Copyright owners have certain exclusive rights. These include the right to reproduce their work; to distribute their work; to create derivative works; to publicly display their work; and to publicly perform their work. Non-owners often infringe on these rights when they engage in common activities like photocopying, downloading files, posting works (for example, photographs, graphics, text and sound) to a website, showing films and performing dramatic works like plays and songs.

The copyright holder of the Beardon painting (now, the Romare Beardon Foundation) has all of the above rights with regard to the painting. It alone may use the work or grant permission to others to use the work. In the past, it has granted museums the right to display the work. It also has granted at least one museum the right to create a derivative work.

In the 1980's, when this painting was displayed by the Brooklyn Museum, the museum sought permission and obtained the right to make posters of the painting. The posters identified the artist and bore the name of the painting. They also included the museum's name and the dates of the show at which the painting was displayed. These posters were sold by the museum, subject to a licensing agreement with the copyright owner, a likely condition of which was that a portion of the proceeds would be paid to the owner.

Unless a work falls within one of the exceptions above, or your intended use of a work constitutes "fair use" as described below, you may only use the work with the permission of the copyright owner. See, Frequently asked Questions about seek Permissions. Because the Beardon painting used here is a copyrighted work and we were not sure whether our use of the painting would be deemed "fair use," we sought permission from the copyright holder to reproduce it for use on this website.