An introduction to copyright
When browsing for images to use in History of Art presentations
you should be aware (and make students aware) of the issues
of intellectual property and copyright. Copyright is the right
to permit or prohibit copying and is recognised throughout world.
Under UK copyright law, an artist is automatically the owner
of copyright in any work that they produce. Copyright applies
to works of art published on the Internet as well as by any
other media and images, whether digital or non digital, are
protected for the lifetime of the creator, e.g. the artist or
photographer, and for 70 years after his or her death.
History
The basic UK legislation is around 200 years old. It was produced
in response to a threat posed by the new technology of engraving
which could be used to make multiple copies of an artists
work. The legislation was pushed through parliament as a result
of intense lobbying by William Hogarth, one of Britain's leading
artists at the end of the 18th Century. He had worked long
and hard to achieve his status as an artist and satirist and
was angry to see inferior copies of his work being sold in
large quantities especially when he received no payment for
them.
The first UK copyright legislation was guided by principle
that:
- it was in the general interest
that people keep creating new interesting works in the arts
and sciences
- people would not create these
works without some guarantee that their efforts would be
rewarded
- the best way to do this was
to give them an exclusive right to their own work so that
anyone else, wishing to exploit their work, would have to
reward them for it.
Guidelines for
using images found on the internet
If you are looking
for images on the internet, the web site you find may include
a statement allowing its material to be freely re-used, or
used for specific purposes and/or with specific conditions.
Look for a statement or link on the home page of the site,
often labelled 'Copyright' or 'Conditions of use'.
If there is no copyright statement
on the site do not assume that permission has automatically
been given.
If you want to show the image
to your students you could show it in class by visiting the
web page and projecting it on screen by using a data projector,
or you could include a link to the image in your own web page:
- make it clear the image is
on the other site and not part of your own site, giving
the other site the credit for providing the image
- ask the site owner's permission
before linking to an image, or any page other than the home
page of a web site (sometimes called 'deep linking'). The
site owner may wish all users to see information given on
their home page (restrictions, warnings, etc.) or may want
to record (and maximise) the amount of traffic on their
home page for advertising revenue or other purposes
- check the home page of the
site. If there is any information about linking to the site
which imposes any restrictions or conditions (such as 'Please
do not link to this site except to the home page' or 'Please
inform the webmaster when making a link to this site'),
you should abide by those conditions
Avoiding copyright infringement
The good news is that there are many sources of copyright
free images and many art galleries for example make images
freely available. Be aware that there can very often be more
than one set of rights in an image, for example in the case
of a photograph taken in 1999 of a painting by Van Gogh, the
painting is clearly out of copyright but the photograph may
still be protected. Answer: take your own photograph.
Useful Links
National
Portrait Gallery Picture Library
Royal
Society Picture Library
http://www.intellectual-property.gov.uk/
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