File talk:A portrait of St. Mariam Thresia exhibited in museum.jpg

Legality of using this image in the UK

Even though at the time of writing, this photograph was licensed under a useful Creative Commons licence, I was interested in finding out whether using the photograph in the UK or in India (where the photo was most likely taken) would at all infringe copyright even if used under the broad guidelines of the particular Creative Commons licence used.

After reviewing the Wikipedia article on copyright in India, it didn't seem that copyright law differed between the state and federal levels in India. The copyright law exceptions listed on the India Copyright Office website appear to allow such photographing, assuming that the museum was a public museum in India. The specific exception permitting such, is found in section 52, clause t, of "The Copyright Act, 1957" (14 of 1957) of India.

UK copyright law appears to have almost the same exception, in section 62 of the "Copyright, Designs and Patents Act" 1988, as amended. However, there is one key difference. Whereas in Indian copyright law, the exception applies to such an artistic mosaic work that has no function other than as a work of art, as is this work, the UK exception doesn't seem to extend to such a work. It should also be noted that the Indian legislation appears to possibly have a different interpretation for the term "work of artistic craftsmanship."

Because both India and the UK are signed up to the Berne Convention, I put forward the thought that perhaps making copies of this photograph within the UK infringes the copyright of the artistic work depicted in the photograph, in those cases where there is no specific licence for that artistic work (which is currently the case in relation to licence grants made here for this upload). Whereas doing the same in India is probably fine.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this?

--MarkJFernandes (talk) 00:22, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

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