Fulcrum by Richard Serra, London, England
NY Times Arts Dwell ARTstor Blog
behold allows you to browse flickr for images that are free to use and modify or circulate commercially. This search tool simplifies the process of determining limits of use while enabling the user to access a wide range of photographs taken and published by amateurs and professionals the world over.
Columbia University Libraries and Information Services has created the Copyright Advisory Office to address the relationship between copyright law and the research, teaching, and service activities of post-secondary education. The Office provides and will continue to provide access to copyright information as it evolves in response to increasingly complex methods of distributing information in order to help faculty members, librarians, administrators, students, and others learn and apply copyright principles of importance to their work. Currently, the Copyright Advisory Office hosts a number of pages that include a Copyright Quick Guide and examine issues such as fair use, appropriate use, licensing and more. Additional resources include a blog by Director Kenneth Crew exploring the appropriate application of copyright in real world scenarios.
By checking a box or two in the “Usage Rights” section of Google’s advanced image search page, you can now filter images to find only files tagged with a license that allows re-use for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.
Read more in the Creative Pro article “Safely Find and Use Images Via Google”
Noam Cohen considers the dearth of high quality images on Wikipedia in a New York Times article today.
While Wikipedia’s popularity has been fueled by constantly updated text, visual information, limited to Creative Commons licenses, is often of poor quality. However individuals and institutions have attempted to work around this issue. Wikipedia editors have gone on outings to capture high quality photographs of buildings and objects. Last winter the German Federal Archives provided 100,000 digital copies of images in its collection. Government photos are another source for public domain images. In fact, editors have taken to cropping out individuals, often resulting in awkward photographs.
Read more about digital image copyright issues on Wikipedia here.
The Commonwealth of Learning has made the book Introducing Copyright available through download from its website. The book assumes no special knowledge and avoids technical language as much as possible. Introducing Copyright explains copyright protection and what it means for copyright holders and users. It introduces digital rights management, open licenses, software patents and copyright protection for works of traditional knowledge.
Lincoln Specter at PC World, asks can you be sued for photographing people in a public space?
The answer depends on what you end up doing with your photograph.
You own the copyright to any pictures you take unless someone is paying you to take that photo. However, when that picture starts generating income, things get a little tricky. If you sell it to a newspaper, that’s considered fair use. But if you use the image in an advertisement or in a blog with advertisements, you’ve violated your subject’s privacy and he or she can definitely sue you.
The laws differ from state to state and vary depending on where the photograph was taken, where the subject lives, and where the photo was published.
Many lawyers recommend creating a model release. Take a look at this sample from the New York Institute of Photography.
The Copyright Clearance Center developed Copyright Basics an educational video that promotes copyright awareness by explaining how it works. This animated video discusses U.S. copyright laws including material protected by copyright, the parameters of fair use, attribution, copyrighted material distribution, and more.
To celebrate the continued integrity of our cultural and intellectual property, libraries and museums around the world are hosting special exhibitions in honor of World Book and Copyright Day. For information on these celebrations visit the UNESCO website.
In addition, the UN’s Dag Hammarskjöld Library has created a copyright resource repository on the web.
The United States Copyright Office has created an informational webpage that provides basic information about the copyright process including registration, fee amounts, copyright protection, and a list of copyrightable materials as defined by format and content. Additional factsheets deal with questions of unregistered copyrights and ownership transference, and establish criteria for works not protected by copyright law.
The University of Maryland University College Center for Intellectual Property’s blog, Collectanea, provides a range of perspectives about current copyright issues. The blog is hosted by Georgia Harper, Scholarly Communications Advisor for the University of Texas Libraries.
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