Courtauld

Our approach to copyright

Our copyright strategy for publishing The Conway Library

Bernard Horrocks, Fabiana Duglio, Tom Bilson

March 2023

 

Background and context

The Conway Library, which came to the Courtauld Institute in 1932, contains approximately one million photographs – often carefully annotated with scholarly notes – primarily depicting architecture, sculpture, manuscripts and decorative arts.  The bulk of the photos were taken by Courtauld photographers and other staff members, as well as by many Courtauld students.  The current project aims to publish the Conway material online at the end of 2022 as part of Courtauld Connects.  The material, previously accessible on-site only, will therefore be made available to all.  This will include scholarly annotations.

Around 90% of the photos have no individual photographer or organisation identified.  These are assumed to be Courtauld-authored as mentioned above or that any possible third-party rights holder is impossible to trace owing to a complete lack of attribution, clues or leads.

Around 1600 named photographers and around 300 organisations have been identified.  All have an online attribution, and many have a biography with dates.  As is common with these kinds of holdings, a nucleus of known photographers or organisations has taken the bulk of the photos, with a long tail of diminishing numbers of photos taken by other creators and institutions.  For example, Fred H Crossley, Canon Maurice H Ridgway and Bruce A Bailey created around 20% of the attributed photos. 

 

Status of the material depicted

Because of its age, there is no copyright in a large portion of the Conway material.  This is because most of the known photographers died more than 70 years ago, rendering their work copyright-expired under UK law.  Where works are by unknown authors, such works that are older than 70 years will also be copyright-expired.  Where the date of a photo was uncertain (i.e. plus or minus 70 years old), we used various criteria, such as suggested on www.graphicsatlas.org, to help us make best estimates.

Where photos are facsimile copies of two-dimensional artworks, no separate copyright subsists.  Likewise, we assert no ‘new’ or separate copyright over our digital renditions.  Much of the material depicted, such as architecture and sculpture, is also copyright-expired because of its age, or it may be subject to the ‘Freedom of Panorama’ copyright exception enjoyed under UK law.  Copyright sculpture in private collections or which does not otherwise benefit from the ‘Freedom of Panorama’ copyright exception is addressed separately.  Copyright photography is also addressed separately, and permissions sought.

 

Our general approach to attribution and clearances

When dealing with massive-scale digitisation projects like this, progress can sometimes stall if copyright is addressed on too granular a basis, except of course where necessary.  So our rationale includes some broad-brush but informed reasoning when handling such vast numbers, for example:

  • If a photo bears a Courtauld stamp and no name, we regard the photo as “Courtauld-authored”, e.g. by an anonymous Courtauld staff member, staff photographer or student (and therefore likely Courtauld copyright).
  • If a photo bears a Courtauld stamp and a name, we also regard the photo as “Courtauld authored”, as the named person is likely to have been a staff member, staff photographer or student.  In many cases, we have checked historic personnel records to corroborate this.
  • If a photo bears just a name and no Courtauld stamp, we undertook targeted due diligence to address copyright provenance, if we had sufficient leads, and then sought the necessary rights from licensors.
  • If a photo bears no name and no stamp, and institutional expertise seems to render the photo an ‘Orphan Work’ (one with no identifiable or traceable copyright holder), we carefully publish such photos on a risk-managed basis, openly and warmly inviting anyone with important rights information to come forward.
  • Some material was identified as Crown Copyright, generated historically by or under the direction of the Crown, or perhaps later by government departments or civil servants.  The Conway Crown material is either copyright-expired owing to its age or made available here under an Open Government Licence.
  • Where material bears a stamp as having been “gifted by” a contributor, we have taken this as an implied licence to make the material available non-commercially for this project.

We referred the entire photographer list to some key Courtauld staff, past and present, including in The Courtauld internal newsletter to help with any identification of current rights holders and/or good leads.

 

Examples of material for immediate publication

2050 boxes of photographs in the Conway Library were automatically cleared for copyright given the nature of what the photographs portray.  The content of those boxes includes facsimile reproductions of artworks dating from the 18th century and before.  The nature of the facsimile copies means there is no photographic copyright, as it is a straightforward portrayal of an artwork rather than an original creative photo in copyright terms.  Meanwhile, the artwork’s dating and time period suggest that the artist certainly died more than 70 years ago, therefore rendering the artistic copyright expired. 

