Copyright on ancient art

[saxy_jag]

A museum has on display a 2000 year old Roman fresco and a couple of mosaic pavements. They were excavated nearby in the 1970s and belong to the local authority that owns the museum. Anyone can go into the museum and is allowed to take photographs of them. A man walks in and takes photographs of them because he wants to include the photographs in a children's history book - like these: http://www.hometownwo...uk/index.php?page=381 . He will credit the museum and do the correct research for the book.

I know that copyright of the photographs will belong to the photographer, but does anyone hold copyright over the mosaics and the fresco?

[woofgang]

usually whoever owns them.

[saxy_jag]

Thanks Woofgang.

Prompts a further question - if the public are allowed to take photographs of them quite freely, and to post those photographs to whatever websites or newspapers they will (and they do), then would the book publisher need to obtain any further copyright permission in order to use the images their photographer had taken?

[Bambiagain]

Copyright generally expires 70 years after the death of the artist who created the work, so I doubt if there is a copyright issue with 2000 year old works. The museum may have rules about reproducing works that they have on display, but you would have to contact them to check.