ABOUT THE IMAGES
(Click an Image for Full Size)
All of the images in this book are in the public domain and copyright-free. Some of the images are in the public domain because the copyright has expired on a published work, e.g. the nineteenth century lithographs and the postcard image published c. 1910 of the statue of Abraham Lincoln by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1887, in Chicago’s Lincoln Park on page 187. Other images are in the public domain because they come from photographs of original works whose copyrights have expired. In particular, the copyright-free designation as explained by Wikimedia.org applies:
“In Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. (1999), the New York District Court held that ‘a photograph which is no more than a copy of a work of another as exact as science and technology permits lacks originality. That is not to say that such a feat is trivial, simply not original.’ In spite of the effort and labor involved in creating professional-quality slides from the original works of art, the Court held that copyright did not subsist as they were simply slavish copies of the works of art represented. While the New York District Court does not hold jurisdiction over the whole US, other district courts have generally relied on and expanded on this decision.
The rule therefore excludes from copyright protection photographs which are intended to be no more than a faithful reproduction of a two-dimensional work of art such as a painting. If only technical expertise is involved (to take a faithful and unimaginative picture), the photograph acquires no copyright protection in its own right. The case extends the rule that scans and photocopies of two-dimensional originals are not copyrightable to cover in addition faithful reproductions created in the U.S. through photography.
As a result of this case, anyone taking in the U.S. a mere 'record' photograph of a 2D work of art—plain, full-framed—gets no copyright protection for the photograph. If the original work of art is sufficiently old that its own copyright has expired, the photograph itself will then be free for use in the U.S.”
Wikimedia Commons: Reuse of Photographs