It's a sticky area but I'll dive in. 

whizzy wrote:

>>>now, do you think it reasonable to demand that 
any portrayal of the image the painting 
represents, in art books, on posters, postage 
stamps, travel brochures, web sites etc., be 
removed because you don't want your property 'on 
display'

I think it's perfectly reasonable since museums 
do it all the time. It's their bread and butter 
(besides endowments) to reproduce copies of the 
art they own and sell them at the gift shops. In 
fact if you visit any museum website, they will 
vigorously defend their right to do so. Here's an 
example from the Smithsonian Institute art museum 
on what a person requesting the right to 
reproduce their property. They must submit in 
writing (among other things):

http://americanart.si.edu/nmaainfo/rights.html

(quote)Intended use (personal, study/scholarly, 
lecture, or publication)
Personal use consists of using the image for 
viewing, displaying, or storing in an album or 
other storage system for later viewing, and does 
not include multiple reproduction publication in 
any format, commercial exploitation, or inclusion 
of the image on a personal web site. (end quote)

Mona Lisa t-shirts are infringing on the Louvre's 
right to sole ownership of the image -- it's just 
that the image is too pervasive to control (and 
actually why would they since it =brings= people 
to the museum to merely see "the original of a 
reproduction" (isn't that a hoot?)). But that's 
an extreme case. 

Now as for cels and other contemporary art where 
the artists/ companies producing them still 
exist. The artists and companies own the rights 
to reproduce that image. Just because we own the 
cel doesn't give us the right to print it on t-
shirts and sell them to everybody. I think on-
line galleries are not bothered with since they 
are not intended for sole commercial use. They 
might even fall under the "fair use" category (if 
you want to know more about that, I can ramble on 
a bit).

As for the ebay question, ebay is a hosting 
platform just as any other webpage you have 
therefore (and I'm not clear on this) somebody 
has the rights to the images/text/design there 
(whether it is ebay or the seller I'm not sure). 
ebay is not any more public than an online 
gallery so the distinction actually escapes me 
(besides the number of visitors which is 
irrelevant).

With all that said, I don't really care if 
somebody uses my images. I realize it's a risk 
that happens whenever you put an image up because 
tracking down people and thrashing them for 
taking your images is really unenforcable (unless 
you are a psycho :P) 

Wendy

PS: Another site that I found interesting about 
ownership/reproduction rights of owning art in 
California: 
http://www.tfaoi.com/articles/andres/aa2.htm

YMMV depending on where you live :)