Is it true that copyright is separate from physical art ownership and is sold separately?

Answer 1

It's probably more accurate to say that the copyright and the physical ownership have very little to do with one another. They can be sold together, or they can be sold separately, or whatever the owner and copyright holder wants to do.

Buying a copyrighted book does not automatically give you copyright over that book; the copyright remains with the author, or publisher, or whoever else owns it no matter who buys the physical book.

Art is the same way, though in the case of artwork, there may be only one copy in existence, so it's a little easier to understand how someone might think that buying the only copy of the painting (or sculpture, or whatever) also gives them the right to copy it. But technically, this isn't true; if the artist doesn't specifically sell the copyright, legally he retains it and the person who bought the artwork is not legally allowed to make copies.

(For old artwork, there may be no copyright. The Mona Lisa, for example, is no longer subject to copyright, even if there had been such a concept at the time it was created. However, the Louvre, which owns the painting, is allowed to publish and copyright its OWN pictures of it, because the pictures are considered new, copyrightable photographic art in their own right. They're also allowed to forbid other people from taking pictures in their museum, so that they're the only source for such photographs.)