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My wife is an art historian, she's currently publishing a book and collecting permissions for all the images she wants to use. Why? Because if she doesn't the p
by imgabe 3y ago
My wife is an art historian, she's currently publishing a book and collecting permissions for all the images she wants to use. Why? Because if she doesn't the publisher won't publish her book and she won't get tenure. Do they care that there is a 25 year old legal precedent about how they could use the image for free? No, they do not. If it's an image the museum hasn't made publicly available on their website, then they still have to send it to you in order for you to use it and they're going to attach whatever terms and payment requirements to it that they want before they do that, no matter how much you tell them that it's a public domain image.
- mynameisvlad 3y agoThat sounds like it is entirely the publisher’s internal policy, not at all related to whether something is in the public domain or not. A publisher can certainly impose their own restrictions before publishing something to lower liability, but that does not mean the photographs themselves are not public domain, as GP comment explicitly showed. If you have any case law since then that proves otherwise, great, but an anecdote is not proof enough.
- ghaff 3y agoPublishers, documentary makers, etc. tend to go out of their way to cover their butts with written permissions. It's easier than having to deal with someone who thinks they're owed something after the fact.