is outside our public task." The policy goes on to clarify this applies to digital surrogates of public records both "created or funded by others for commercial purposes" as well as those created by the institution "to widen access to the collection".[1]
The British Library does not define documents differently for these purposes in online policies. On the public task webpage, the Library's mission is "to make our intellectual heritage accessible to everyone for research, inspiration and enjoyment" and it views within "collection management related activities as part of its Public Task" the "collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storing, adaptation, digitization, facilitation of retrieval and consultation, disclosure by transmission or dissemination, and licensing of any or all material held by the British Library on behalf of the nation" (italics added).[2]
The National Galleries of Scotland public task highlights a number of "customary practices" the Galleries is responsible for outside of specific statutory or regulatory provisions, including the "[p]roduction of replicas or reproduction of works of art or souvenirs" and the "Is]ale of informative material in relation to works of art or replicas or souvenirs".[3] Pursuant to this, the 'Copyright & image licensing' policy offers two non-commercial formats for reuse: the "lower resolution 'share' image" (600 pixels width) and the "higher resolution 'download' image".[4] The user can right-click and directly download a lower resolution 'share' image, which "contains a banner at the bottom of the artwork information and its copyright holder". The example uses a public domain artwork. Information on the artwork and its copyright holder is unclear. The image delivered is at such a small size the text is difficult to read, even when enlarged (see below).
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Based on the banner information, the user could understand the rightsholder to be (1) Sir Henry Raeburn, (2) Antonia Reeve or (3) National Galleries of Scotland (if the logo placement counts). Under the CC licence selected (CC BY-NC 3.0), a user could crop out that information without violating its terms.[5] For higher resolution 'download' images, users must create a "free user account" to reuse content for certain non-commercial activities outlined in the policy. No banner accompanies these images. For higher resolution images or uses beyond these policies, commercial licences must be obtained.
Finally, a number of institutions treat public domain works differently from in-copyright works when claiming and managing the IP rights. For example, images of public domain works made by Tate are published as © Tate, CC BY NC-ND 3.0. However, in-copyright works are published according to the underlying rights of the work itself (e.g., © David Hockney). In theory, the same methods of reproduction and interpretations of copyright law should apply to both digital surrogates. But
- ↑ Public task, 33. The National Archives (All rights reserved)
- ↑ Public task, 7. British Library (Some eligible data - no new rights)
- ↑ Our Public Task, 34. National Galleries Scotland (Closed licences)
- ↑ Copyright & image licensing, 34. National Galleries Scotland (Closed licences)
- ↑ ND is not present to prohibit image modification.
