(no subject)

[cleolinda]

Even thy Cleo follows the principles of Cleoism: "If thou hast been mistaken, thou shalt say, 'Oh, that was dumb. Sorry about that' rather than defend thy idiocy to the death." Thy Cleo shalt be flogged with noodles and sent to bed without chocolate.

God, I couldn't sleep at all last night. I was just bolt awake, but I didn't want to work on my paper, so... I just lay there. And tossed. And turned. Got hot. Kicked off the covers. Got cold. Pulled them back on. Slept late, to make up for it. Hope I have enough time to finish the paper (I leave a little after six pm for the class).

I did get a lot written yesterday, and it's mostly just blending the old paper with the new material. Temple actually said, "The exam [tonight] is not something you should worry about," but I'd still like to review a few of the critics we went over. You know, put some names with basic theories.

All in all, the paper's gone a lot more easily than I expected. I still hate writing it, though. Feels like I'm wasting time when I could be writing things I want to write.

By the way--can anyone advise me on copyright law as it pertains to nineteenth-century paintings, like Tissot or Sargent? Is there such a thing as "public domain" for paintings, where you can use them without charge?

Comments

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I Am Not A Lawyer, however I was a slide curator in a collection of art and architecture slides for five years and had to deal with this sort of thing all the time.

The simple answer is that it isn't quite so simple. They are out of copyright -- basically you can assume that anything created before the mid-1920s is in the public domain. However, it's a bit hazy as to the reproductions of the pictures. According to the letter of the law, a straight photograph of a two-dimensional work of art isn't unique enough to be copyright to the creator, but if you reproduce a photo of the Mona Lisa that you got from the Saskia slide company and they find out about it, you're going to get a nasty C&D letter from them.

I think it mostly depends on what you want to do as to what you can get away with. If it's to illustrate an academic paper that's only going to your prof, then copy away because no one's going to say anything unless your prof is a real stickler for copyright. If you're going to publish it or put it online, then you need to tread a bit more carefully. For amateur online things (i.e., your own homepage), nobody's going to find it and care. For professional online things (electronic publication, in other words) and for print publication, the editors are going to want you to have permissions all sorted out, so you'd have to do some legwork.

I'd contact the institutions that hold the pieces you want to use adn ask about their policies. Often they'll sell you a print or a slide for a reasonable amount - sometimes it's cost of copying, sometimes it's a bit more (don't blame them, everyone is feeling the funding pinch and has to get money somewhere :). If they don't supply them or you can't find where it is, there are a number of slide companies that sell slides, for slightly less reasonable prices, such as Davis Art Slides and the American Library Color Slides Co., both of which have online presences.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Okay, that does clear up things a good bit. I'd been using a few paintings (all 19th C.) as key art on an amateur website (always with credit in the acknowledgements section), but it's non-profit, and that shouldn't be so much of a problem.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yeah, nobody's really going to care about that unless they're jerks sticklers for that sort of thing, and it's easy enough to apologize, take the picture down, and put up another version from somewhere else. :)