Anyone can have a show (?)

[Corran]

Randy, I don't want to go too far afield, but claiming that as Fair Use would be an uphill battle in the instance of an actual copyright suit. See specifically point #4 on your link, Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The copy is negating the potential sale of the work (regardless of your ability to buy it financially).

You are correct in that everyone does it to some degree and also yes, it hardly matters and likely no one would sue you for it. But it still likely would not fall under Fair Use. This is a sticky wicket and at the end of the day, the only real determinant of "Fair Use" is in the court of law, so my opinion has little relevance anyway (nor does yours or anyone else here). Ethics are a different matter altogether.

[Tin Can]

I am a lifelong student.

I was educating myself.

I will argue that in any court.

[Drew Wiley]

So what if someone casually copies a print? Unless they have the nerve to take it out of the frame, set up polarized copy lights and an expensive big rig, it certainly won't qualitatively resemble the original, even remotely. No need for a copyright dispute. Just show up at a small claims court with the original negative and side-by side examples of prints if they try to sell their copies. The other party will have to pay by default. They'll never show. No lawyer needed - save that kind of fuss for disputed art estates. But if the print being surreptitiously copied looks like a fuzzy pixelation to begin with, well complain on some other forum; it probably doesn't apply to anything any of us would want to present to the public. Millions of digi snapshots are taken of the Mona Lisa every year. Do you think the Louvre is going to sue anyone over alleged fraud? It takes a lot more skill than that to even get that kind of negative attention.

[Corran]

I am a lifelong student.

I was educating myself.

I will argue that in any court.

That would be an interesting case, and if you won, a landmark one I guess, but I am not a legal scholar.

Mona Lisa

Public Domain

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah, "public domain". You might try wearing a neck brace in court too, claiming your neck got jerked out of alignment at the sight of a copyright infringement.

[Corran]

Not that it's any different than usual, but I really have no idea what you are trying to say.

BTW, here's a freely available public domain / creative commons image of the Mona Lisa sized to 12 megapixels. Retouched version also.

A few years ago, I used public-domain images of historical works of art in a major stage production as projected backdrops, with creative commons attributions in the end credits. This is the point of public domain.

[cowanw]

Hmmm. Anybody can make a picture of the Mona Lisa, but using someone else's picture might be infringing their copyright to their interpretation.

[Corran]

This might be a good read with regard to that:
https://creativecommons.org/about/

Per Wikipedia:
The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain".

Furthermore, creators can make their work/media free for non-commercial use under CC. Many images taken of Public Domain works of art are put under CC, so there is no copyright claims either way (unless taken for commercial usage).

EDIT:
Who knows where copyright is going in the EU.

[Drew Wiley]

What I was hinting at, is that if some ole claims court judge can't tell the difference between your own print and a fake generated from a picture taken with an ordinary digital device, maybe your photography isn't worth the fuss anyway. You should be flattered that anyone is able to sell that image, even if you get nothing in return. I'm not referring to anyone here personally, but speaking in principle, cause that is exactly how a lot or work strikes me at this point in time. Yeah, I hear it over and over again, ad nauseum, "It's the image that counts", which is equivalent to saying, "I don't need to know how to cook because I'm starting a restaurant based on concept cuisine instead", replete with rats, roaches, pixies, and pixels.

[Corran]

Drew, I think you've completely misunderstood the point I was trying to make. I never posted about selling copies. I only mentioned that if someone prints out an image from a struggling artist they found online, to just keep for their own enjoyment, while it wouldn't really hurt them directly, it certainly doesn't support the person who made it with regard to making more art.