Photography and privacy violations

There is something of a Rear Window quality to it all…    New York photographer Arne Svenson has his neighbors outraged.  His new show, at the Julie Saul Gallery in NYC, features photos of residents in the highrise across the street, but the photos were taken without their knowledge with a birdwatching telephoto lens.  Some of the people featured in the photos are threatening to sue, and as there are identifiable features in the photos they have may have a case.

Read the full story in the Wall Street Journal.

The Public Domain Review

Ever wonder how you can efficiently find texts and visual media in the public domain? One helpful source is The Public Domain Review, a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation “dedicated to showcasing the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright works available online.” Browse the site’s articles or collections by media type and sign up to receive a bi-monthly newsletter in your inbox with featured highlights. The Review cites who’s responsible for making the works available and where to find them.

For those interested in the history of the Open Knowledge movement, click here for a concise visual timeline.

ARTstor to add thousands of works by contemporary artists

Good news: ARTstor announced a new Online Art Agreement (OLA) has been signed with Artists Rights Society (ARS) on behalf of six international affiliates. This will translate into the addition of more than 10,000 modern and contemporary artists from Australia, Canada, Austria, Finland, Mexico and Brazil. No word yet on when this will happen, so stay tuned!

UK’s National Portrait Gallery offers free digital images

The National Portrait Gallery in London now provides free downloads of a large range of images from its Collection for academic and non-commercial projects. Over 53,000 low-resolution images are now available free of charge to non-commercial users through a standard Creative Commons license. In addition, over 87,000 high-resolution images are also free for academic use through the Gallery’s own licenses (note: some may incur fees based on particular uses in print). Click here for more information about the Gallery’s Academic License.

To download an image, choose Use this image beneath the image thumbnail. The subsequent screen allows the user to choose one of three licensing agreements dependent on how the image will be used. Each spells out how large the image will be, how it can be used, and any potential cost. Don’t be surprised that images still under copyright cannot be used under one or more licenses.

Recent ruling on copyright, fair use and “e-reserves”

Large academic publishers Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Sage Publications sued Georgia State University in 2008 over what they saw as a blatant over-use of “e-reserves” that deprived them of licensing revenue. The final ruling of that case was published Friday, May 11, 2012 and was decided (mostly) in GSU’s favor.

The judge broke down the argument into four “factors”:

1. “The purpose and character of the use”: academic and nonprofit
2.  “The nature of the copyrighted work”: “informational” not “creative”
3. “The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the…whole”: the stickiest point, and defined by percentage
4. “The effect of the use upon the potential market”: minimal; copyright in this case was to encourage new academic works

via ars technica, or for those wanted to read the entire 350-page ruling, click here (pdf).

New Fair Use statement released

The Visual Resources Association has released a Statement on the Fair Use of Images in Teaching, Research, and Study.  The statement recommends assertiveness on the part of the academic community, and awareness of the guidelines.  It concludes that there are six uses of copyrighted still images that fall within the U.S. doctrine of fair use.  According to the statement, they are:

1) preservation ; 2) use of images for teaching purposes; 3) use of images on course websites and in other online study materials; 4) adaptations of images for teaching and classroom work by students; 5) sharing images among educational and cultural institutions to facilitate teaching and study; and 6) reproduction of images in theses and dissertations.

You can read the details on these guidelines and more in the full statement.

Assumptions about Fair Use

Inside Higher Ed has an interesting article today, called “Myths about Fair Use“.  It does a great job of breaking down the myths in an easy-to-understand way.

A helpful copyright chart from Cornell University

If you have ever wondered whether an image or text is copyrighted or in the public domain, this chart from Cornell University is a great reference (and it was updated in January, 2010).  Copyright is never easy to figure out, but at least this has all the rules and exceptions in one place.

Artists go to Obama for copyright support

Over 11,000 visual artists, authors, filmmakers, architects and other artists who are part of the Copyright Alliance have signed a letter sent to the Obama administration asking for stronger copyright policy and support.    Read more about the movement at the Copyright Alliance.  And you can read the full text of the letter here, which highlights the cultural and monetary contributions of artists.

National Portrait Gallery vs. Wikipedia

The National Portrait Gallery in London is accusing a Wikipedia volunteer of downloading over 3000 high-resolution images onto the free online encyclopedia’s Wikimedia Commons. The NPG asserts that this denies revenue for the museum and is threatening legal action. Wikipedia counters that the museum is “betraying its public service mission.”

via BBC News and Wikinews