I was looking for some clip art that I could use on my website, so last time I was at the bookstore I acquired a copy of Dover’s Old Fashioned Animal Cuts, a book of copyright-free images ready to be scanned. It’s a fairly nice collection of hundreds of black and white images which are copyright free.

They could have just said “public domain”. After all, if a work is not protected by copyright or trademark, it is in the public domain. Curiously, Dover includes the following “license” in the front of this book.

This book belongs to the Dover Clip Art Series. You may use the designs and illustrations for graphics and crafts applications, free and without special permission, provided that you include no more than ten in the same publication or project. (For permission for additional use, please write to Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Streen, Mineola, N.Y. 11501.)

However, republication or reproductin of any illustration by any other graphic service whether it be in a book or in any other design resource is strictly prohibited.

What’s wrong with this? The fact that it is a complete fabrication. If the images themselves do not carry copyrights, they cannot place any restrictions on their use. That’s what public domain means. They can copyright the collection as a whole, keeping you from basically Xeroxing their collection (which is a creative work, requiring the acquisition of images and their arrangement in a catalog format), but they can’t keep you from, say, scanning them all and producing your own derivative work in the form of a catalog of your own.

I’m not trying to bust their chops. They produce a nice $6.95 book which is convenient and good to have, and frankly worth the pittance they charge. But for them to place restrictions on the use of their public domain collections is well beyond any rights they hold to the collection.

Caveat emptor: I’m not a lawyer, and cannot advise you on these, but you can go ahead and read up on the subject. I suggest Steven Fishman’s The Public Domain: How to Find Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art and More.