They might be. NAL, but if a work is sufficiently transformative I think you can argue that copyright doesn’t apply. You might have to go through an expensive l

They might be. NAL, but if a work is sufficiently transformative I think you can argue that copyright doesn’t apply. You might have to go through an expensive lawsuit to get to that point though. Copyright has a chilling effect too. My wife is an art historian and publishes academic papers and books on contemporary art. Many times the artists are still alive and she’ll need their permission to reproduce an image of their artwork. Technically, reproducing something for commentary or criticism, especially in an academic or educational context, would fall under fair use. But no publisher is going to risk having to defend that in court, certainly not for an academic work that isn’t going to make any money, so in practice you have to obtain (often expensive) reproduction rights from the rights holders.