Here I think are two aspects:
1) copyright to the photographs of the paintings or books containing images;
2) the gallery/person who owns the paintings (if you check art gallery websites you'll find that you have to get permission to use images)

if the work is before 1920 (and all his are) then it's public domain to use his paintings. However, you need to obtain a copy of them. If you go to a museum & take snapshots you can use those no problem. I belive you can also use any unaltered copies (IE direct copies).

However, someone else might know better. I know the actual images are in the PD but not sure if it's like video (example: any movie before 1920 is in the PD but if I took a copy, changed the audio levels then I own the copyrights to that version. It's a new version because I changed something)

"Get your employer to sign an agreement making him responsible for any legalities on the use of these paintings. And don't take a cut in pay, if he agrees."

This is very thin protection because *if* it ever comes a court case, you would be assumed to be the expert in copyright matters, not your client.

Steve

Beware of the copyright relative to whomever snaps photos of the famous painting if it was produced prior to 1920. As mentioned, if you shoot them yourself, then it's no big thing. Getting them from the museum's digital library can cause problems. The Denver Art Museum is famous for chasing down users of their online library, because they hold copyright to the reproduced images, even though they don't hold copyright to the original.

Depending on the client that might or might not be the case. My legal bod says I'm nuts if I don't get every client to sign a warrant regarding copyright of ANY material he gives me to use.

The more I dig around this tangled web the more I realise how sound his advice is.

Consider this. The corporate client gives me the artwork from their annual report to use in a corporate vid, you'd think that would be pretty safe yet in fact every bit of it could be in breach of copyright, right down to the fonts used and how the heck are we supposed to check this.

If the client is the little old lady down the street then a warrant is as said pretty much useless, if it's a corporate client then unless it's something very obvious they're unlikely to own the rights to then I think such a contract would be enforceable.

Things maybe different on your patch of turf so needless to say pay for real advice.

Bob.

I decided that the only way I would use the paintings in the video is if I found pics of the artwork in the public domain. While searching for some, I came across this http://artchive.com/artchive/D/degas.html
Some of the artwork is copyrighted and some are not. The website says that you can not use any of the images for anything other than personal use but it also says that the images that are not copyrighted are from the public domain. How can they tell you that you are not allowed to use something from the public domain for anything other than personal use? The rules for downloading from their site are here http://artchive.com/welcome.htm and if you click on "information on image use and copyright issues" it goes into further detail. I'm just wondering why I can't use the images from the public domain in the way I see fit. Is it because they are providing the images? They don't own the images...

They own the file on their website - that's what they have copyrighted. It's relatively easy to encode a semaphore in an image to prove ownership.

If something is in the public domain, it's in the public domain. There's been the odd case where plaintifs have tried to argue otherwise and they lost. Good reason for that.
You create a work from something in the public domain and for sure you own the new work, that still gives you no rights over the source material from the public domain and how could it, if it did then by your own argument you'd have breached the extant copyright, what a waste of a courts time.

I don't believe putting a file on a web site gives you automatic copyright over it, the copyright stems from the act of creating, not copying. So if the original work of photographing the painting has been put into the public domain then no bit copy of it is copyright. They might have done addition work to enhance the image and they may be able to claim copyright to this new work however I believe many acts of placing material into the public domain expressly forbid this, you can do it but the derivative work also must remain public domain.

Bob.