query about copyright

[Anna Wexler Katsnelson]

This has been a truly helpful discussion.
Here is some more information I found from the Getty Institute when faced
with the issue of wanting to publish reproductions in an academic journal:

70 years after the death of an artist, their artwork becomes public
domain. The tricky issue is where you get the images you want to
reproduce. If these are taken from a book there is no problem. However, in
terms of legally reproducing something, it all gets much more
complicated. For example, when you need  a high quality photograph or
transparency, which you can only usually get by contacting the museum
directly or to the art agency that represents the estate of the artist.
You could contact the Hermitage, say, and ask for a transparency
(the best way to reproduce for publication), and they
could either lend you one for no cost (if you explain that it is a
scholarly publication, etc.) or sell one to you that you could keep. Your
second option is to go to a photo agency.  Art Resource
(http://www.artres.com/c/htm/Home.aspx)  is an agency that
represents foreign museums and sells slides/transparencies/photographs of
art work. They will only sell these (they do not lend); the price is
usually $200. Sometimes the publisher will pay for it but usually not for
periodicals. Moreover, if something has been published before 1923, you never need to worry
about copyright.

Finally, this is what I heard from a person with a lot of exprience with
both images and publishing them: if you are seeking to add a
black-and-white image there is no concern of fees and copyright. These
come into play only when the image is going to be in color.


+++++++++++++++++++++++
Anna Wexler Katsnelson
Department of History of Art and Architecture
Harvard University

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