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Photography Question 

Rob Timmins 		 

Copyright Laws


 
  Family
Family
used PS7 to restore this photo taken of some people in my wife's family about 100 years ago

Rob Timmins

  
 
I'm not sure if this is the best category for this question, but it seemed to fit better than any of the others. How long is copyright on a photo good? I ask because I recently used Photoshop to restore a number of photos that were taken of my wife's family sometime in the early 1900s. I submitted them online to print at WalMart. When I went to pick them up, they told me they couldn't print them because they were "professional photos." When I said they were all taken about 100 years ago, I was told that it didn't matter because there is no expiration on photo copyright. I finally gave up and took the digital files into Target, where they printed them without question.

So are they correct? Do photo copyrights have ever expire?


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October 02, 2005

 

Justin G. 		  Rob copyrights do expire, if I understand this article correctly. Taken straight from Encyclopedia Online.

"The first English copyright act (1710), while maintaining the common-law right, allowed the author to copyright a work for 14 years (with a like period of renewal); it also required deposition of copies and a notice that the work was copyrighted. That law was the model for the earliest American copyright statute, passed in 1790. Wheaton v. Peters (1834; see Henry Wheaton ) established that copyright exists primarily for the public benefit rather than for the creator of the work. The current copyright statute became effective in 1978, superseding an act of 1909. The law provides copyright for the duration of the author's life plus 70 years.


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October 02, 2005

 

Rob Timmins 		  I was thinking it must be something along those lines. So it may still be under copyright, but it's impossible to know since we have no idea who the photographer was.

Thanks!


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October 03, 2005

 

Donley L. Despain 		  If there is no name, business or signiture on the photo then the photog was not meaning for it to be copyrighted. Something this old and being your family AND you restoring it as a "professional" I really don't think you need to worry. I've heard that WalMart does this sometimes, remember the people who work at WalMart also on a regular basis put developed photos from one person into others envelopes ... that to me is copyright problems, not what you are doing. Take them somewhere else and enjoy them.


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October 03, 2005

 

Derek Holyhead 		  Hi All,
You should be OK with those 100 year old photographs:

Duration of copyright in the UK

Artistic works (such as paintings, drawings, prints, collages, sculpture, video art or photographs - including negatives and prints).

Lifetime of the artist + 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the artist died.
Taken from here:
http://www.mda.org.uk/cbasics.htm

And in the USA:
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html#duration
Hope this helps.
Del


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October 05, 2005

 

Rob Timmins 		  Thanks!


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October 06, 2005

 
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