I'm feeling a little overwhelmed and it didn't help much when I googled something to see the Screamer inside the Google logo. Does anyone know why? Is google highlighting fine art? The painting was returned a few months ago, was it stolen again? Is it Munch's birthday? Ah, a quick mouseover and it is birthday.
Then my next thought was "Does this represent fair use?" Amalyah? Michael?
So, of course I wanted to remix it ... I really, really, really wanted to put a smile emoticon :-) in the face but damn it isn't licensed under Creative Commons By License ... so guess I can't ... (right, Mike?)
Update:
Here's an email response I received from Amalyah who is an IP for museums expert:
Munch's works are still protected by copyright, the term of which runs not from the date of the painting but for the life of the artist + 70 years after his death. Munch died in 1944, so he is "in copyright" until 2014. Google must have cleared copyright permission, because I just googled and don't see anything about any problems -- which they did run into in April when they did a Miro logo without permission.
Image from Art News Blog shown here via HTML IMG code
(Hmm .. is that violating copyright?)
More about the guy at google who draws the google doodles and the complete collection here.
They probably got permission from the owners of "The Scream". I love they inclusion of "Google" in the background.
Posted by: MatthewS | December 12, 2006 at 09:08 PM
Roll your cursor over: "Happy Birthday Evard Munch"
Posted by: John Powers | December 12, 2006 at 10:08 PM
Yep it is his birthday. I also thought it could be public domain?
Posted by: Beth | December 13, 2006 at 03:56 AM
The painting was completed in 1893 which means it is in the public domain. The owners of the painting may have copyrighted or controlled photographs of it, but clever google could find a license free image to googlize.
Posted by: james | December 13, 2006 at 08:56 AM