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Re: photographs and copyright



Rather than starting off by worrying about copyright, I would ask first
what you would like to see happen.  Do you want to stop publication of the
history?  Would you like the newspaper to use your copy negatives rather
than the originals in the possession of the owners (even though the quality
of your copy negatives might be lower)?  Or are you worried that somehow in
asserting copyright ownership of the photographs, the newspaper would
challenge your own rights?

Depending on your answer to the above questions, you can then figure out
how best to proceed.  The last one is the easiest.  If the owners really
have transferred copyright in the photographs to you, they obviously cannot
transfer copyright in the photographs again to the newspaper.  Just because
someone claims to have transferred copyright doesn't mean they have done
so.  The same thing has probably happened to you, BTW.  I am sure some of
the people who "transferred" copyright to you in the first place did not
have it, and so you don't own the copyright, either.

Even in those cases where the author of the photograph transferred his or
her copyright to the library, you would have to look closely at your form
to make sure that it was transferring all the rights in the original
photograph, and not just any copyright that might exist in the copy
itself.  Assuming that your title is good, you might simply write to the
newspaper, alert them that you own the copyright, and tell them what you
want.

Peter Hirtle
pbh6@cornell.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: Jacquelyn Saturley
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 1:01 PM
Subject: photographs and copyright

I need your advice!!

We are a library with a local history collection, which includes app.
2,000 images. What has been customary when someone brings in a photograph,
is to make a copy negative and leave the original with the owner. The
standard form that has been used in the past, gives the library, so far as
it is known, copyright.

A local newspaper was contacted by an out-of-town company to publish a
pictorial "history" of the county, which they are in the process of doing.
Numerous articles and ads have asked the residents to bring in their old
photos. The book is not out yet, but they are using some of the photos in
their recent ads, and they are photos we have in our collection, and the
copyright form was signed. The newspaper also had them sign copyright over
to the newspaper.

Any suggestions or advice???? I have seen the form

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