imageA reader writes:

Does Colin Berry really think that people will agree with his pompous demands for pictures from Barrie Schwortz? Doesn’t Barrie own the pictures he took and those given to him? Aren’t they protected by copyright?

(Based on Colin Berry’s posting on his blog: Message from Mr.Barrie Schwortz, President of STERA Inc (The self-styled “Shroud of Turin Education and Research Association, Inc”))

I partly agree with Colin in what he says below but not how he says it. And I’m not sure the pictures are quite so protected by copyright as we sometimes think. I would like to see all of Barrie’s photographs and all all other photographs of the shroud completely and publically available with the highest resolution possible. Realistically, and for a number of reasons, that isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future.

Pompous was the right word as used by a reader of this blog. Colin’s attitude towards Barrie (and just about everyone) is indeed unfortunate. What extreme, ignorant arrogance by this Johnny-come-lately to the field of shroud studies. What he says about Barrie borders on slander when he suggests, as he does, that Barrie might not want people to see something “that could dispel some assiduously-promoted ideas about the Shroud of Turin.” Colin is acting like one of those people who try to convince us that UFOs are real because the government is certainly concealing something. Here is what he wrote:

Why not [permit your high resolution files to be published on the internet], Mr. Schwortz? What are you afraid of?  That folk might see things in those images that could dispel some assiduously-promoted ideas about the Shroud of Turin as constituting some kind of “enigma”  (see the last sentence of your “Mission Statement” below).

Oh, and why do we read that:  “…during the ensuing thirty years, Mr. Schwortz has accumulated an extensive collection of  Shroud-related materials. These include, in addition to his own items, the collections of five prominent  Shroud researchers, now deceased, who placed their materials under his direct care and control, plus other
collections pledged but not yet received. “?

Why should any Shroud-related material be under your “direct care and control”, Mr. Schwortz, or for that matter an organization called STERA Inc of which you are President, and to whom one is requested to contact personally  re “licensing and copyright” issues?

Correct me if I am mistaken, but I thought you were appointed as Official Photographer to the STURP team, the latter  a largely self-appointed consortium one gathers. You were  not appointed as Museum Curator in perpetuity, deciding who can and cannot access and/or publish crucial Shroud images and other material …

Your first duty to “education and research” , Mr.Schwortz, is to place all  STURP-related material into the public domain. Nobody should have to go cap in hand either to you or to STERA, Mr.Schwortz, far less pay any licensing or copyright fees, no matter how “modest” you may consider them (noting you are coy as to your scale of fees).

You cannot proselytize the notion of a  science-defying  “enigma” while hindering access to information that might throw light on authenticity. Nor can you reasonably use that website of yours  (www. Shroud.com) as a shop window for your squirreled-away archives, while stating categorically:  “We do not permit our high resolution files to be published on the internet.”

The photographs that you took of the Shroud may well be your personal property, Mr.Schwortz (though the Shroud’s custodians might well take a different view if challenged).  But no STURP investigator, living or dead, has (or had) the right to gift you their research findings.  Those findings should all be in the public domain. It costs nothing to post them on the internet. Please do that NOW Mr.Schwortz.  STURP investigators were given PRIVILEGED access to the Shroud, not personal and private access.  Any data they collected ought not to be hoarded as if your own , or STERA Inc’s private property. I repeat: IT SHOULD ALL BE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

The problem isn’t at all what Colin imagines. Not by a long shot.

  • Barrie is Jewish, so he doesn’t have a pony in this race, so to speak. So why hide something? Even so, why suspect deception at all?
  • Over the years, Barrie has spent significant amounts of his own money to keep his site going. Small license fees can help defray the cost of maintaining his website.
  • STERA was formed (in a sense< as a responsible gift to all of us) to preserve the website and various materials for many years to come.
  • Barrie, previously, and now STERA, have complete legal and ethical rights to accept materials and data from others and make it available as deemed appropriate.
  • Most importantly, Barrie is honest and ethical, as just about anyone who has met him or dealt with him will attest.

Frankly, I trust Barrie to safeguard material and protect its chain of custody more than anyone else in the field of shroud studies. And I trust him more than anyone when it comes to objective and honest decision making.

But having said that, I would prefer that all pictures of the shroud, from every source, with the highest possible resolution, were in the public domain and readily available on the internet. And frankly, I have doubts about the applicability of copyright for shroud pictures. A year ago, I published the following:

The Bridgeman Art Library makes photographic reproductions of numerous works of art from museums around the world. It is their business. On their website, we read:

Founded in 1972, the Bridgeman Art Library works with museums, art galleries and artists to make the best art available for reproduction. The result is an outstanding archive of images drawn from collections throughout the world, all of which are available for licensing.

