Copyright Shield Designs ?

[Bran ap Maclou]

A bit OT, but you might be interested to know there's a museum curator who is under the illusion that the museum holds copyright on a helmet, and permission must be given to reproduce the helm. The museum isn't even a private one.

This particular point interest me a lot. In France, a great national museum asked our late antiquity forum to stop publishing photographs from pieces taken in the museum.

But to take photographs is not forbidden and the only owner of rights on the picture is the author of the picture not the subject except if it's a real person able to recognize herself or a piece of private life (then they have the right to ask money or to forbid the publication which is also a problem in term of expression freedom) or military or state safety purpose which are exceptions.

Still according to french law, you must ask an authorization to the author or owner of the rights for the use of any picture that you use. But it's confusing because when you write a scientific article, you are allowed to use anything publically published (even on the internet) if you mention the origin of sources in bibliography (in a limit of 10% of a same source for french scientific community).

So, either all scientists and a lot of book writers are outlaw, either you can freely use a published image if you mention the origin according to information and expression freedom. So, we are in a sort of odd mess that I try to make clear but it seems that our law is not really handy to be clearly respectful.

Sorry, I'm totally out topic but perhaps not totally. The french law anyway grant us the right to publish any photographs in "private circle". So, I asked recently the question to know if a forum with password is the private circle. No answer at the moment ! The french law also say that the only responsible for unlegal materials on a forum are the owners or admin of the site. They have the duty to control everything instaneously (which is a bit impossible)...

Ok, that's french law but it is inspired by european directives and international agreements, so I guess that in other western countries this should not be so different.

Regards

Greg