[Nhcoll-l] photo vouchering and tissues questions

[Dean Pentcheff]

An issue with photo vouchers (as distinct from physical specimens) would be
the copyright status of the image — unlike a specimen or tissue, it is
legally considered to be a creative product. If the image was taken by
someone as part of their paid job, the copyright most likely belongs to
their employer. If it was taken by someone acting privately, outside of
their job, then the individual most likely has copyright over the image.
(This applies to U.S. copyright law; I don't know the details outside of
the U.S.)

If an image is going to be deposited with the museum, I'd strongly
recommend getting a formal copyright transfer to the museum. It could be a
complete transfer (analogous to donating a specimen), where the museum now
has full copyright control, or an arrangement that the museum gets the
right to perpetual non-exclusive use of the image for any purpose. Your
museum counsel should be able to draft a release form (and I'd definitely
recommend having a lawyer do this — intellectual property law is not
straightforward).

-Dean
-- 
Dean Pentcheff
pentcheff at gmail.com
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__research.nhm.org_disco&d=DwIFaQ&c=cjytLXgP8ixuoHflwc-poQ&r=LpYc_Z_iN1KRw0hheb3x6-8MJUMu482qfHowpGYJqwc&m=QW_UEFQEM3qu9E6Q3d1RoQHujyKeBnurqAAN7E4Qfrk&s=sivo6lJsZK1KzrHmq35Nm86-u25n7esH6Zu_fi8eOe8&e=


On Tue, May 1, 2018 at 6:20 AM Kirsten Nicholson <norops at gmail.com> wrote:

> Our museum is revising its policies and I'm looking for information on two
> points.
>
> *First: can anybody share with me their policies on accepting photos as
> vouchers for specimens if you do this?* I have trolled the web for
> policies on this, but haven't been able to pull any up. I know that in the
> realm of herpetology we sometimes publish short notes on geographic range
> extensions or natural history observations that include photos confirming
> the species ID (and associated data) in instances where you can't or are
> unable to capture and or make that specimen a museum voucher. But what are
> your policies on this?
>
> *Second: does anybody make requirements regarding credit attribution to
> the collector when specimens or tissues are used in publication? *I've
> trolled through tissue policies from several museums, and they are all
> pretty similar, but did not see this in them and was curious. I know many
> years ago when museums began establishing genetic tissue collections there
> were some issues that came up regarding the use of large numbers of tissues
> collected by someone else and then publishing that data without crediting
> the collector, who in one case happened to still be very much alive. The
> counter-argument at the time was likening the tissues to voucher specimens,
> no one puts Cope or Agassizi as co-authors of their papers even if they
> used nothing but and only specimens collected by them. I assume most
> museums' policies state that tissues, like specimens, are donated to the
> museum and become museum property and all rights to them (unless otherwise
> negotiated) are relinquished by the collector. Does anybody do anything
> differently?
>
> Thanks for any thoughts you can share,
>
> Kirsten
>
> --
> Kirsten E. Nicholson, Ph.D
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Prof. of  Biology          and             Curator of Natural
> HistoryDept. of Biology                             Museum of Cultural and
> Natural History2104 Biosciences                           103 Rowe
> HallCentral Michigan Univ.                 Central Michigan University Mt.
> Pleasant, MI 48859                 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859989-774-3758
>                          989-774-3829*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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