[NeilE]

As an old history graduate and sometime researcher for other historians, it might be useful to bring forward some of the academic rules about copyright and the historical record.

Firstly, it is generally held is that, despite some legalistic and opportunistic views to the contrary, the historical record itself cannot be copyrighted in of itself.

Such phenomena are facts and, once published, enter the historical record and are thus open for use by other researchers as long as the source work for that information is footnoted and/or acknowledged.

It is common knowledge that MVR Fokker Dr-1 was red. That knowledge cannot be copyrighted. It is part of the historical record. The same goes for published or broadcast research on more obscure topics. The information fpound in the research becomes part of the public record. Once again it is a matter of quoting the source, if in some way you use that research in your own work.

If I copyright an image of a French soldier in his horizon blue uniform and attempt to copyright the colour information in the image, this would soon be overturned if someone pulls out a colour photo of a French uniform. Beacuse this would show that the colour data had an extensive existence before my copyright of it.

However.... what is copyright is the author's own work of interpretation of the data, their image. I cannot go and publish huge slabs of Johan Snerd's work on the Norman Invasion of 1066 as my own work. I can quote it with acknowledgement but anything less is plagarism.

If i publish an image of the coat of arms of Sir Simon Montfort, what is copyright is my image. The information contained in the image is not. Now it follows that if someone else uses my accurate research of Sir Simon's heraldry, they are likely to reproduce an accurate rendition of my work. Basically, that is sticky but in my opnion is also unfortunately too bad for me. It also involves a moral choice for me - should I sue the author who quotes me as a source for their rendition but because it is an accurate rendition is exactly the same as my work? You as the original author have two choices - you accept the acknowledgement and promote accuracy of research in the historical record, or you sue them and attempt to restrict research into the historical record....

One thing that I have seen done to avoid such clashes is for publishers to alter the aspect slightly so that the nature of the original research is exhibited but the actual published image is slightly different.

In a commercially published work, copyright questions regarding direct use of visual images of other's works (ie a painting of the D-Day Landing for example) are usually handled by the publisher and either payment or acknowledgement is given.

All in all it is a very interesting question with a fair amount of grey areas and moral questions in it.

HTH

Regards

Neil