Many, if not most of the works they have photographed are works that were in the public domain, which generally means the works are older than the life of the artist plus seventy years (more or less in different countries). This is true for all icons, paintings and mosaics from antiquity. They are, unquestionably, in the public domain.

A number of years ago, the Corel Corporation used many of Bridgeman’s reproductions to produce an educational CD-ROM without seeking permission or paying Bridgeman.  Bridgeman claimed copyright infringement. Not only had they purchased rights to some photographs, they had made many of them.

In 1999, the U. S. District Court for Southern New York ruled against Bridgeman. The ruling stated that “exact photographic copies of public domain images could not be protected by copyright in the United States because the copies lack originality. Even if accurate reproductions require a great deal of skill, experience and effort, the key element for copyrightability under U.S. law is that copyrighted material must show sufficient originality.” (quoted from Wikipedia)

In other words, if you take a picture of an ancient mosaic, and you give me a copy or you make a copy publically available, I can use it without your permission.

Is this fair? You would probably think not if you are the photographer or someone owning a copyright claim. Bridgeman still makes copyright claims and insists that use of their photographs be licensed. Many such works today, particularly those that are licensed to commercial concerns, contains invisible or visible “digital watermarks,” to detect copying. But that is not effective. Typical blogging software simply strips away digital watermarks and facilitates automatic cropping, resizing and corrections to contrast and color as thousands of pictures get posted every hour.

Does Bridgeman vs. Corel apply to photographs of the Shroud of Turin? Perhaps not, for it has not been determined that the shroud is a work of art. But the courts might not see it that way. The precedent established by Bridgeman vs. Corel stipulates that a photograph show sufficient originality. The more accurate the photograph the less copyrightable it is. It is often said that the courts have ruled that “sweat of the brow” (for example, the act of photographing a public domain work) is not the “creative spark” which deserves copyright. I agree.

However, having said that, I disagree, too. I fully support STERA’s right to claim copyright of photographs. If a book publisher wishes to include a Barrie Schwortz or STERA owned photograph, they should be required to obtain permission and perhaps pay a fee. But what about newspapers and television stations? I think they should be required to do so as well. These larger organizations make money by virtue of the fact that they are using the reproduction. And I think this should apply to smaller commercial websites, including blogs, run for significant profit.

For the most part, everyone plays along. For instance, on shroud.com’s homepage you will see:

All Rights Reserved, unless otherwise noted. Images of the Shroud of Turin and related photographs appearing on this website are ©1978 Barrie M. Schwortz Collection, STERA, Inc., unless otherwise noted. Access to this site does not grant any rights to copy, publish, sell, license, distribute or use any included materials, including photographs, text, backgrounds or design elements in any form or media, without the expressed and written permission of the individual copyright holders.

No one objects. Commercial organizations pay. Some makers of things like beach towels, not wanting to pay, seek other images that are more unquestionably in the public domain, such as the original Secondo Pia photographs. But in the end, a challenge in the courts by STERA or anyone who owns a photograph of the shroud might fail because of Bridgeman vs. Corel.

imageWikipedia has taken a lead in this matter and has enough case law behind it to be confident in their assertions. Shown here is a poster advertising the 1898 exhibition of the Shroud of Turin. It is obviously a photograph of the poster and it was lifted from http://www.shroud.it/FOSSATI2.PDF and added to Wikipedia’s massive image library. And it doesn’t  matter who took the photograph or when. Wikipedia states, “This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to Australia, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years.” By that, they mean the poster, not the photograph, not the image lifted from the PDF file. Once a paper, PDF or otherwise, lands on the web, it is fair game for Google and others to extract images. Google will do it quickly. Wikipedia will generally add it as soon as someone uploads it. Often, text added to the image, which makes unsupportable copyright claims, is cropped away automatically, not to avoid copyright of the photograph but because the added text itself can be copyrighted. Silly, perhaps, but that is what happens.

But what about blogs like this. What should I do. This blog is not intended to make any money for the author. The images that I display are low resolution (72 dpi) that are generally unsuitable for the book publishing industry. I almost always get them from image libraries on the web. Though I do not take the time to chase down every source of an image, it’s copyright situation or find credits – no one among bloggers really does – I will honor polite and reasonable requests to give credit to an image or even echo a copyright claimant’s claim.

If an image, in my opinion, is legitimately protected by copyright (not merely, “sweat of the brow”)  and the copyright owners asks me to remove it and I am persuaded that it is the right thing to do, I will remove it. When I do so, I will explain who, what and why for the benefit of the blog’s readers. . . .

*** In other words I sort of agree with Colin on this matter, and this matter only. But why does he need to be such a jerk?