Stujoe wrote:
Michael Benveniste spoke thusly...

"Stujoe" wrote in message
.net...
I don't buy it but Wikipedia seems to take the position that pictures of
US coins ineligible to be copyrighted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Morgan_dollar.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Money-US

I don't read it that way at all. I strongly advise against
taking legal advice on copyright from internet randoms.
You may safely assume I'm an internet random, and this is
not a legal opinion.

They correctly state that the design of the Morgan Dollar is
in the public domain. For purposes of copyright law, that's
true. You can create an image or a replica of a Morgan dollar
without worrying about the Federal government suing you for
copyright violations. Anti-counterfeiting and fraud laws are
a different matter.

It also seems that they've placed _that_ picture of a
Morgan Dollar in the public domain, which they certainly
have a right to do. But I don't see any claim that _all_
images of Morgan Dollars are not copyrightable, nor do I
believe such a claim to be a correct statement of law.


They say it in a number of places including the discussion page of the
above:

"for images of the official currency of the United States. These are in
the public domain."

I don't agree with it either but it is the position they appear to be
taking in many places on the site. In other places they say that images
of other country's currencies are not treated the same way. I went
reading some of the discussions on it one day because it was not
something I agree with.

This is one area where any advice is speculative. Even if things ever
went to court it seems like they could go either way. On the one hand
the actual art (coins and currency) is in the public domain and taking
a picture could be considered slavish reproduction (especially on a
scanner) and therefore not due any protection. On the other hand one
could argue that taking the picture is an art and the new work is
copyright protected as a uniquely created work rather than a derivative
work of an existing piece of art in the public domain.

Of course if you always ask before using other's images there's little
to worry about.