Copyright Aid

I want to copy segments of wrapping paper which are printed with copies of paintings of long-deceased artists (Monet, Van Gogh, William Morris etc.).
Are images of famous paintings now considered to be "in the public domain" (not fully certain what this term means) and so I would not be infringing copywright law if copy them, essentially copying them from a copy of the original work? I'm new to this issue, but my local library has mentioned that they don't allow the photocopier to be used to copy images where it might be infringing copyright law (to cover themselves, as they say.) Actually, would the L A library service actually be liable in any way? Would copyshops and printers be liable in the same way. I have noticed that these places have never raised this issue when I have used them in the past.

I tend to avoid the term public domain because it is so misunderstood. I prefer 'out of copyright' as it is more specific.

While the old art works on the wrapping paper may themselves be out of copyright, it is just possible that the arrangement of the individual images on the paper constitutes a 'new work' which, if it exhibits sufficient creativity on the part of the designer, may be protected by a new copyright based on the lifetime of that designer. I think this is fairly unlikely, but not having seen the wrapping paper concerned I think it's worth mentioning.

But I think it is more likely that, as with the prints made from book plates which you mention in your other posting, anyone producing the wrapping paper would not be able to claim any copyright protection for their work. Or pehaps more accurately, they may claim copyright but no court would uphold the claim. The same would not be true of other designs of wrapping paper where the pattern etc was original and could be said to be artistic.

Libraries tend to be very cautious about the use of their photocopiers because they have a better understanding about the law of copyright and a legal duty concerning copying (laid out in section 42A of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988). Note that the section seems to imply that any work falling within the definition "one article in any one issue of a periodical, or a reasonable proportion of any other published work" will automatically be protected by copyright. However given what I said about the duration of copyright protection in your other posting, you can see that a periodical from the end of the nineteenth century would almost certainly be out of copyright today. Not all librarians take that possibility into account. The rules concerning unpublished works (contained in section 43) are a bit more complex, so it is understandable that archivists in particular have to be cautious as many of their holdings are technically 'unpublished' works.

As regards copy shops, they are subject to the general law and could technically speaking be found laible for any infringement of copyright arising from a customer asking for a copyright work to be copied, but unless it was very obvious that the work was likely to be subject to copyright they probably don't check to too closely because, firstly the risk is slight and secondly they want the business.