Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/248

218 use of copyrights. It owns quite a large number of Böcklin's paintings and buys a good deal of modern art. In each case it buys the copyright as well. This in turn it rents to publishers who are glad enough to pay a moderate price for the right to make photographic and postcard reproductions and printed sets of the works of different artists. These are put on sale on the open market and at the museum, which clears a tidy little profit each year from royalties and sales. Incidentally the museum can control the quality of reproductions. The proceeds from this form a fund for the acquisition of prints, in this particular case.

A picture copyrighted by the artist cannot be either copied or photographed without a special permit. In order to secure this copyright it is necessary to place upon the front of the canvas the sign "© (copyright), (date)....., by .....(name)" Where only a certain reproduction is copyrighted the plate and each print bear the same mark. It is thus very easy to tell which works have been copyrighted.

Some owners are very particular not to have their pictures photographed, and in securing a loan exhibition it is always wise to secure the owner's permission to have it photographed so that there would be no trouble should occasion arise.