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| This is an example of those public domain resources that I have in my private library. Personally, when I do work from the public domain, I use original published works from the 1800s or from materials published prior to 1923 that have not been or can not be copyrighted any longer unless they are altered significantly. I also investigate my resources to see if they have been reprinted and under what conditions they have been reproduced as well. |
This is actually a very technical question full of legal implications, but, I will do my best to make the answer clear. Technically speaking, all images found on the internet are freeware, even though sometimes the images are scanned from printed materials in the public domain. This is because scanning is a form of photography. Scanning an old image that has passed into the public domain is literally creating new information about old information so this is why the question is tricky. (This is not applicable to literature folks, only artworks that have obviously passed into the public domain.)
Public domain refers to content that was once "owned" and protected information belonging to someone who had the legal right to make money from the image. The copyright laws protect companies or individuals from theft for a particular amount of time, under certain conditions. Governments don't like to keep proliferating copyright for artists after they have been dead for about 50 years, it is time consuming and people who fight over it clog up courts and generally cause much waste at the expense of others because of their own greed.
Copyrights are not eternal. Technically speaking, all artwork can only be owned once by either it's original creator, for a grace period by the direct offspring of an artist, or by a company that has made a contract with that creator to produce and profit from their work in advance. Merely purchasing an artwork does not give an individual or company rights to profit from that artwork in any instance other than the selling of the actual artwork itself. For example, art museums may own actual artworks, but, they can not legally claim the copyrights for the proliferation of that artwork through print until the actual artwork passes into the public domain. After this happens they can only claim their own reproductions, not those reproductions belonging to other persons who have photographed the work themselves.
After the artwork has passed into the public domain, any person or company may proliferate new product either by photographing those resources or copying them by hand. This is acceptable practice although it is generally not considered ethical to claim having created the artwork yourself. If you are merely reissuing copy for charitable purposes, you do not need to identify the artist of works who have passed into the public domain. I do this if I know the original artist. The works I use, however, frequently do not have an identifiable signature or reference. There may be other people on the internet who have access to original, public domain publications similar to those books in my collection. They may indeed produce jpgs. of the same image but the jpgs. from this blog are personally cleaned, altered and redrawn in some cases entirely by me and visitors can trust that the jpgs. may be freely used under the conditions stated by the Terms of Use.
Many people who proliferate public domain jpgs. on the internet do not stake any claims on the ownership of their services/jpgs. These individuals have a variety of reasons for not claiming copyrights. Sometimes they have not done much to clean or alter the product and sometimes they are more interested in drawing traffic to their collections from those individuals who will alter the jpgs. themselves. It would be impossible for me to think of every reason that these folks have for not claiming their own jpgs. I can only guess at a few with logical conclusions. Most folks are just nice and that is why they never bother to make such a fuss over it. However, I am bothering to answer this questions because I have had enough people write and and ask me about it to make it worth my trouble to discuss.
So in order for me to answer the question practically, I do so by taking into account these two points concerning the context of the question:
- A. All scanned images are technically considered new content if these scanned images have not been existence for the allotted time given for a copyright unless their authors waive their own legal rights to those scanned images and in many cases they do. This is because the technology for scanned jpgs. has not been in existence for the length of most copyright which is approximately 50 to 75 years for most countries. Therefore, the copyright on a jpg. has never run out in human history thus far.
- and B. Did the author of the scan actually clean and/or redraw that specific scan in the first place? How specifically did he or she alter the scan? Was it significant enough to consider the scan new information even if they do not claim to own the jpg? Most photographers justify their copyright by the amount of time and effort that goes into the altered image. The less time they take to proliferate the material has much to do with efforts they expend in the defense of their work.
I hope that this has cleared up the confusion for some people. I should also make the point here that not all freeware is made from public domain resources. Most freeware illustrations are created by their original owners. Freeware is not another definition for free or for the public domain. Freeware is usually copyrighted with fewer restrictions that are dictated entirely by the artist himself. My clip art falls primarily under this category. However, I do include at this specific blog additional clip art that has been redrawn from the public domain. I have taken great care in it's restoration and hope that people will be honest about how it is used. I generally do not mark this clip art but, when in doubt, just write and ask. Include in your inquiry the specific page address and a description of the jpg. and someone from the gallery will identify for you which clip art is not redrawn from the public domain. Most folks are familiar enough with my hand-work to identify these resources without difficulty, however.
There are further complications to the answering of this question that have to do with teachers and their classrooms but I will not go into those answers here. The answer here is for those visitors who are interested in printing from my resources for their bulletins, newsletters, e-mail etc.. and who need the reassurance that they may re-print hardcopy under the stated terms of use.
