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Copyright question
Copyright question
Sep 18
I saw this on Twitter, but the British Library has stated that the Anglo-Saxon Mappa Mundi, created between 1025-1050 AD, is public domain, i.e. out of copyright in every country apart from the UK. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/anglo-saxon-world-map
I hope this is a mistake, as even Disney could not argue copyright on an item that is at least 969 years old
I hope this is a mistake, as even Disney could not argue copyright on an item that is at least 969 years old
Aelfwine wrote:
It is not the map itself that is under copyright, but rather the images of it.
If it is the images, why are the images only under copyright in the UK, and not anywhere else in the world?
It is a legal technicality because the map is previously unpublished in the UK. It applies to all unpublished texts and images, even centuries old texts but a copyright claim could never be served on it.
It has been published before in the UK, the Map is in Hereford Cathedral, and has been reproduced numerous times, as it is a very old and famous map. This UK book includes it https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-World-Twelve-Maps/dp/0141034939
You get this with historic archives a lot, do you not? Scottish Canmore site has hundred of cool photographs that are really expensive to buy licenses to use (I looked into this), even though the photos are old & clearly not in copyright. They don't claim copyright over the original photographic images themselves, though they do seem to be able to hold rights over their own digitised images; which, online, is what people are often using.
Getty is the most obvious example of an organisation which eschews this kind of litigious approach.
Getty is the most obvious example of an organisation which eschews this kind of litigious approach.