3 ms·

There was actually a dispute between Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons and the British National Gallery over this - the UK working similar to Germany https://en.wiki

• tsimionescu 3y ago
  Actually the UK works like the USA, there was a recent court case on this that made it very clear. Photographs of public domain works, of any quality, are public domain as well unless they contain some original expression of their own (say, if you're taking a selfie in front of a famous picture, you probably have copyright over it - but not if a museum takes a high-res, excellent lighting photo to reproduce the painting itself).
  • michaelt 3y ago
    There are some more details on the UK system and its historical changes at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow#New_(European)_approach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow#New_(Europea... UK law is very clear in the sense that in 2023, an appeals court judgement explicitly stated that in the UK, no new copyright is created in making a photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional public domain artwork. UK law is not very clear, in the sense that it took an appeals court judge to reach that determination, and it only happened in 2023 :) And presumably if people like Disney were so inclined they could make sure every new DVD release had slight adjustments to colour grading, a remastered audio track, and things like that, muddying the water by introducing more elements of human creativity.