Design Master Paint
Copyright for old master paintings?
Hi!
I am a student but do design jobs part time. For a book cover design I would like to use a painting (or a section of the painting). As far as I know old paintings are copyright-free after 70 years BUT.. of course a private owner would hold certain rights and since museums can permit photographing in their galleries they of course hold the copyright to the pictures they make of the paintings. And naturally I can’t use the photos of paintings from catalogues etc. either (only ofter so many years and that means they would most likely be bw).
Does anyone have experience with this? The book would be published in the UK. I guess what I can do is..
1) ask the owner
2) museum
3) and what I wonder especially.. would I be allowed to use a picture of an old master painting from a museum that I have taken myself?
Any help would be greatly appriciated.
Works old enough to have lapsed copyrights are “in the public domain” and are no longer subject to any copyright protection. This includes the exclusive right to make copies and “derivative works” such as photographs of old masters. The copyright of derivative works is reserved to the copyright owner, which in this case is the public. Therefore, there is no copyright of photographs (or any other reproductions) of old masters — they would also be in the public domain, with minor exceptions.
Museums (or photographers) therefore do not own copyright to the naked pictures they make of works that are no longer copyrighted, although they may claims ownership of anything they have ADDED that is of sufficient “creative or artistic” value to be worthy of protection on its own.
For example, they may own copyright on a collection in a book, which includes selection and arrangement of works in the public domain.
They can certainly charge you a fee for making a nice clean copy, but they can’t prevent you from making any further copies of works for which the do not own the copyright because there IS no copyright.
You will find those whose opinions differ on this, but the fact of the matter is that you cannot take something OUT of the public domain simply by creating a derivative work from it.
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