The Campagnolo book and its blatant use of other people's images brings up a point that affects many of us who have web sites, publish magazines, etc.
We often use material from our or others' collections. Most of it now is in the public domain, so we don't feel bad about using a scan of an 1899 magazine article or a 1954 Daniel Rebour drawing. Catalogues and press photos were intended to be distributed, so the usual copyright protections do not apply.
Even if the images are not ours in the copyright sense of the word, many collectors have spent considerable effort in assembling these materials. Chuck Schmidt spent a lot of effort and money on assembling a great collection of Campagnolo catalogues, which he shares through his Velo-Retro xeroxes. Brett Horton has one of the greatest collections of historic racing photos. Many of Brett's photos were published in his book "Cycling's Golden Age." Others have assembled complete runs of the magazines Le Cycle (with Rebour's work) and others.
None of these are unique. If somebody published images of Chuck's catalogues, they always could claim that they had assembled another collection of the same Campy catalogues. Somebody could just scan images from Brett's book and claim to have obtained duplicate prints of the photos. And so on.
Of course, it usually is easy to prove that they plagiarized. Jay's old photo has a smudge, and it's unlikely that a duplicate of that photo also has a smudge. If somebody "just happens" to have a dozen duplicates of Brett's photos from his book, but none of the unpublished ones, you know where they got them. Even so, it would be hard to prosecute a copyright violation... because Brett and Chuck do not own the copyright.
Even if it is hard to prosecute, it does not make it right. When we think about "lifting" an image from a web site or a book, we should ask ourselves not just whether we can get away with it, but whether it is the right thing to do. And the answer usually is "No."
There are some borderline issues. For the Norman Taylor obituary in the latest Bicycle Quarterly, I used an image that wasn't mine. I tried to track down the owners, but to no avail. The image is old, and may be in the public domain already. I don't feel good about it, but I wanted the article to be accompanied by a photo of Norman as he was in his better days, not a recent photo of him after a stroke. I will own up to doing that, and I hope the owners of the image would understand, if they still are around. If the printing deadline had not been so shortly after Norman's death, I would have tried to find another photo with permission.
Of course, there is not even a gray area with recent proprietary photographs. I get to threaten legal action a few times every year when people simply appropriate images from "The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles" or Bicycle Quarterly without even asking. I hate to do this, but those images are copyrighted, and that is that.
If you really need an image, it's best to ask the owner. Unless there is a real commercial interest (images are costly, and the owners often need to recover their outlay), most people are very generous in sharing their collections.
I'd appreciate comments on this, as I think it's important to keep people sharing their collections like Chuck, Brett and Jay have done.
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
140 Lakeside Ave #C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.bikequarterly.com