[Clipart] Check these images? Is this legal?

[Glen Turner]

Jon Phillips wrote:

> Okay, I put up a bunch of links on where to find public domain images 
> from the US Government. Do other countries have a similar way of 
> releasing images into the public domain that were taken with public 
> funds? Man, a lot of these could be used as base material for 
> vectorization and abstraction. That is legal, right?

Yep, because in US doctrine there is no copyright holder
of the work then the only copyright in a derived work can
be your copyright acquired in making the derivation. So
you can then place that your copyright to the work in the
derivation (if any) into the public domain.

Be sure that the images are in fact public domain, and
not part of a collection owned by LoC.  Just having
title to the physical work doesn't give you title to
the copyright.

Not all countries have the concept of public domain.

For example, copyright for works made using public funds
in most Commonwealth countries would reside in the Crown
(ie, the government).

Also, there may be multiple "rights" involved, especially
in countries that adhere to the Berne Convention more
closely than the US.  This is what stops you photocopying
a recent book containing a public domain work (although
if the book itself is old enough to pass into the public
domain then those rights lapse too).

Have a read of
   http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/195_copr.html
It asks that a credit line be used in the image. I suggest
that you copy this credit for a derived work. That way
any future dispute about the copyrigths in the image
is more easily resolved.

eg:
   if the image has Dublin Core metadata:
     Title: Martin Luther King
     Creator: Joe Blow
     Source: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs  Division LC-USZ62-110212.
   and you've just cropped and shaded the image you say
     Title: Detail of "Martin Luther King"
     Creator: Joe Blow
     Source: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division LC-USZ62-110212.
     Contributor: Fred Bloggs
     Rights: Public domain
   and if you think it's now a new work you say
     Title: MLK at rest and play
     Creator: Fred Bloggs
     Source: Derived from Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division LC-USZ62-110212.
     Contributor: Joe Blow
     Rights: Public domain

     [The Contributor line is problematic, but we need somewhere to
      retain the name of the original artist so that a search for
      that name succeeds.  For the Dublin Core tags see
        http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/  ]

The need for meta-data is especially so for faces. Lots of
face photos look very similar (because they are often taken
from the same "media area" at an event).  Having the original
source in the SVG makes it easy to handle claims from people
that the source was a press photographer (rather than a goverment
photographer or contributed photo).

-- 
  Glen Turner         Tel: (08) 8303 3936 or +61 8 8303 3936
  Australia's Academic & Research Network  www.aarnet.edu.au