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November 29, 2005
Images and copyright
Hi:
This is a response to Tai's question about images for her wiki entry. This image comes from the American Memory project of the Library of Congress and is drawn from one of McKenney's books (published in 1859 and so out of copyright).
The LOC obtained it from the Filson Historical Society. Their rights and permissions listing on the LOC site says:
The Filson Historical Society owns the materials from its holdings presented online in The First American West. The Filson encourages the use of these materials for educational and scholarly purposes, but any use requires that a credit line be included with each citation.
Suggested Credit Line:
The Filson Historical Society.
The use of these materials in commercial publication projects requires the permission of the Filson Historical Society and is subject to a use fee. For permission to copy or use any materials from the Filson Historical Society in The First American West for any commercial purposes, please contact the society at the address given below.
Because I've just republished it in a blog that is clearly "educational", I'm well within their policy. But what about posting it into the Wikipedia? What do you think about that? One could argue that it is a non-commercial enterprise and so therefore within the policy. And, one could argue that because the image is from 1859 it is way out of copyright and so clear in any case. But one could also argue that some people, and they know who they are, use Wikipedia content in commercial enterprises. So, what if someone took Tai's entry, or just the image she might post, and used it for commercial purposes? Who's to blame there? And even if blame starts getting thrown around, can it stick to anyone, given that the image is from 1859?
Ain't copyright fun?
Posted by mills at November 29, 2005 03:54 PM
Comments
McKenney published a wealth of illustrations from his "Tour of the Lakes," which ended up being a book of its own. Obviously those works are well outside copyright. I am also curious about actually pictures of McKenney himself. Other Wiki pages had pictures of Andrew Jackson and John Calhoun, how did they pull that off?
Posted by: Tai at November 29, 2005 07:18 PM