File talk:Millais - Ophelia.jpg

"Copyright" in 1852? Nonsense!

in the 'Licensing' section of this image file's page it says, literally:

“

Licensing. This is a faithful photographic reproduction of an original two-dimensional work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason: Public domain This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, Canada, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years.

”

Well, John Everett Millais made the 'Ophelia' painting between 1851 and 1852. Does anybody seriously believe that the Copyright concept had been invented by that time? If it wasn't, to say that "its Copyright has expired" is simply a silly lie. --AVM (talk) 03:07, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

For one, it's generally considered rude to call a failure to communicate as precisely as possible a lie. For another, the British licensing acts of 1643 and 1662 were proto-copyright laws, and the Statue of Anne of 1710 was the first clearly modern copyright law in British history, to be overturned for the Copyright Act 1843, under which this work most likely would have been protected.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:16, 30 November 2012 (UTC)