Hi, I am new to this site and apologise if this question has been covered elsewhere.
I am designing a book of my favourite famous paintings from history, with images taken from the internet.
I would like to have it digitally printed.
There would only be one copy printed for my personal use. It will not be distributed or sold. It is just a personal project.
Am I allowed to proceed.
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Personal use.
Re: Personal use.
Hi oldtimer,
Despite the fact that this is a personal project you would be involving a third party (the printer) in your process, and so you do need to pay attention to how you source your images as this involves copying them.
While the famous paintings themselves will mostly be out of copyright due to their age - anything by an artist who died over 70 years ago will be in ths category - you will be using digital copies which have been created much more recently. Under UK law these digital copies would not ordinarily be entitled to copyright in their own right because the maker will not have added any of their own creativity just by scanning or photographing the original work so as to reproduce it faithfully. However, you will no doubt find that many art galleries and museums etc will claim copyright in their digital online versions, nonetheless. And in some individual cases in Europe they have successfully upheld these claims in court. So you will need to carefully check each image to see what is being claimed with regard to copyright. Provided that there is no copyright notice or the image is released under a Creative Commons licence, you should be fine to go ahead.
A great source for finding such works would be the Creative Commons own website, as well as Wikimedia.
Despite the fact that this is a personal project you would be involving a third party (the printer) in your process, and so you do need to pay attention to how you source your images as this involves copying them.
While the famous paintings themselves will mostly be out of copyright due to their age - anything by an artist who died over 70 years ago will be in ths category - you will be using digital copies which have been created much more recently. Under UK law these digital copies would not ordinarily be entitled to copyright in their own right because the maker will not have added any of their own creativity just by scanning or photographing the original work so as to reproduce it faithfully. However, you will no doubt find that many art galleries and museums etc will claim copyright in their digital online versions, nonetheless. And in some individual cases in Europe they have successfully upheld these claims in court. So you will need to carefully check each image to see what is being claimed with regard to copyright. Provided that there is no copyright notice or the image is released under a Creative Commons licence, you should be fine to go ahead.
A great source for finding such works would be the Creative Commons own website, as well as Wikimedia.
Advice or comment provided here is not and does not purport to be legal advice as defined by s.12 of Legal Services Act 2007
Re: Personal use.
Thank you very much, very helpful. It seems all innocent enough, but need to be careful. Thanks again.