thought it was a terrific idea, and told him "yes" right
away. What better group of individuals to be exposed to the
traditional information practices and environmental
knowledge of Marshall Islanders? Who knows what acts of
creativity in ocean stewardship and mapping the stick chart
might inspire?

But I also gave the journal editor complete information on
the copyright holders of the image I have digitized: the
publishers of the book I took it from, and in turn, their
citation of the British Museum.

Well, he contacted the British Museum and they wanted £60
just "for permission" (he would have used my digital image,
so the BM had no production costs to cover), and that was
that. His niche journal couldn't afford that kind of fee, so
as a workaround, he had the photographic image on my website
redrawn by an illustrator, and printed the drawing instead.

As a result, neither the book which brought the Marshall
Islanders' stick map to my attention, or she-philosopher.com
(which brought the map to the journal editor's attention),
or the British Museum (which holds the original artifact)
received any mention, and there was no chain of references,
citation and scholarship attaching to the map.

In my judgment, none of us benefited from the British
Library's rigid adherence to copyright formalities.

Not only did the BM not get its £60; there is now a *very*
good drawing of the stick map out there, to which they have
no claim of copyright.

And the new artist's reproduction is probably not in the
public domain, either.


> Contract law is a much
> greater threat to free
> expression than copyright
> law is, IMHO.

And even harder for people like me -- who do not wish to
have to make a lifetime study of the subject -- to come to
grips with.

Am I to take it that the BM photo of the Marshall Islanders'
artifact in their possession is really functioning more like
a trademarked image than a copyrighted one?

(Just in case we're not all confused enough already.... ;-)

Deborah
_____

Deborah Taylor-Pearce
dtp at she-philosopher.com