I am going to have printed a scientific book with illustrations. They are small screenshots grabbed from historical books (e.g. 18th-century). The books are available freely online in digital libraries across the world. Can I use such illustrations (they are small-area images cropped from single pages) in my book? The book will be sold by a scientific publishing house. Any experience regarding legal aspects of this will be welcome. Shall I obtain any license or permission? This is neither using the entire source scanned by someone, nor a re-edition of such.
If the image is from a book published in the 18th Century, then the book will definitely be out of copyright.
HOWEVER, while the original work may be out of copyright, the reproduction can have a current copyright. Be sure to read the terms of service of the site where you find the online versions very carefully to determine whether their reproduction is free to use or has a current copyright.
Using an online source is not the same as scanning the original book pages yourself.
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