Copyright

[Kevink]

I am in the process of writing a book with a close family member and reached out to the Royal Museum in Greenwich to ask for the free use of an image of a painting of Nelson. Unfortunately they declined my request and were not unreasonable with their fee for Royalty payments.

“All commercial activity performed by our museum is not to create profit, but to generate a financial turnover to be then reinvested in the museum operations and activities, including the conservation of over 4 million objects which are part of our collection.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to waive the licence fee.
Please see an example licence fee estimate
Fee: £85 minus 20% = £68 per image, Image: Nelson Usage: Commercial/Trade Book, Proposed Title: TBC, Print run:500
Size: ¼ page, Placement: Interior, Retail Price: TBC, Licence Duration: up to 5 years, Language: English”

This book will have very little circulation and will at best breakeven on cost so we decided to either leave out old Nelson or are considering an AI generated image of the gentleman. In fact we have used a large number of Ai images in the book to illustrate key points. We also used AI to restore a number of old photographs all of which are free from copyright. To make sure we were not treading on difficult ground i spoke to a copy write lawer to confirm that we had not stamped on anyones rights. He gave us the all clear.
Thought you might like to know these things.

 

[AllanKP69]

Is the image available on the internet? I realize they need to be paid on many things, but as an example of that not being the case there are 800 high resolution plans from RMG that are available for free and in the public domain on the Wiki Commons site. At their current rate these would cost upwards of 50,000 pounds sterling. Your choice of painting may not be available but maybe worth a search to see if it is in the public domain.
Allan

 

[Kevink]

This is the image we were considering

 

[Albert Mary]

Damn Albion...

 

[Albert Mary]

This book will have very little circulation

Who can tell? The subject looks like a lot interesting. Good luck and get going.

 

[Bryian]

Hello Kevin, perhaps you could get a local artist to do a rendering of that photo for you, and it would be an original piece.

 

[-Waldemar-]

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It is quite possible that the institution where "your" image is stored is trying to charge fees for its use quite unlawfully, especially for non-commercial applications.

Admittedly, I am not in a position to check the generally applicable legal situation in your region, but for comparison, in mine, any public reproduction of original material, regardless of its nature (e.g. text or graphics), is fully permitted for non-commercial uses (popularisation, education, training, science, etc.). In such non-commercial cases, no one even needs to be asked for permission, let alone paid, and there are even no preliminary restrictions on the volume of material quoted. In fact, the only obligation is to provide a reliable reference (and even that is more ethical than legal in nature). Any disputes that may arise in this regard are settled individually by the court (if this were the case, you could argue, among other things, that the price of the book only covered the costs of its preparation, printing and distribution, without any profit margin or just minimal).

But of course, you have to decide for yourself whether to go down this route.

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[Allegheny]

Dear @Kevink,

I ran into a similar problem with Royal Museum in Greenwich where in which I wanted for personal use a less fuzzy image of a sailing ship's ornamental stern they had online.

I received a very nice note similar to the one above that a clearer image would cost £85 ($114.00). I explained that I am only a modeler in the USA and not able to travel to their museum to physically look at the actual archive image. No difference - I received the same lame excuse that they need funds to maintain the archives.
I noted that if they were to reduce the cost to modelers, their sales of images would / could potentially increase thus bringing in more funds.

I left it at that and have no plans on spending that kind of money for what a King, five hundred years earlier, paid for and then later was gifted to the museum by many people from the 1800's to the present day (i.e. Sir Robert Seppings, Royal Naval College, Sir James Caird, Society for Nautical Research, the people of England via National Maritime Museum Act, Shipping companies and private collectors).

Thus I fully understand your frustration with dealing with this institution. However, at least you were offered a 20% discount.
They must have had a sale going on at the time when you approached them.

 

[Bemused]

I'm asking the obvious, but have you searched for an image in the Public Domain?

 

[Bob Ellis]

This is the image we were considering

Here's an example of my work Kevin. I take commissions and since we're 'fraternity' it won't break the bank! The portrait is straight watercolour but I work multimedia. My rendition of "Off Valparaiso" is in oils.

 

[Recusant]

Take care with those copyrights. I've approached the NMM in G.B. for permission to use a picture and received the same reply. Copyright is usually applied to the photo, not the actual painting, in most countries, since the majority of paintings of old sailing ships and their commanders were done over a hundred years ago and have become public domain. How a photo of a painting can be copyrighted when there is no creativity involved is beyond me. As for getting photos off the public domain sites on the internet, again, be cautious. Many of those are perhaps royalty and copyright-free in the U.S. but not in G.B. You'll have to investigate the provenance of each photo to see who owned the original painting and if royalties are due. It's not that difficult to do, and I've used several paintings for covers of my books that way.

In today's publishing world, the very mention of using AI is taboo. Of course, this is to be expected since new technologies that take away people's jobs are frowned upon until they are accepted. In the 40+ years I've worked in the graphic arts field, I've seen many new processes come that eliminated positions, but eventually they are all used by everyone, making the work easier with much better results. There will always be room for human-created work when one wants it. But some restrictions on AI may keep publishers from accepting a book. If the text has a substantial amount of AI that is unchanged, for instance, they won't take it. Covers, to my knowledge, and illustrations, if minimal, are OK.

