No Minnesota State Colleges and Universities faculty member or staff person shall commit to pay a royalty, license, or other fee to a copyright owner without first obtaining the approval of the campus Intellectual Property Coordinator. With regard to negotiating royalties, licenses, and other fees, it often is helpful to use the services of copyright clearing house associations. For a listing of clearinghouses by category of work, see our Copyright Clearinghouse Roster.

We obtained permission to use the Beardon painting featured on the website with the assistance of the Visual Artists and Galleries Association, Inc. (VAGA), an intellectual property rights coordinator that contacted the copyright owner and negotiated the terms of a licensing agreement. Obtaining the permission of the copyright owner was just the first step, however. Because we were dealing with a work of art (and because we could not download or scan the actual painting), we also had to obtain permission to use a photographer's two-dimensional photographic image (a slide) of the painting from which we produced the electronic image you see here. Again, VAGA provided assistance in contacting the copyright owner and negotiating the rental of the slide.