Bob:

Re your problem (reproduced below):

I am afraid that your ex-employer is entirely right, certainly legally,
and I think morally too.

In most national jurisdictions around the world, and in the growing body
of international treaty law on copyright and other intellectual property
rights, the work of a salaried employee belongs to the employer. This
is also usually the case with even a freelance or contractor working under
explicit or implied contract for an employee.

The principle is also well established  in most countries  - certainly  all
"common law" countries such as the USA or England - that an ex-employee
may not use for the benefit of a later employer or business (including
their own business) work carried out in the course of their employment
without appropriate permissions.

You say yourself that your former museum allowed you to have copies for
the purposes of your professional portfolio but there is a clear implied
contract there that these images etc. were explicitly for that purpose, so
going beyond that would be a breach of those conditions.

In my long experience during which time I employed (and I hope helped to
develop) a considerable number of exhibit and graphic designers who
progressed to positions of national and international distinction in e.g.
film and television, publishing, as well as their own successful
businesses, I know that most museums would be happy to have their
successes acknowledged in the subsequent careers of their former staff,
but this would depend on both the scale (e.g. one or two images with a
list of projects) and prior permission being sought.

Clearly putting what is presumably a number of your former employer's
images on your new web site without prior consultation and permission can't
have helped matters, and in the circumstances you are perhaps lucky that
they are prepared to allow you to publish the museum's copyright
photographs on payment of a copyright acknowledgement fee, as the museum
would be fully within its right to refuse permission to reproduce at any
price in such circumstances.

My best advice is to try to re-build bridges (assuming that you originally
left the museum on good terms) by apologising for what was a completely
innocent mistake on your part, and asking for a meeting to talk with the
relevant senior managers (perhaps your ex-boss and the Head of commercial
activities, or the Director is a comparatively small museum) what can be
done to put things right.

Patrick Boylan

Professor of Heritage Policy & Management
City University, London, UK

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


On Sun, 30 May 1999, Bob Bacigal wrote:

> I have recently started an exhibit design firm. I want to use images, of the
> exhibits (images that a general visitor could take), that I acquired while
> previously employed as an exhibit designer at a major museum, as well as
> from other companies, to showcase my skills. My direct supervisor allowed
> me, as well as other employees who worked on the project, to purchase copies
> of the slides at my own cost. While employed at the museum I, nor any other
> employee, were not required to sign any agreement about using the images.
> The implied usage was for portfolios. I constructed a web page and
> consequently received a letter from the museum demanding me to stop using
> the slides because I was infringing on its copyrights. I have temporarily
> taken the images of the Internet, but would like to put them back on.
> Because my industry is based on visual images, I was wondering if there is
> any way to use them. I had, by the way, credited the museum with the
> copyright symbol and date.
>
> Bob Bacigal
> [log in to unmask]
>
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