I have a large collection of slides and negatives that I want to start selling prints of at train shows. I did not take them myself but I own the original copies of them. Would it be okay to sell prints of them as is or would I need to obtain the rights to do so? If there is no known photographer, is it fair game?

Thomas

You cannot assume any works are in the public domain. Copyright extends to 70 years after the author’s death. You may own an original work by someone else but you do not hold the copyright unless it was granted to you or it was a work for hire that included the rights in the agreement. That’s the letter of the law. All works by the federal government are in the public domain no matter when they’re produced.

That said, legally, you can use the images in derivative works but to sell originals or copies outright could get you in a bit of hot water if the rights owner wanted to push the issue.

I’d suggest you research copyright law before you sell anything.

Before someone else brings it up, siting “fair use” doctrine is skating on thin ice.

As a graphic artist, I keep an eye out for work I’ve done and retain rights to being used for commercial purposes other than my own or for uses in which it was not intended.

Use in derivative works is also covered by copyright. If a person wishes to use copyrighted photographs in a publication, they must attempt to locate the copyright owner and obtain permission from them to reproduce the copyrighted image. This is a reason that people who purchase photographs and slides need to get as much information as possible about who took them and how to contact them, if possible. Even if the original copyright owner is deceased, their copyright may be held by their estate.

Depending on the original work, the copyright owner may require a fee as a condition of granting permission to reproduce the work. The owner of the copyright has a duty to enforce their copyright in order to retain it.

Along these lines, there was an author of numerous RR and Logging books who supposedly decreed that his books would never be reprinted, and indeed they have not been. While I am not sure who for heirs were left, but if someone decided to copy or reprint those publications who beside the heirs could object?
In this case does the 70 year period count, or is the "prohibition" forever?
Not planning on violating, as I have a legit copy of every book. but just curious for the next generation of buffs

Technically, the heirs would own the rights for 70 years after his death. After that, it becomes public domain. If they wanted to republish, they could. Or not. Their choice. It’s also up to them to defend the copyright if they choose to.

Let me just say that, in the VAST number of cases such as this, there isn't enough money in question to worry about. We're not talking pirating and selling bootleg copies of a Hollywood blockbuster or Disney epic. We're talking a slide that cost the photographer 25-50 cents each to shoot and process--plus travel, the expertise of knowing what to shoot and why and when, etc. In the "good ol' days" some slide dealers shot the originals themselves, cranking 10-72 duplicates of the same shot through the camera's power winder.

Publications such as Trains, Railfan & Railroad, or book publishing houses typically buy one-time publication rights. They print it, and you get the original back along with a $20-30 check. Exceptions abound--a publisher or editor might assign someone to shoot photos for a book or article, and it's decided in advance whether the publisher gets the originals and the copyright or not. Or they may buy an original for their archives. There are extremely few cases where the money involved is worth a fight--if, for example, you sell your slide to a poster maker that then puts posters of that shot in every Hobby Lobby, Michael's, Toys R Us, etc. in the nation for $5 each, or your photo ends up on the cover of a bestselling mainstream novel.

Having said all that, selling prints made from someone else's slides without having arranged the copyright transfer, even on a handshake deal, is technically 100% illegal. Even giving the prints away would be problematic, in a sense.

But once again, someone has to care. If you sold prints or postcards you copied off the O. Winston Link calendar you bought several years ago, or even from an original you bought from Link himself, you'd be in hot water when the Link Museum in Roanoke finds you. If you sold prints made from originals by Ansel Adams or Robert Mapplethorpe or Andy Warhol, you're in BIG trouble, especially if you sell them for substantial cash. But three or four prints made from slides from some guy that no one has ever heard of even in local fan circles, being sold for basically a few pennies more than the cost of printing? The "copyright police" have more important infractions to go after. (And, truth be told, no one I ever saw in this hobby ever made any money doing this. For every one that sells, 2-3 go unsold.)

And I feel like I've been on every possible end of this situation--selling, buying, trying to secure publication permission without clearly assigned copyright, finding the brother or son that inherited the collection has himself died, having work "stolen" from me via "derivative" works that sold for a lot of money, etc.

That is the sentence I did not want to say in print....

True, the likelihood of getting busted using an unknown’s originals is slim to none.

That is very true. One has to look at the individual situation to decide whether it is worth the effort to locate the copyright holders. Of course, if one chooses wrongly, the financial costs may be low compared to the cost to ones reputation. I ended up gaining some nice Civil War era railroad artifacts and provenance from a collector whose uncle had donated some very fine pieces to the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis. Someone there must have done something to offend him, for he decided that the rest of his uncle's collection would not go to the MOT. One must be careful not to put themselves or their institution in a similar situation. I did use images from the collection that I had obtained, only after drawing up a written agreement with the seller as to how the materials used would be credited.

I belong to a Facebook group covering my home town.

