[NHCOLL-L:1992] re: Copyright

[Doug Yanega]

>We have discussed this issue before, but at present the Transvaal 
>Museum is finding themselves in a position where a company took or 
>obtained photographs of our hominid and other palaeontological 
>specimens and are selling/giving them to publishing companies.  Our 
>guess is that they are selling the photographs for a fee higher than 
>what we would charge.  Really strange.  The museum them looses 
>acknowledgement for the photographer, museum name, donation of 
>book and storage facility.
>Is this breeching of copyright?  Should we persue this further?
>Are researchers from other Institutions allowed to trade with 
>photographs of our specimens once they have photographed them?
>Thanks in advance.
>Dr H. Fourie
>Research: Vertebrate Palaeontology
>Transvaal Museum
>South Africa

The British Museum has, at the very least, set a few precedents in 
this area (control over images of museum-owned artifacts), and I 
think you might get some useful advice from people there. In the US, 
copyright law would not - as far as I know (I actually have read a 
fair chunk of the US copyright law) - come into play in such a 
situation unless (1) the museum does, itself, have and sell images 
that are "substantively similar" to those taken by visitors (note 
that one doesn't have to file for formal copyright in order to *hold* 
legal copyright - though it does make things much easier should a 
matter ever go to court), or (2) visitors are *explicitly* instructed 
when they enter the museum that photographs taken of artifacts may 
not be sold for commercial purposes without written consent of the 
museum (thus, effectively, representing a contractual agreement as to 
what constitutes "fair use"). The laws may or may not be the same or 
similar in South Africa.

Good luck,
-- 

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
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