A few days ago
ciamalo

What’s the copyright law regarding pictures taken with the Hubble and other space telescopes?

Are the Hubble, ESO, ESA, NASA and Spitzer telescopes’ deep-space photos protected by copyright, or are they open to use because they were obtained with government funds? What are the pertinent rules of usage? If permission is needed, where would that be obtained?.

Top 3 Answers
A few days ago
Anonymous

Favorite Answer

Ciamalo … I thing Bryce’s advice is right on. I don’t really have a better answer.

I did want to add this, though: I can imagine an instance where an individual or non-government enterprise might pay NASA to carry a payload into space for them or where such an enterprise might lease NASA’s equipment for a special mission. In such a case, the data collected during the period of the lease may be considered the property of the enterprise and thus be subject to the same protections afforded to data collected by the company whenever they use their own equipment.

Mind you, I don’t know that for fact; I’m merely speculating.

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5 years ago
glendora
The reason why the Hubble can take such wonderful shots is because it has superior optics and because it is in space so it has none of the Earth’s atmosphere to look through. Unobstructed views of everything. They are using the Hubble to look into places that humans have never been able to look at before so a lot of the shots contain new images for all of us.
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A few days ago
Bryce
Most things published by the US Federal government are done so copyright-free. If they are copyrighted, you will see the little “c-in-a-circle” or “r-in-a-circle” (signifying a registered copyright).

If they are copyright free, you can use ’em however you please. Otherwise, contact the holder and ask for permission.

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