copy-eng

The copyright of the samplers are often a source of irritation and different views! Here we describe the German law concerning the copyright of samplers.

The museums have no control over the reproduction of their samplers and other things belonging to their collection, which are older than 70 years. No sampler stitched before 1930 was ever and cannot be copyrighted by the museum or a privat person, who owns the sampler. A museum cannot copyright anything just because it owns something.

Only the creator can copyright his own work.

If there is no creator or if it is a piece of folk art like the samplers, there can't be a copyright. The samplers are in Public Domain, open to all! You are free to copy a sampler from a foto in a book. Of course you are not allowed to publish the foto without permission, but you are allowed to publish the reproduced sampler stitched by yourself. So anyone can reproduce any sampler from a foto without permission of the owner of the sampler. You don't need a license or a permision of the museum as long as you don't publish a foto of the original sampler.