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From rough memory the Louvre tries that "we took a photo of it, so its a new copyright" bullshit with the Mona Lisa.

Wonder if a French court will clarify the matter at some point, like this UK court did?



Do we have a shortage of free, science quality photographic depictions of the Mona Lisa?


I hope not, but the principle of the thing still matters. Even with the case in the article out of the way (no copyright on intentionally maximally accurate photographs of public domain works), the Louvre (or is it really French copyright law in general?) restricts certain non-commercial uses (including taking your own photographs) of public domain works and requires permission for commercial uses (section 4.1.1 [1]):

> a. Re-use free of charge

> The downloading and re-use of medium-format photographs published on the collections website representing works that are not protected by copyright (hereinafter called the “Photographs”) are permitted, free of charge, for any non-collective use within a strictly private context and for the following exhaustively-listed museographic, scientific and educational purposes:

[omitted]

> b. Re-use against payment

> The use for any purpose other than those exhaustively listed in article 4.1.1 a. above, and particularly any commecial use such as the manufacture and distribution of derivative products, audiovisual and multimedia production and printed publications other than those referred to in article 4.1.1, must be the subject of a written request sent by the User to Rmn-GP via the website of its photography agency, photo.rmn.fr, or by email to agence_photo@rmngp.fr.

[1] https://collections.louvre.fr/en/page/cgu




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