How does these site obey the copyright of the old paintings of masterpiece?

Question

I want to make an art website which will be a large collection of old paintings of masterpiece. And the artist will be classified by the art movement and all of the works of a certain artist will be listed.
I have asked a question yesterday :The copyright about old oil painting? url http://answers.yahoo.com/question/;_ylc=X3oDMTE1MmI4N2IyBF9TAzIxMTU1MDAxMTgEc2VjA2Fuc19ub3QEc2xrA3N1YmplY3Q-;_ylv=3?qid=20071125063934AAEZESt

And I am very puzzled that how can these website do the same work without disobeying the copyright law?
Such as http://www.allposters.com/ ,which has over 300,000 posters, can they get the copyright of every painting?
Such as http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/, over 50,000 masterpiece paintings included, is it within the law? How can they do this?

and the http://www.oceansbridge.com/ and so on.
I have a large collection of masterpiece paintings. The digital photograph is not collected through the internet. All of them are masterpiece which are before 1900.

Answer 1

The one answer ahead of mine is incorrect. These websites are indeed responsible to the owners of the copyrights. The owners of the copyrights are the owners of the paintings.
For instance, if you wanted to use a copy of the original Mona Lisa, you would have to ask the owner of the painting, and that would be the Louvre Museum in Paris. You would send your inquiries to the Registrar, or the equivalent.
These sites carry the reproduced works, on paper, of images already licensing the copyrights. Some companies print posters for sale in the museums that own the paintings, and have a long-established history as publishers. They pay the museums royalies for the use of the image. The websites that show the images of the posters may be getting their license to show the image from the company publishing the poster. Because the museum gets some of the money from the sale of the poster, it is good business for them to extend the license of the image.
Copyrighting a work of art is not exactly like copyrighting a novel or a musical work, where ownership is contracted for 50, and then a hundred years, and then for 50 more to the publisher, if they are still in business. Artworks are what you would call a real-asset. After the death of the artist, ownership of copyright passes to the person who owns the original, or is some cases, took the photograph.
For more information on copyright of artwork go to the website for the Library of Congress in Washington DC USA.
Another thought is that these websites that show artwork have links linking to the websites of the owners, so in a way, pass from a pathway originating, say at the Louvre, to the websites you are looking at.
As for starting one of your own, you might simply build one made up of links to those you have seen, but I don't know what your profit would be.
If it's just to show the works, there's already someone ahead of you. It's called artcyclopedia.com.
Hope this gives you some perspective and some ideas to research.

Answer 2

Those classic art works are not copyrighted. Making a reproduction and passing it as real is called forgery. Making a reproduction and selling them as reproduction is a legal business process.

Works of the old masters are valuable because they are authentic. A reasonably close facsimile such as off-set printing or digital reproductions are worth not much more than paper and ink.

Please be careful because some of the newer works by new (and still living) artists are often copyrighted. Making reproductions of them will be illegal without a consent or the artist.