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From: ath@linkoping.trab.se (Anders Thulin)
Newsgroups: comp.publish.cdrom.multimedia
Subject: Re: Copywrite on old paintings
Message-ID: <1994May29.074423.11730@linkoping.trab.se>
Date: 29 May 94 07:44:23 GMT
References: <2qo3re$96t@search01.news.aol.com> <1994May13.055757.2565@linkoping.trab.se> <2r5qmg$5t@news.acns.nwu.edu>
Organization: Telia Research AB, Teknikringen 2B, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden
Lines: 20

In article <2r5qmg$5t@news.acns.nwu.edu> nithman@merle.acns.nwu.edu (Norman Nithman) writes:
>Hasn't Microsoft been running around getting museums to sign over their
>electronic rights?  This might suggest that museums own rights to the 
>paintings they own - no matter how old they may be.  

Since most of these paintings exist in only one copy, the owner of it
obviously has the right of making it available, and decide under what
circumstances it or anyone else may do so.

Copyright is just the right to publish - there is no automatic right
to obtain something to publish.

Thus, you have the rights to republish, say, Mona Lisa, since da Vinci
has been dead for over 75 years. But you may not have the right to get
the data to publish, depending on what the current owner says.


-- 
Anders Thulin        ath@linkoping.trab.se        013-23 55 32
Telia Research AB, Teknikringen 2B, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden