---------------Original Message---------------

...  The intellectual property of
public domain works, by law -- even in Canada -- is not given over as sole
posession of the holder of the physical object.  While museums have custody
of the object and certainly feel obligations toward the image of that
object, they are nonetheless not endowed with the right to possess that
intellectual property as if they held a monopoly interest in it.  Indeed,
until a works arrives at that moment at which it enters the public domain,
the copyright, itself, may not belong to the museum, but to the creator and
his or her heirs.

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Robert: don't forget that any intellectual property that the museum (its staff) creates, relating to a work of art, belongs to the museum. (Research notes, catalogue texts, other writings, interpretive programs, photographs created with the artist's/copyright holder's permission, conservation technical reports, and I've probably missed a bunch...) This is entirely separate from the artist's copyright in the original work of art.

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name: amalyah keshet
head of visual resources / the israel museum, jerusalem
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
date: 02/27/97
visit our Web site at http://www.imj.org.il
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