Categories
Art History Free Culture

A Comment On A Boing Boing Post

Boing Boing don’t seem to be publishing my comment on their post here –

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/02/1895-viennese-archet.html

It’s probably hit a link spam filter or something.

So here it is:

Scans of two dimensional images do not attract copyright in Germany –

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Image_copyright_%28Germany%29#Two-dimensional_Originals

Even if they did, doing so conflicts with the Europeana Public Domain Charter –

http://version1.europeana.eu/web/europeana-project/public-domain-charter-en

And they certainly don’t attract copyright in the US –

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp.

The Creative Commons non-commerical licences are *not* friendly, they are non-free –

http://freedomdefined.org/FAQ#Why_isn.27t_a_Non-Commercial_restriction_considered_free.3F

And they are *copyright* licences. They cannot create restrictions on public domain works, which are out of copyright.

Alexander Ferdninand Wüst died in 1876, some time before 1895, and more than long enough ago for these images to definitely be in the public domain –

http://www.artnet.com/artist/554390/alexander-ferdinand-wust.html

Given all this, please consider using the correct CC tool for these wonderful images –

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain

Comments are closed.