Posting Photo Copies of pages from books

[Conal]

What is the position regardig this copyright wise ?

If I have a question regading a picture in a book can I scan and post it ?

[Robert Vermaat]

I don´t see why not?

[mcbishop]

If I have a question regading a picture in a book can I scan and post it ?

Yes of course you can, providing you get the permission of the copyright holder. The web is still publishing, after all. FWIW when I am asked to allow the reproduction of a drawing or photo of mine I almost invariably grant it; if somebody is going to make shedloads of money out of it (unlikely!), I will charge; if they're not, I won't (not least because I would hope for a similar attitude when I'm after using somebody else's illustrations). However, if I'm not asked, I get really pi55ed off. 'Nuff said: it's only common courtesy, after all.

At least one mainstream book has ripped off my illustrations mercilessly without so much as a by-your-leave, whilst using another well-known illustrator's work on the front cover, again without permission.

Mike Bishop

[tlclark]

Certainly if you are going to publish it for profit you should ask permission. The same for any permanent website or publication, but under America's 'fair use' clause, you can use it for any educational or scholarly purpose. Posting one image to a webpage is probably not going to be regarded as an infraction.

Nearly all of the slide images in our database are shot from books. We even post them online for review for exams. The problem is third party users. You may post it for educational use, but that doesn't mean that someone won't pick it up off the web and use if some other way. That's why we firewall all of our imagedatabases.

Whether or not you are responsible for some third party's use or misuse is still not settled law here.

My rule is to use if only for non-profit educational incidental use and identify the source. Contact the source and get permission if you can, but often that is impossible for out of print books or slides where the accession information never recorded the original information.

Bryn Mawr College, for example, inherited thousands of slides from other institutions when they closed their slide library and art history programs. There was simply no way to track down the original sources.

Also, Bishop, though a nice guy, is quite frankly an exception. If you can contact the author or illustrator directly you often can get permission, but my personal experience is that you can rarely get ahold of them and have to communicate with the publishers and they seem to be VERY tight-fisted about it.

Travis

[Robert Vermaat]

At least one mainstream book has ripped off my illustrations mercilessly without so much as a by-your-leave, whilst using another well-known illustrator's work on the front cover, again without permission.

I know of a very recent Belgian publication who did that with Russell Robinson's pictures...

[FAVENTIANVS]

If I have a question regading a picture in a book can I scan and post it ?

Yes of course you can, providing you get the permission of the copyright holder. The web is still publishing, after all. FWIW when I am asked to allow the reproduction of a drawing or photo of mine I almost invariably grant it; if somebody is going to make shedloads of money out of it (unlikely!), I will charge; if they're not, I won't (not least because I would hope for a similar attitude when I'm after using somebody else's illustrations). However, if I'm not asked, I get really pi55ed off. 'Nuff said: it's only common courtesy, after all.

At least one mainstream book has ripped off my illustrations mercilessly without so much as a by-your-leave, whilst using another well-known illustrator's work on the front cover, again without permission.

Mike Bishop

So... What shall we do here in RAT?

[Dan Howard]

I don't see any problem so long as full creditation is given to the source of the image and if it is done only with an occasional image, not multiple pages of images/text from a book. It comes down to "reasonable use". Anything more than an occasional image or a passage or two should not be posted without permission from the copywrite holder.

Speaking of plagiarism I read Featherstone's The Bowmen of England a few months ago and found multiple pages copied almost word for word from Oakeshott's The Archaeology of Weapons with no creditation going to the original author.

[hansvl]

I know of a very recent Belgian publication who did that with Russell Robinson's pictures...

What's the title of that Belgian publication?

Hans

[Praefectusclassis]

Perhaps Het Romeinse Leger? IIRC it has many pictures in there that are definitely not original to that book.

[hansvl]

Perhaps Het Romeinse Leger? IIRC it has many pictures in there that are definitely not original to that book.

Het Romeinse Leger by our 'dear friend' Bernard Van Daele?
He is 'well' known in the archaeological community in Belgium. :roll:

Hans

[Praefectusclassis]

That one.

[Conal]

What if an image is reproduced in a drawing ?

[Robert Vermaat]

Perhaps Het Romeinse Leger? IIRC it has many pictures in there that are definitely not original to that book.

Het Romeinse Leger by our 'dear friend' Bernard Van Daele?
He is 'well' known in the archaeological community in Belgium. :roll:
Hans

Yes, that's the one. I confronted him about it, but he told me that his publisher did not mind about it.

[Praefectusclassis]

I guess his publisher is hoping that since the book is in Dutch, English publishers won't see it.

[mcbishop]

Certainly if you are going to publish it for profit you should ask permission. The same for any permanent website or publication, but under America's 'fair use' clause, you can use it for any educational or scholarly purpose. Posting one image to a webpage is probably not going to be regarded as an infraction.

Problem is, although copyright legislation is being harmonised across the world wherever possible, it often varies slightly between nations, and this is a Dutch website (trying entering the URL www.romanarmy.nl and see what happens), so their version of the law will probably apply. Also, defining 'fair use' is one of those things designed to get the legal profession rubbing their hands with glee. That being said, they would have to be desperate to start getting pernickety over one posted piccy. Defining a permanent website is also a tricky area; RAT gets cached by Google and may end up in the internet archive. Time to think about altering the robots.txt file and reconsidering the stock avatars (cf 'fair use')?

he told me that his publisher did not mind about it.

It's not his publisher he has to worry about!

I guess his publisher is hoping that since the book is in Dutch, English publishers won't see it.

This Scottish publisher (all too aware of his use/misuse of the word 'Dutch' above) is thinking you mean 'British', rather than English ;-)

So... What shall we do here in RAT?

Get lawyered up and work out your escape route. After all, if the Bush administration is after Google's search records, Echelon is monitoring your phone calls, and 'extraordinary rendition' is an everyday occurrence, there is no hope left, even if (like me) you are wearing your tinfoil hat and underpants. At the moment the RIAA is going after filesharers over 'pirated' music; how long before publishers catch on and start going after the smallest copyright infringement?

On a more positive note, despite what The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says, what you need here is A Sense of Proportion™. Just be aware of the issues and don't post stuff merrily without consideration of what you are doing. Read some stuff on copyright (a little education never hurt anyone) and get some idea of what is involved. Just don't do what one bunch of re-enactors did and post scans of the whole of B&C1 on a publicly accessible FTP site (and yes, I found it without anybody telling me) 'cos I'll be taking you off my Christmas card list and sending in the black helicopters. If there's one thing Bishop does well, it's data mining.

As a by-the-by, I am seriously considering placing all my illustrations under a Creative Commons licence, not least because I have never made much out of them and that is probably more than offset by all the time writing to people saying 'use them for free' or 'that'll cost you twenty quid'. Life's too short to worry about such stuff. If I do, I'll let everyone know.

Also, Bishop, though a nice guy, is quite frankly an exception.

Having watched a programme on the Beeb about the multiple meanings and nuances of the word 'nice', I shall be consulting my solicitor/attorney over that one ;-)

Mike Bishop