Intellectual Property and the Arts
Publishing in the Visual Arts
Frequently Asked Questions
CLEARING RIGHTS
Q: I am writing an article for publication in a journal in the United States and would like to illustrate my text with photographs of works of art. The artworks are all currently protected by copyright. I photographed some of the works myself; I rented other photos from the museums that own the works of art. How should I proceed?
Read the answer at http://www.collegeart.org/ip/qa2.
IMAGE FEES
Q: I’m an art historian publishing a book. Several of the artworks illustrated in my book are protected by copyright. Though it is a scholarly publication, the press has asked me to get permission from the copyright holders to publish these photographs and pay any fees these parties might charge. Do I need to do this? How do I begin? How can I determine whether or not the fees are fair? Also, some of the artworks are old and not in copyright. Do I have to pay fees for them too?
Read the answer at http://www.collegeart.org/ip/qa6.
IMAGES AND THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
Q: I want to publish images of three works of art in a book I am writing. The book is to be published by a nonprofit press. The images (a painting, a photograph, and a drawing) are in the collections, respectively, of a U.S. museum, a photo archive, and a library. The copyright on these works of art has expired; they are in the public domain, which means, I think, that they can be legally copied. Can I reproduce photographs of these works in my book without asking the institutions’ permission? Would it make a difference if I were publishing at a for-profit press? And does it matter if I myself took the photos of the images or got them from the institutions?
Read the answer at http://www.collegeart.org/ip/qa1.
Studies, Resources, and Some Answers
“Why the Public Domain is Not Just a Mickey Mouse Issue,” by Diane M. Zorich, comments prepared for the NINCH Copyright Town meeting on the Public Domain held at the Chicago Historical Society, January 11, 2000
“Copyright Clearance: A Publisher’s Perspective,” by Susan Bielstein (CAA News 30, no. 5 [September 2005]: 19–21, 43)
“Public Domain Art in an Age of Easier Mechanical Reproducibility,” by Kenneth Hamma (D-Lib Magazine 11, no. 11 [November 2005])
Will Fair Use Survive? Free Expression in the Age of Copyright Control, A Public Policy Report by Marjorie Heins and Tricia Beckles (New York: Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, 2005)
Art History and Its Publications in the Electronic Age (Report on a study funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2006), by Hilary Ballon and Mariët Westermann
Tales from the Public Domain: Bound by Law? by Keith Aoki, James Boyle, and Jennifer Jenkins (Center for the Study of the Public Domain, 2006)
“‘Yes, you can!’: Where you don’t even need ‘fair use,’” by Peter Jaszi, Washington College of Law, American University (May 2006)
Permissions, A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property, by Susan M. Bielstein (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2006)
“Art Museum Images in Scholarly Publishing,” by Nancy Allen. Connexions (website), July 8, 2009
Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright, by Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011)
“Guidelines for Correct Captioning of Images”
Chilling Effects: “Do you know your online rights? Have you received a letter asking you to remove information from a Web site or to stop engaging in an activity? Are you concerned about liability for information that someone else posted to your online forum? If so, this site is for you.” (Chilling Effects is a joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and clinics at Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, University of Maine, George Washington School of Law, and Santa Clara University School of Law.)
