Curious.Judith

Right after replying to a post about Nervousness’ polices regarding copyright, i found this discussion about trading vintage images. I found a useful summary about copyright duration, posted a quick reminder, and went on my way. There was a quick reply: oh, these are all from the early 1900’s, they’re family, they’re not copyrighted. That was a red flag (since i’m too tired to judge what i should be doing), and i found myself going on about just how locked up those images are.

[QUOTE=ktsls82]I guess that is true but pictures from our own personal collections will not be a problem. They are usually of relatives.[/QUOTE]

The creator (and the heirs) have rights, even if they’re family!

[QUOTE=ktsls82]Plus most photographs don’t have copyrights on them. [/QUOTE]

And for creations that were not published, prior to 1978, the duration of copyright is the creator’s life plus 70 years (during which the copyright belongs to the creator’s heirs).

[QUOTE=ktsls82]Most of my pictures are early 1900’s and before.[/QUOTE] So, if someone took a photo at age 35 in 1915, and they lived to be 70 (thus, dying in 1950), the *unpublished* photo enters public domain 70 years after their death, 2020.

The copyright on that unpublished photo belongs to their heirs. If you’re an heir of the photographer, you could probably assign the rights to the public domain or specific individual (depending on how good terms you are with your cousins!)

It’s this sort of problem that has librarians and archivists pushing for an amendment to the copyright act for orphaned creations. I’ve written about it in my blog; Wired magazine has and easy to read overview of the problem; and the American Library Association has done a great deal of work advocating for moving orphaned works into a less “locked-up” state.

http://www.grey-cat.com/curious/?cat=14
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64494,00.html
http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/
http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/washnews/2005ab/17mar22.htm

Cheers,
judith

copyright, copyright duration, creative commons, public domain, orphaned works,Orphan Rights Amendment

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Tags: American Library Association, Cheers, copyright, duration, heirs, I've, It's, Nervousness', Orphan Rights Amendment, orphaned, PLUS, right, Wired

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