1959 Lithograph McVicker Polynesian fire dance - Collecting Tiki

T tikiauction Member USA Joined: Sep 04, 2008 Posts: 108	T tikiauction Posted posted on Fri, Mar 27, 2009 6:31 AM On 2009-03-27 06:06, thegreenman wrote: one point - this is the original piece, not a lithograph as I first posted. Not really, bear in mind that a lot of this is gray area, not really clarified or even enforced. But in general authors and artists have to sign an explicit transfer of rights for you to own the copyright even if you now own the original work. Think in terms of owning the original manuscript to a famous book or movie, it certainly doesn't transfer the copyright or it would be very valuable indeed. Even if it is an original, there may be similar or identical original artwork copies which were made. In most cases authors and artists working for a commercial publisher already transferred all rights to the publisher. When the publisher goes under, the catalog is bought for pennies on the dollar by holding companies.

On 2009-03-27 06:06, thegreenman wrote:
one point - this is the original piece, not a lithograph as I first posted.

Not really, bear in mind that a lot of this is gray area, not really clarified or even enforced. But in general authors and artists have to sign an explicit transfer of rights for you to own the copyright even if you now own the original work. Think in terms of owning the original manuscript to a famous book or movie, it certainly doesn't transfer the copyright or it would be very valuable indeed. Even if it is an original, there may be similar or identical original artwork copies which were made. In most cases authors and artists working for a commercial publisher already transferred all rights to the publisher. When the publisher goes under, the catalog is bought for pennies on the dollar by holding companies.

Post #442882 by tikiauction on Fri, Mar 27, 2009 6:31 AM