Reproduction Rights
What is in the public domain in the US?
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm
UNESCO Collection of National Copyright Laws
http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=14076&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Museums' Reprographic Rights?
" Pressure on curatorial institutions to maximise revenue and the increasing ease of electronic publishing has highlighted disagreements about non-copyright 'reprographic' or 'publication' rights.
Much of the collection in many museum, library and archive collections is no longer protected by copyright because the period of protection (discussed here and here) has expired. Few sculptures, drawings, etchings or canvases created before 1900 are for example still protected. The institution is free to reproduce those works as posters, cards, books, bags, CD-ROMs and other merchandise or to take them online, whether through an intranet or the internet.
A common misapprehension is that institutions have a copyright in particular work because they own the physical entity, eg the canvas, stretcher and pigment that comprises an Old Master oil painting. In some cases that is incorrect. The institution instead has a reprographic right that is founded on contract law (eg binding purchasers of merchandise that features particular reproductions) and/or restrictions of access to the physical entity.
[...] Constraints on downstream use of images are contentious. The New York court decision in the Bridgeman v Corel case, for example, involved claims that Canadian software company Corel had breached the copyright of The Bridgeman Art Library (a UK British company that licenses transparencies of public domain artwork owned by museums) by including those 'Bridgeman' images on a Corel CD.
The court disagreed, endorsing Corel's claim that Bridgeman had no copyright to the individual images because those images were in the public domain and Bridgeman's transparencies lacked the original authorship required by US copyright law. That decision has, however, been criticised in the UK, particularly by museums, and caution is desirable."
http://www.caslon.com.au/ipguide21.htm
United Kingdom
Duration: "Typographical arrangement of published editions
25 yeas from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first published."
http://copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/intellectual_property
New Zealand
"Q: I would like to copy a photograph in a book of a painting held in a London library, and use the copy as the frontispiece to my thesis. What are the copyright implications?
A: There is copyright in the original painting, which lasts for 50 years after the death of the painter. There is copyright in the photograph of the painting, which lasts for 50 years after the death of the photographer. And there is copyright in the reproduction of the photograph in the book, which lasts for 25 years after the book was first published. So unless both the painter and photographer have been dead for more than 50 years, and the book was published more than 25 years ago, then the photograph of the painting may not be reproduced without permission. And just to complicate matters further, the library that owns the painting may hold reproduction rights. I suggest that, in the first instance, you write to the publisher of the book in which the photograph appears."
http://www.waikato.ac.nz/copyright/uow_copyright_questions_and_answers.shtml
The reason for the 25 years is found here:
"Typographical arrangements of published editions: The typeset or image of the published edition of the whole or part of a literary, dramatic or published work (that may or may not itself be protected by copyright). Copyright in a typographical arrangement exists independently of copyright in the published work. [...]
Typographical arrangement of published editions: Copyright protection lasts until twenty-five years from the end of the calendar year in which the edition was first published."
http://www.med.govt.nz/buslt/int_prop/info-sheets/copyright-prot.html
Australia
" Publishers have copyright in the typographical arrangement and layout of a published edition. That is separate to the copyright in works reproduced in the edition (such as poems, illustrations or music). The protection for the typographical arrangement of a work in a published edition is twenty five years from the end of the year of first publication."
http://www.caslon.com.au/durationprofile1.htm
Ireland
Duration: 50 years
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZA28Y2000S29.html
South Africa
"Published editions are protected for 50 years from the end of the year in which the edition is first published."
http://www.svw.co.za/copyright.php
Jamaica
Duration: 25 years
http://www.jipo.gov.jm/pages/copyright.htm
Bridgeman v. Corel Links
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.CFM?threadID=12976
Interesting discussion about digitizing old books from Germany (2004)
Excerpt:
"Note: Some nations' copyright laws grant limited copyright protection in the typographical arrangement of a work, typically 25 years, but the U.S. does not grant this right. There is also in come countries a "publication right" designed to grant a limited term for publication of previosuly unpublished works. The publication right gives rights equivalent to copyright to a person who publishes for the first time a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work or a film in which copyright has expired. Publication right only lasts for 25 years from the publication of the previously unpublished material. The U.S does not grant this right."
http://www.librarycopyright.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=112
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