it is very important for all non-USA members of MUSEUM-L to realise that
nothing resembling the American "fair use" concept exists in most
non-American legal systems.  In the UK, for example, the main "fair use"
exemptions are very limited quotations for the purposes of review or
criticism and the making of single copies by or for an individual for the
purposes of study or research.

In the case of works of art in copyright (i.e. by artists who have been
dead for less than 70 years) many museums routinely have to get permission
from the artist's estate, as copyright holder, to reproduce works of art
they own in the musuem's own catalogues.

In my experience directing major regional art museum collections
over a period of more than 20 years, despite the "fair use" concept at
home, American copyright holders are amongst the most active in
threatening or even taking legal action to protect their copyright
everywhere else in the world, and are quite likely to charge the museum
that owns the picture itself each time in respect of the separate legal
property of copyright.

In a different area, just a few days ago it was reported that a US-based
religious music publisher had successfully initiated proceedings against
the  publishers of the charity recording of September's  Westminister
Abbey funeral of Princess Diana for breach of copyright in the
publication on the CD of a modern hymn sung during the service. With no
legal defence against such a claim the publishers of the charity record
have made a payment in settlement of the claim, though presumably somewhat
less than the $3 million originally claimed by the (non-profit) American
religious publisher.

Patrick Boylan

=================================

>
> On Sun, 23 Nov 1997 02:22:33 -0500 (EST)  Bari B. Brandes wrote:
> >Amalyah --
> >
> (snip)
> >
> >In short, the thing with the catalogues is it is literally not a fair
> >use. I personally think that it should be allowed, but I found a journal
> >article which argues that it's a for-profit enterprise which fails the
> >fair use test.
> >