Ashley,
Below is one more response for you from Anne M. Young Manager of
Rights and Reproductions at Newfields (formerly the Indianapolis
Museum of Art) editor of
Rights & Reproductions: The
Handbook for Cultural Institutions and instructor of our
course Rights & Reproductions: Guidelines and Best Practices
http://www.museumstudy.com/courses/course-list/rights-reproductions-guidelines-and-best-practices/
Feel free to contact Anne directly.
--
Brad Bredehoft
CEO
Museum Study, LLC
www.MuseumStudy.com
I preface this reply with the note that cannot
claim to provide legal advice to the specifics of this situation
and when in doubt it is advisable to seek counsel from a lawyer
that knows more about the specifics of your institution. That
said...my reply...
The museum likely does not/cannot hold copyright
to reproductions it creates of historic photographs (see Bridgeman
v. Corel case in which it was outlined that creating
“slavish” reproductions of two dimensional works does not create
a new copyright because you are just creating a faithful
rendering of the original work). There may still be copyright in
the original photographs, but that would require a diligent
search to determine if/when the work was created, published, and
registered (and re-registered, if applicable) to conclude if it
is still under copyright or has moved into the public domain. If
the original work is in the public domain and the museum creates
a reproduction of that photograph there is not a new copyright
created and it in no way adds a copyright onto the original
work. If the work is in the public domain it is available for
anyone to use in any way. So, even if the museum purports to
claim a copyright to its reproduction of the original work, the
underlying work has no restriction in its use by anyone (i.e.,
anyone can use it for any purpose).
My recommendation would be to not claim a
copyright to the reproductions of the historic photographs
(whether those are public domain or under copyright) and in any
uses of those photographs to instead seek a credit to the
holding museum vs. placement of a watermark, which simply
distorts the image itself. Acknowledgement of the holding
institution in an adjacent caption or credit would be a
preferable route vs. watermarking.
Additional information about a variety of museum
uses, determining copyright status, use of caption/credit, and
fair use of images can be found in Rights &
Reproductions: The Handbook for Cultural Institutions
With best regards,
Anne
Anne M. Young
Manager of Rights and Reproductions
Newfields
4000 Michigan Road
Indianapolis, IN 46208
317-923-1331 ext. 171
On 3/27/2018 2:03 PM, Ashley LaVigne wrote: