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Keith’s note No mention whatsoever of these stunning images is made at NASA.gov, at NASA’s Flickr page, or at GSFC’s Flickr page. Someone – actually a buncoh of someones – at NASA PAO seem to be sleeping at the keyboard.
Why Does NASA.gov Ignore Cool ISS Photos?, earlier post
“Like these photos? I sure do. But you won’t see most – if any – of them online at NASA.gov. Why? The crew tweets lots of pictures via @NASA_Astronauts but they are low resolution and yet virtually none of them appear online at NASA. Nothing has been posted on the NASA Flickr account since 16 December 2014.”
Hubble images are copyrighted by STScI. NASA cannot distribute them without permission.
WRONG. NASA can distribute Hubble imagery in any way that they wish – just like we can. Images are in the public domain. See for yourself http://www.stsci.edu/instit… “Material credited to STScI on this site was created, authored, and/or prepared for NASA under Contract NAS5-26555. Unless otherwise specifically stated, no claim to copyright is being asserted by STScI and it may be freely used as in the public domain in accordance with NASA’s contract.”
It’s more complicated than I thought. STScI has two copyright pages. One asserts copyright, and the other says the images can be used “as in the public domain”, which is interesting language. I think legally they are out of bounds to claim copyright, so you are correct there. However, Hubble images produced for the ESA are certainly copyrighted and can only be distributed if the license restrictions are followed.
NASA has the right to use all images from Hubble.
But does the public, other publishers, etc?
You can claim ownership (copyright) while still allowing public use. Many wikimedia images care this sort of copyright and it actually makes sense.
There’s quite a rundown both on wikipedia and on the wikipedia ‘how to’ pages. The entire thing is well understood, including the concept of derivative rights.
The works of a government contractor are normally subject to copyright, however the terms of use can be specified by the government. Apparently in this case the contract requires the Hubble images to be placed in the public domain.
The difference between public domain and public license is that the Hubble public domain images can be freely used in any derivative work from books to t-shirts to enhanced images, and the author of that derivative work can claim full copyright to it, including the incorporated Hubble imagery, although not of course to the original images as released by STScI.
I think some of the more impressive images should bear a credit to the individual who actually produced them in their final form, as they are works of art.
hahaha, i guess it depends where you look. they’re both on NASA’s Facebook page, with links to their pages on the nasa.gov website.
http://www.nasa.gov/content…
http://www.nasa.gov/content…
they’re also both on NASA’s twitter feed, which, by the way, is prominently displayed on the nasa.gov homepage.
Not any more since newer things have been tweeted. Yet someone put a Chandra pic up today ….
it’s still there if you scroll down the twitter feed. either way, the pictures are on nasa’s website.