During Fair Use Week, we love to give you challenges to test your knowledge. Today’s quiz is about fair use in the visual arts; professionals in the visual arts created a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use to help them decide, and you can use it too, if you get stuck. And if you want more quiz material on the visual arts, why yes, we do have more, right here!
The Book
Jean-Claude has found an acceptable-quality copy of the public-domain painting he needs to illustrate a point he is making in his new book. The same image is available from a museum, but the museum would charge him a permissions fee. Can he use the copy he found?
Ready? Click here to find out how to decide
The Exhibition
Shira is mounting an exhibition that involves art that features reproductions of many corporate logos. Does she have to license those logos? Does she have to blur them out on the images representing the exhibition on the website?
Ready? Click here to find out how to decide
The Paintings
Stephanie has just had an academic article accepted; it’s a comparison of the work of two major later twentieth-century painters. She’s been able to find acceptable-quality reproductions of the work that she compares for the article, but the journal has a policy that requires the author to get permissions for all illustrations. Does she need to get permissions?
Ready? Click here to find out how to decide
Second Hand Material
Wei is teaching the intro art history class this year, and has gotten some great donations of slides from fellow profs. She’s also drawing on her own photographs from museums, monuments, books, and websites. Can she put relevant slides and slideshows on her class’s passworded website, for prep and postlecture study, as well as showing in class? She hasn’t gotten permission for any of this material, and at least half of it is probably copyrighted.
Ready? Click here to find out how to decide