Originally posted by Mike Cash The woman has copyright to her derivative work, but can make no use of it without permission of the holder of the copyright of the original work. John doesn't lose his copyright merely by having posted his photo in a public place.
Exactly. You do not lose copyright by displaying the photo in public. If we carried the opposing argument out to its logical conclusion, then no artist putting on a gallery show would have any copyright protections. I can photograph at a gallery opening, but I am positive that photographs of the works themselves (photos, paintings, sculpture, performance art, whatever) could only be used in a documentary/editorial context, and not sold commercially. You should ask her to stop selling the photo on her site, since she has no rights to the original image.
I might just as well record a musical performance and try to sell CDs without asking the band's permission first. That's called a bootleg.
Last edited by rthomas; 05-12-2009 at 02:37 AM.
Reason: typos...