Another concern is whether you wish to copyright your own book. AI-created copy isn't copyrightable in the U.S., and I'd presume the same for G.B. In the U.S., the purpose of copyrights, and even patents, isn't as much to protect the profits of the creator as it is to promote more creative and original work. Good luck with your project!!

 

[Signet]

Perhaps you said it, but I missed it, and many others, I think intimated it: Can you use an AI-generated picture of Nelson? I think it would be generated based on one/some/many images of Nelson, but not any one.

I asked Google AI to generate a portrait picture of Horatio Nelson on a sailing ship, and got:

Or, Add a cannon to the image:

Or, (tongue in cheek) Make him smile and wave:

Or, God forbid:

Nana Banana 2, Google and I created those. The don't exist elsewhere. Our usage fees are much lower than the Royal Museum.

 

[Recusant]

And grow him a new arm while you're at it, AI.

 

[AllanKP69]

Here's an example of my work Kevin.

Now all I want to do is come up with a subject and commission you. WC can be as beautiful or more than oils or acrylics in the right hands and yours is a great example. This is great stuff!!!!!
Allan

 

[Dubz Modelling World]

It is always hard to explain, best is to "accept" the "you" US Copyright has nothing to do with EU "Copyright", you can't translate this 1:1, where you have - not 100% sure - one "right" there are three in EU and other countries:



The "Urheberrecht" for this painting is - a correctly stated - long gone (it's 75 years when I remember right here), taking a photograph of the image became a Leistungsschutzrecht (you can sell this btw, Urheberrecht you can't sell!), so the museum took a photo (or a photographer who sell or gave the right of hie "work"), the museum now has the right of reproduction and can sell this or not.

What I find unclear, and what I believe many museums are doing incorrectly, is this imaginary licence to turn a plan from, for example, the NMM into a kit. That makes no sense; the object, the ship, is no longer protected by copyright, and the plan is not being reproduced 1:1. Regardless of this, however, I understand that museums need sources of income.

Please bear in mind that I have expressed all this in extremely simplified terms.

 

[WojtasS]

What I find unclear, and what I believe many museums are doing incorrectly, is this imaginary licence to turn a plan from, for example, the NMM into a kit. That makes no sense; the object, the ship, is no longer protected by copyright, and the plan is not being reproduced 1:1. Regardless of this, however, I understand that museums need sources of income.

There aren't that many museums containing plans of ships. Who else wants such fees for making a kit based on plans? Besides there are pages of high quality scans from NMM on wikipedia marked as public domain, if one wanted to make some kit from them he still needs to buy a license for making a kit from NMM?

Category:Ship plans of the Royal Museums Greenwich - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

 

[-Waldemar-]

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[...] high quality scans from NMM on wikipedia marked as public domain, if one wanted to make some kit from them he still needs to buy a license for making a kit from NMM?

Absolutely not. Because designing a new kit (as in your case) is also the creation of a new legal entity that will be subject to separate copyright laws, not those applicable to the base plans.

Unless the owner of the economic copyright (as opposed to moral rights) to these specific base plans has managed to legally patent these plans in the same way that trademarks (e.g. company logos) are patented, and such a patent is still valid. But this seems both impossible and absurd in the legal system of any country, if only due to the passage of time since the creation of the base plans.

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[WojtasS]

Absolutely not. Because designing a new kit (as in your case) is also the creation of a new legal entity that will be subject to separate copyright laws, not those applicable to the base plans.

Unless the owner of the economic copyright (as opposed to moral rights) to these specific base plans has managed to legally patent these plans in the same way that trademarks (e.g. company logos) are patented, and such a patent is still valid. But this seems both impossible and absurd in the legal system of any country, if only due to the passage of time since the creation of the base plans.

From legal point of view I get it, but reality often shows law doesn't matter and people with more influence bend it to their needs, so I'm curious if someone knows more about this subject. Besides on wikipedia is only very small portion of NMM collection and I'm curious how much such license can cost, is it only affordable for big companies or maybe they have reasonable prices

 

[-Waldemar-]

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From legal point of view I get it, but reality often shows law doesn't matter and people with more influence bend it to their needs, so I'm curious if someone knows more about this subject. Besides on wikipedia is only very small portion of NMM collection and I'm curious how much such license can cost, is it only affordable for big companies or maybe they have reasonable prices

The above licences may (under certain conditions) apply only to the literal reproduction of these works, and not to their use as a basis for creating other entities. After all, as already mentioned, they are not and cannot even be covered by patent protection. There are attempts to update the copyright related law in connection with the development of AI technology, but this is unlikely to happen soon, if at all. But if someone insists on paying, who can stop a rich man...

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[AllanKP69]

Kits have their own drawings that are, hopefully, faithful to the originals. As they have been redrawn (not copied) even if exactly the same as the original, how can there be a copyright violation of a 300 year old drawing? No doubt there are variations around the world. Heck, if it is a problem, make a mirror image then redraw it.