Image Copyright

Posting your images on the Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC) is a great way to showcase your institution. Please consult this document to learn more about copyright regarding images posted in the VMC.

Please note: The Your Institution and Events databases feed the Museums in Canada section of the VMC, through which information about your institution, its collections and events is publicly displayed.

Introduction

The protection of museum copyright and the copyright of artists/creators for which museums may be responsible is an important consideration when contributing digitized images to publicly accessible databases. With current technologies, digitized images made available on the Internet can be reproduced quickly and with astonishing clarity so that, more than ever, copyright protection is an issue.

Appropriate Copyright Clearance

  1. Prior to including a digitized image your entry, your institution should ensure that authorization is obtained from the artist/creator of the work that is the subject-matter of the digitized photograph. If the work is in the public domain, then such authorization is not required.
  2. Since the digitization of an existing photograph is a reproduction, your institution should also ensure that it holds the rights to digitize the photograph. Such rights can be obtained in two ways: by ensuring that your institution holds the copyright for the photograph through an agreement with the photographer, or by negotiating these rights when the photograph is being digitized. Such authorization is not required if the photograph being digitized is in the public domain.
  3. In either case, rights should also be obtained to contribute the digitized photograph to a publicly accessible product such as the VMC.

Modifying the Image

  1. If, in the course of digitization or contribution, the image is somehow modified — either cropped or discoloured — rights associated with copyright, such as moral rights, may be of concern. Moral rights are held by the artist/author of the original work that is the subject-matter of the image. The photographer also holds moral rights for the photograph. Moral rights run for the duration of copyright and cannot be transferred. They can, however, be waived.
  2. Institutions should ensure that a waiver of moral rights is obtained from the artist/creator and/or photographer if the image in question is to be modified, so as not to prejudice the artist/creator and/or photographer in any material way.
  3. The moral rights of the artist/creator and/or the photographer are not an issue if the work that is the subject of the image or the photograph that is being digitized is in the public domain.

Protecting Copyrights

CHIN undertakes all reasonable efforts to protect its members' copyrights. Copyright notices are posted in the VMC so that the viewer is aware that the content is protected by intellectual property law.

Rights Management and Protection Technologies

Images can also be protected and managed to some degree using current technologies. In CHIN's publication, The Virtual Display Case: Making Museum Image Assets Safely Visible, (3rd ed.) (available only in PDF ), rights management systems such as ContentGuard, InterTrust, RightsMarket, and OnDisC are discussed. Protection technologies such as visible and invisible watermarking and image encryption are also considered.