Here is a breakdown of the contents of the boxes of photographs in a list compiled according to copyright investigation criteria: 

  • CON_B04436 - CON_B04771: 15th century to 18th century architectural drawings.
  • CON_B04850 - CON_B04905: 15th century to 19th century architectural publications.
  • CON_B04911, CON_B04916, CON_B04917: 17th century drawings.
  • CON_B04918 - CON_B04927: Drawings of Cassian del Pozzo, death in 1657. 
  • CON_B04928 - CON_B04929: 17th century - 18th century, antiquarian drawings. 
  • CON_B04946 - CON_B04954: Antiquarian drawings. 
  • CON_B07939 - CON_B07948: 15th century to 17th century manuscripts. 
  • CON_B07965 - CON_B08021: 3rd century to 18th century textiles.
  • CON_B08023 - CON_B09491: Late antique to 18th-century manuscripts, psalms, bibles, Virgil (worldwide).
  • CON_B09492: Medieval-style forgeries.
  • CON_B09495: Byzantine and Early Christian mosaics. 
  • CON_B09496 - CON_B09509: Byzantine and Orthodox panel paintings.
  • CON_B09510: Byzantine icons.
  • CON_B09511: Austrian, Bohemian and German panel paintings. 
  • CON_B09512 - CON_B09544: 13th century to 16th century panel paintings.
  • CON_B09545 - CON_B09547: 15th century printed screens. 
  • CON_B09548 - CON_B09598: 1st century to 16th century wall paintings.

 

Public benefit, and other advantages of digitisation

When digitising such a rich collection as this, public benefit must be a leading factor.  Whilst undertaking due diligence where we could, we also wanted to be bold in making these resources available, especially where we had unattributed material and/or few copyright leads.  Our overarching experience of large-scale institutional digital projects like this is extremely positive and can lead to many unexpected benefits.  We find that the majority of rights holders are fantastically supportive of their material benefiting the public in these ways.  Where gaps are identified in our research, we welcome approaches from researchers, readers, users, rights bodies and others to help fill these gaps (please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if this is the case).

There are, of course, additional benefits to digitisation that are also appreciated by creators and rights holders such as the long-term preservation and attribution of their material that form part of the digitisation process.  Increasingly, we are reminded more and more of the ecological benefits of digitisation, for example the reduction or elimination of travel needed to see original objects, as well as the reduction in handling existing printed matter and in generating new physical material.

 

Access to, and use of, the digitised material

Where we can, we make material available under a Creative Commons (‘CC’) licence.  CC is a well-known copyright licensing regime in which rights owners effectively grant a licence to the whole world to be able to reproduce their work in certain defined ways.  We use a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (‘CC-BY-NC’) licence.  This means that users can reproduce material freely, provided they cite the necessary attributions and only use the work non-commercially.  We have uploaded the photos in as high a resolution as possible to optimise their use under the CC arrangement.  We have indicated the small number of images to which a CC does not apply owing to the wishes of the copyright holders.  We regard low-print-run academic publishing (and similar) as non-commercial. 

Other non-commercial examples are below, and please note this list is not exhaustive:

  • Use of content by local history societies.
  • Use of content within a closed or limited study group.
  • Use of content where there may be a cost-recovery element but whose primary aim is not to make a profit.
  • Use of content for personal development and general interest.

As a user of copyright material, remember there is also a very useful set of so-called ‘copyright exceptions’ (sometimes known as ‘user rights’) to help you make lawful re-use of copyright material.  See here and here.

 

Thanks and gratitude

We extend our warm thanks to the following (and many more) for their kind help in creating the Courtauld Connects resources:

  • Rights holders
  • Former students
  • Funders
  • Donors
  • Bequestors
  • Current and former Courtauld staff and our terrific team of volunteers

On this final point, nothing on this scale could have been achieved without our amazing team of volunteers.  Specifically on the copyright front, a team of volunteers was taught how to best identify dates (absolutely critical for copyright) using a variety of criteria and guidelines, see www.graphicsatlas.org, and using clues within the photos, common sense and general knowledge.