Using artwork out of copyright and GPL

[Chris NS]

Right. For the upcoming version 0.4.0 of my UMC, I would like to start including some artwork for the story bits, as a blank screen looks a little dull. However, there are two problems:

1) I can't draw; and

2) Bearing in mind we still don't have story artwork for all of the mainline campaigns, I doubt anyone else will be contributing in a hurry.

So ... I was thinking (as an interim measure) of using paintings that are at least 150 years old and so are out of copyright. Cruicial question: is this enough to comply with the GPL, or are there still copyright issues that would stop me doing this? Could I lift an old painting from the internet or would someone claim copyright over converting the painting to a jpeg file?

[zookeeper]

So ... I was thinking (as an interim measure) of using paintings that are at least 150 years old and so are out of copyright. Cruicial question: is this enough to comply with the GPL, or are there still copyright issues that would stop me doing this? Could I lift an old painting from the internet or would someone claim copyright over converting the painting to a jpeg file?

I think that would be pretty safe to do. In any case you probably want to add some filtering and such to the images to make them fit better, which would AFAIK make it completely non-problematic (since no one could even claim that you copied a photo of the original instead of just the original), or at least as non-problematic as you can get (you can always be sued for nothing if someone feels like it).

[Sgt. Groovy]

Technically, even if the painting is old enough to be public domain, the photograph of it has copyrights of its own, owned by the photographer. So you should only use photographs with GPL-compatible licences.

But there are other ways to make placeholder story art, one of which is explained in this thread, with many ready-to-use example images.

[zookeeper]

Technically, even if the painting is old enough to be public domain, the photograph of it has copyrights of its own, owned by the photographer. So you should only use photographs with GPL-compatible licences.

But as I said, if you mangle the photo enough that it's impossible to distinquish whether you used the photo you used as the source material, it doesn't matter.

Using a real painting as a story image directly would practically always look silly, so I really do assume anyone who'd use a photo of a painting would edit it first at least a bit.

[tuco]

1- You can take old images and put whatever license on it, since they are public domain. You just have to take care that they are old enough. 70 years after the death of the artist should be enough in all cases.

2- The copyright on a photo of an image is a question which may depend on the country. In USA, judges have stated that a mere photo of a painting does not contain any creative work from the photographer and thus cannot be copyrighted. It is the "Bridgeman Art Library versus Corel" trial which Corel won. I would advise the reading of the following link:
http://www.englishhistory.net/tudor/art.html

PS: there is no contradiction between points 1 and 2. You can license the images under GPL, but since you do not own copyright on them, anyone can take them and do whatever they want without taking care of the GPL. If you include them in a GPL project, of course whatever is yours (code, ...) is covered by the GPL.

[Darn Penguin]

I would make artwork for you, but it would probably end up looking like this.

[deoxy]

You just have to take care that they are old enough. 70 years after the death of the artist should be enough in all cases.

ALMOST all cases. Due to the changes mad in copyright law over the years (don't get me started on how badly I think of them), nothing will be freely entering public domain in the US until (IIRC) 2019. Anything published before 1923 is already public domain.

You'll notice a window of time between 1923 and 1949 where a copyright holder may have died, but their stuff has not yet entered public domain (or at least, it MAY not have, if it was renewed back when that mattered).

But yeah, anything from before 1923 is definitely fair game (in the US, anyway).

[battlestar]

A little off topic but it's on the same branch: Is it the same deal with music?

[Darn Penguin]

Considering there's a radio station that saves money by exclusively playing old music that has fallen into public domain, I think you might be able to find something you can use.

[Sgt. Groovy]

Though with music, a particular recording of a particular performance of a public domain composition may have copyright of its own, if it can be considered a derivative work. I'm not sure if musical performances automatically do.

[tuco]

Playing an old music, unlike the case of taking a picture of a painting, is not making a copy, it is interpreting the music notes written on paper. The person playing the music adds its own value to it and thus deserves to have copyright on his interpretation (and only on his own). When Montserrat Caballé sings Carmen, she sings it differently from what Maria Callas did or Barbara Hendricks would do (If they ever sung Carmen ;-) which I doubt). And they are definitely better than me when I shower. So it is not a simple copy of Bizet work.

On the other hand, if some specialists take a very old wax disc or cylinder of Célestine Marié singing Carmen (she died in 1905), which is most likely in public domain, and clean the sound from noises and scratches, it might be different. Is is creative or not, since they just bring back a previously existing sound? I would think not, but one could argue...

[Phoenix]

I pretty good at sketching i could maybe do somethign for you... ive never been all that good at coloring though youd have to fill it in with some program.