Copyright and art resources
Disclaimer: These guidelines represent Messiah University's best effort at articulating copyright principles. They neither represent general legal advice nor a legal response to a specific situation.
Content on this page applies both to educators, students, and artists.
Information for Instructional Use
Information below pertains primarily to educators using visual art in their courses.
Copyrightable objects include: Pictorial, graphic and sculptural works, as well as two-dimensional and three-dimensional works of fine, graphic, and applied art (photographs, prints, other art reproductions, maps, globes, charts, diagrams, models, and architectural plans).
Yes! While the concepts of fair use apply to all creative mediums, some aspects of fair use in the visual arts can be more easily explained by organizations devoted to art, such as the College Art Association of America (CAAA). Their Fair Use for the Visual Arts guide outlines best practices as well as guidance for educators teaching about art and helping students create art. The CAAA also developed a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use in the Visual Arts that provides additional in-depth guidance.
- Digitizing a legally acquired slide for use in the classroom is similar to other simple changes of format (permitted); however, it is not legal to publish it or to share it
- You are permitted to make slides of "copystand photographs" of images from published materials
- Content must be for educational purposes, scholarship criticism, instruction, comment, or analysis
- Content may not be shared outside institution (i.e., cannot be made available online)
- A digitized slide may be made if a suitable quality image is not readily available at reasonable cost and in reasonable time
- Always include as much attribution as possible
- Copying vendor slides or images from databases is subject to the conditions at the time of purchase or licensing. Most library databases allow educational use of images for lecture slides. Refer to the vendor contract for vendor slides, or contact your liaison librarian with questions about database images.
- Students may incorporate lawfully acquired images into projects (multimedia programs; theses; papers; class assignments) for a specific course/educational purpose
- Students may also retain their work using these items in a portfolio for use in job or graduate school applications
- Educators may display lawfully acquired images in face-to-face instruction and at professional symposia and conferences
- Students may display these for educational purposes (i.e., class presentation)
- Attribution should be given and should be visible (if used with an exam requiring the student to identify the work, then attribution does not need to display but should be attached)
- Educator creations using lawfully acquired content may keep as part of professional portfolio (for tenure review/job interviews)
- Amount considered by some to be fair use for photos and images: up to 5 works from one author/artist; up to 15 works or 10% from a collection (i.e., of different artists). Remember, when in doubt, seek copyright permissions.
Alterations to images may be made to support specific educational objectives, such as a classroom exercise. The source and the modification should be acknolwedged. If it is not for educational purposes, you must get permission from the copyright holder. If the use is transformative, it may fall under fair use, but weigh the four factors carefully if you are using the work for financial gain.
Additional Resources
- Bielstein, Susan M. Permissions: A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk about Art As Intellectual Property. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Available in Murray Library.
- Center for the Study of the Public Domain from Duke University School of Law is an excellent resource for looking at discussion of ideas relating to intellectual property and the arts.
- Copyrights and Permissions in Scholarly and Educational Publishing from the College Art Association.
- A Proposal For Educational Fair Use Guidelines For Digital Images from the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU). Although from 1996, this document is still relevant today for guidelines related to fair use and digital images.
- Leland, Caryn R. Licensing Art & Design: A Professional's Guide to Licensing and Royalty Agreements. New York: Allworth, 1995. Available in Murray Library.
- Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts from the College Art Associatioin.
- Copyrights and Permissions in Scholarly and Educational Publishing from the College Art Association.
Information for Artists
The resources below provide information for educators and students who create art.
- Once you create your own unique work, you own the copyright until you give/sell that right away
- Includes graphic design and other creative works in digital form
- If you give a piece to someone, they cannot reproduce it unless you give them that right
- Copyright can be:
- given
- sold for a flat fee (you sign away your right)
- sold for royalties (ongoing payment for ongoing use)
- can be partially given/sold (e.g., right to photograph but not for commercial use)
- If an employee is designing content, they may be producing work for hire, meaning that all copyrights are held by the employer, not the designer
- Ownership of copyright to work should be spelled out in a contract
- Copyright does not necessarily equal ownership of a physical item.
- A museum may own a work of art but may not be the copyright holder or the work may be in the public domain.
- An owner may not give access to make an image (i.e., a photo) of the art if they are not also the copyright holder.
- A photo of a 2D work is not copyrightable because it lacks originality, although it may violate copyright to distribute an image of the original piece.
- A photo of a 3D work such as a sculpture might actually have a modicum of originality (angle, lighting, etc.) as art in its own right, and thus the resulting photo could be copyrightable. The original copyright holder of the 3D work would retain copyright to their work.