10 years ago, I was looking on ebay and came across a picture that appeared in our newspaper back in the 1950's.

I saved the image to my computer. I shared it on the facebook page.

Soon, I discovered the ebay seller had hundreds of these local newspaper images he was selling on there! In reality, he was selling the black and white negatives, but had made scans and reversed them to show up as photos on the site.

Anyhow, I saved every one. I bet there were 500, at least. Not one was watermarked.

I purchased 3 of the negatives from him myself, all railroad related from here in town.

He was located in a different state than I and the newspaper are.

I messaged him and inquired as to where and how he came to be in possession of all these negatives. He gave me his phone number and I called him.

He told me that photography was his hobby, and that it was his practice to contact the newspaper office in a city and ask if they had any negatives that they'd get rid of.

Our newspaper office was happy to oblige. He said he got all they had... from 1954 to the end of film photography for them. All digital since then.

He said he kept the negatives that interested him, and sold the rest to pay for his hobby. That's how they end up on ebay.

Anyhow... I told him what I was doing... saving them and putting them on this Facebook page for past and present residents of the town to marvel at... a big trip down memory lane for all 7,000+ members of the group.

At first he was upset and didn't approve of me doing that.

I countered with "you know, you're right that I'm pirating these images without buying them. But, I told anyone who asked where they came from and who the seller is if they're interested in buying the negative and having a print made from it.

You're ebay store is getting exposure to 7,000+ eyes that I could about guarantee only 3 or 4 may ever even look at ebay, and surely wouldn't search and find your negatives offering. Free advertising.

He thought about it for a bit and finally said "well, you've got a point there."

I wasn't profiting off anything... all I did was put the image up on the group page.

I remember at least 3 different times that people would get on the group and comment under a picture of a family member or something and say "I contacted that guy and bought that negative"... so, I know it worked in his favor.

As an example of what kind of photos we're talking about here, and the prices he was realizing from the sale of them... this negative brought over $250. It's Mickey Mantle and two local kids at an auto parts store back in the early 1960's, along with the store manager. Mickey was a spokesman for Firestone Tires, and was there promoting them. Those kids are members of our FB group and were shocked to see this posted in our group. They still had their copies of the picture, and Mantles' autograph, to boot!

To tie this story in to the question at hand, one year a member joined who's father was a photographer for the newspaper in the 60's and early 70's. He's deceased. Soon as she joined, SHE started making a big fuss about "hey, my father took these pictures back then, they're his property (and by extension, hers)... you can't use them here."

I dissuaded her of that notion real fast... I asked her "well, he was an employee of the newspaper and I'd think that they would be the property of the publisher, not the photographer, and besides, the newspaper sold the negatives to this other guy".... and she got mad and quit the group. She's since joined back and has evidently had a change of heart about who they belonged to.

That would depend on the agreement between the media company and the photographer. My hometown paper would reprint photos printed in the paper on request, but the photographer still had some rights to the work. At the least, the photographer should be credited when known.

I hear you. "I own the negative!" (or slide, which is created from the original film, and is the only "original" extant.)

Mehhhhh. There's a case to be made for that, but [url="https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2015/03/04/copyright-and-the-photo-negatives/"]it's not that simple.[/url]

Once time we were working on some equipment on an isolated part of our line. And a photographer showed up and started taking pix. Well, nice guys we were, we offered to separate the equipment so he could get each one standing alone. And as we watched, he set up the tripod, positioned the camera just right, and shot a whole roll of film - on auto-advance - just click click click click click. Turns out he was selling the slides out of a catalog (this was before eBay). Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle.

All that to say, that slide you bought, there may be 23 or 71 more slides exactly like it i on the market. What keeps one of the 23 others from saying "You copied my photo!!!" What makes it more your photo than his? Neither was the creator; that was Cheap-Ass Tripod Guy Who Couldn't Even Toss us a Tenner for Fuel.

So, that's really it: Copyright goes back to the creator. Copyright is very long-lived, and keeps getting extended to keep Mickey Mouse in copyright, (can't have [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheburashka"]
that[/url] [url="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/deadmau5-disney-settle-dispute-mouse-804072"]
copied[/url] ).

Parody and Fair Use are allowable exceptions. But those are for critiquing the work as a work, e.g. [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFso_CTjfG8]
analysis[/url] or [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1gE4kF0-k4]
parody[/url] of the work itself. In other words, using a photo to critically review the photo is fair use; using the work to critically review the South Shore Railroad is not fair use, since you're not analyzing the photo itself.


The heirs could object, but only for the 70 years. The purpose of the limitation is to hold up collector value of the books so they remain a limited edition. However, this says nothing about eBooks, which obviously don't have the same collector value. Not least, an ebook generally extinguishes when the purchaser dies.


That's only true for non-infringement cases. After you infringe on Joe Railfan's photo, suddenly it becomes the most valuable photo in railfan history!