Image talk:HuntingtonLibraryHM60Frontpiece.jpg

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The following was posted to the Image page by Bogart99.

I have moved this here in order to discuss the situation. I feel that it is unfortunate that Bogart99 has written to the Huntington and promised to delete this image if they do not grant a licence. This image is close reproduction of a two-dimensional image in the public domain. (The original was produced at the turn of the 15th century.) According to Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. this makes this image public domain, and the Huntington does not have a copyright, whatever they may assert. In fairness to the Huntington, they do, in my opinion, have a copyright to the image from which this was cropped, as that image included enough extraneous material to make it a photograph of a three dimensional object and its setting, which would not be subject to Bridgeman. Dsmdgold 14:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

The following discussion is copied from the talk pages of Bogart99 and Dsmdgold Dsmdgold 14:38, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Although the Huntington may assert a copyright, the do not, in fact, have a copyright. See Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.. In short, under US law in order for a work to be copyrightable, originality must be used to create the image. A slavish mechanical reproduction, such as a photograph does not require the creativity to qualify for copyright, This true even if producung the copy requires a great deal of skill and effort. Since the frontispiece under discussion is a public domain image any photograph of it will also be public domain. Dsmdgold 13:14, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Huntington does assert a copyright indeed. According to Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York you're right, of course... inside the USA. But there's a little big problem. European copyright laws are much stricter. Not even the Huntington, but the photographer's heirs would hold the copyright for 70 years after the photographer's death in Germany, for instance. A lot of copyright infringement lawsuits are won by US companies and institutions in Europe, which they would have lost in Wisconsin or Arizona, and European courts quote the corresponding US decisions as some exotic and amusing findings at the utmost. It's like fireworks at daylights - as Oscar Wilde said - if you wikify jpegs that can be used in the US (298,5 million) smoothly but hardly in the rest of the world (6,22 billion). I think it's quite blundering and - at least - disrespectful for the international Wikipedia project to know that Huntington asserts a copyright and just to wipe this off the table. --Bogart99 07:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, There may well be other laws in other countries, although I'm not so sure about Germany. Although, I claim no knowledge about German law, the {{PD-art}} tag on Commons generates a message that specifically mentions Germany as a country in which photographs of two dimensional public domain works of art are also public domain. There is a large German prescence on Commons, and I assume that such a claim would not go unchallenged if there was not some basis for it. Be that as it may it is all irrelevant to this image. The Huntington is in California. The photograph was almost certainly made at the Huntington. Wikipedia's servers are in Florida. My computer is in Oklahoma. It is difficult to see how the Huntington coud assert any jurisdiction other than the U.S. As a side note, the photograph was almost certainly made as "work made for hire", which means, as I understand US law, that the photographer, and his heirs would never have a copyright claim in the photograph. It also important to note that in Bridgeman that Corel was suing over images that were made in Europe. The U.S. court held that U.S. law applied.

I would also like to point out that the Huntingtons assertion of copyright are not incompatible with the image on Wikipedia being public domain. The image (see second image from the top) on the Huntington site is not the same image as on Wikipedia. The Huntington image includes a photograph of the manuscript as a book (that is a three dimesional object) open to the page in question. The image also includes the surroundings of the book including a color bar. All of this would qualify that entire image as copyrightable. However that does bestow on them a copyright of the public domain image contained within their photograph. The wikipedia image has been cropped to show only the public domain portion of the Huntington image. Dsmdgold 14:38, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

End copied discussion. Dsmdgold 14:38, 4 May 2006 (UTC)