In a message dated 3/11/2006 6:33:13 AM Eastern Standard Time, bvelke@whollygenes.com writes: HeritageQuest claims that its images do precisely that. Their claim (and that of most digitizing companies) is that their creative post-processing of the raw image produces a new and better product than that which they slavishly copied from the public domain. To focus on whether the "underlying data" (as Kathi calls it) is in the public domain entirely misses their point and that of the supporting case law. They make the claim--but whether that claim is sustainable in a court of law is highly questionable. The object being photographed makes the difference rather than the process used has been the determining factor in past court decisions. I do not see that the cases cited thus far change the opinion that a reproduction of a two-dimensional film that is in the public domain provides any originality in the end product. Joan