On Thu, 14 Mar 1996 10:10:25 -0500 Ivy Strickler wrote: >>At the Museum of Victoria Social History Department we have many items, >>acquired in the past, which are covered by copyright law; books, posters, >>artworks, etc. Copyright was not acquired at the same time. We will continue >> >>to acquire such items. I would like to rework out donation agreement to >>include options for the donor to assign copyright to us. > >It would surprise me greatly if you can pull this off, largely because I >would not expect the donors to be the copyright holders. Maybe I'm >overlooking some detail here, but publishers go to great lengths to get >complete copyright control and at least in the US, they are rarely happy to >give it away. >Ivy Fleck Strickler Phone 215-895-1637 >Drexel University Fax 215-895-4917 >Nesbitt College of Design Arts [log in to unmask] >Philadelphia, PA 19104 > We have a gift agreement form which donors sign when making donations to our museum. It includes a clause which reads: "The artist's or artists' copyright is, to the best of my knowledge, retained by:________." This is not entirely satisfactory, and of course many donors have no idea how to answer, but it serves the purpose of preventing the issue from being overlooked. One can assume that if the donor doesn't own the copyright, or doesn't know who does, the artist probably does. Contacting the artist is necessarily the next step anyway. ------------------------------------- Name: amalyah keshet director, visual resources / the israel museum, jerusalem E-mail: [log in to unmask] Date: 03/25/96 -------------------------------------