Hmm...bit a tricky situation you are in! Do you have a volunteer policy in writing or any other policy which addresses an issue like this? It may not help you, but you might want to consider updating any policies to include something along the lines of "all work, photographs and projects produced by volunteers in the scope of their volunteering activities is the property of the Museum, which retains all rights and privileges". I know we added that to our volunteer/intern policy just recently to make it clear that photographs taken of historic sites we are using in a new brochure for the museum are owned by us, and we maintain the copyright (though we will give caption credit to the photographer). Adding something like this would help prevent future issues like this. As far as the current issues go, you might have to go to a copyright lawyer to see whether she actually broke the law. Copyright is a MESS, especially for museums. Even though it's going to be difficult to talk to her about this, I think you, your collegue and the other organization she works for need to sit down and discuss this with her. I assume the other organization is aware of this as well? If not, I would recommend informing them. If nothing else, the three of you can sit down with her and inform her that you have noticed that this is happening, and that it needs to stop unless she gets permission from you in each instance, etc....however you decide to handle it. Maggie Carlson Museum Director/Curator of Collections Coronado Quivira Museum [log in to unmask] History is philosophy teaching by examples - Thucydides From: Candace Perry <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Friday, July 22, 2011 11:06 AM Subject: [MUSEUM-L] photography/copyright question I have a difficult issue with a complicated volunteer situation. We have an individual who volunteers here as a cataloger and researcher. This person also does personal research in our collections, but there have been times when the personal research and the volunteer work overlapped. She also volunteers for another local organization. During her time here she has taken many digital photographs, which I and my colleague in the archives have permitted, in part believing (which now is apparently wrong) that this was part of her volunteering. For awhile now I have been seeing her use images from our collections which she then attaches the copyright symbol and her name to, which I understand in theory, but am a bit – well, frankly annoyed – because she did not discuss this with anyone here. And I don’t know whether this automatically gives her free rein to use our images. They aren’t anything all that great – some of them have actually been pretty bad, image wise. Furthermore, she submitted an article for the journal that is associated with our organization – not our journal, but with the church with which we are affiliated – and has put her copyright info on that also, although it is a church publication. The article has to be proofread and edited, and there are several actual typos and some other problems. Her copyright info is also on the images in the article, not just ours but those of the other organization she is working with. I becoming increasingly concerned about this, and now I need some professional help – in more ways than one! She is a bit of a difficult sort – I won’t go into that – and I am very reluctant to start conversations with her as I either get too many apologies or defensiveness. Neither is fun. Any suggestions? Thanks! To unsubscribe from the MUSEUM-L list, click the following link: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=MUSEUM-L&A=1 ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).