Copyright laws

[Rob]

Yeah, we should up the membership to $50 and include photographic legal and equipment insurance.

 

[Baker]

What annoys me is that I bought these photos from an antiques fair which means the seller has made money from the photos, is he breaking th law as he is making money out of them??!

I like to buy rubber stamps, some are of photos of actresses from the early 1900's, there are also things called collage sheets, sheets made up of old photos which craft people can use.
Were did these people get their copyrights from??

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Copyright Laws are there to protect the rights of person who created the original work, as well as to act as guidelines for persons wishing to use other's work.
That being said, observing the letter of the Law is nigh on impossible.
Where there is an obvious and flagrant attempt to pass another's work off as your own, or to avoid paying for the right to use it, then the matter is cut and dried.
But when the originator is difficult or impossible to trace for one reason or another then common sense tends to prevail.
If the original copyright owner, or a descendent, should appear to claim breach of Copyright they would first have to prove that they held Copyright and that the Copyright had not expired.
They would then have to prove that you had used the images to make a profit at their expense.
If you acted in good faith, believing the Copyright to have expired after making a reasonable effort to trace the copyright owner, then I don't think there would be much of a case to answer.
If you had made a huge amount of money from the image then it would be reasonable to pay some of this to the Copyright owner once they had established their claim. The amount could be set by the Court, or more likely negotiated as an out of Court settlement.
If you made little or no money out of it any settlement would probably be a token gesture. If it ever got to Court in the first place - Lawyers know that you can't get blood out of a stone.
The bottom line is: weigh up the chances of the original copyright owner catching you and making a fuss. If you don't like the odds then walk away.
But in this case the chances of being killed by a falling coconut are far greater.

 

[markc]

And I believe fair-use covers resale, in the same way that you can sell a music CD if you don't like the band anymore, but you can't make copies of it to sell. Copyright is the right-to-copy.

If that antiques seller is just selling original works, he should have no problems. If he's copying those works in order to sell more than one, that's where he'd run into problems.

But I'm no lawyer.

 

[Baker]

Coconuts!!!Where!!?


Ive loked high and low for info.
The pics I want to use are around 100 years old and I have looked overe and over for th owners.
I will also be adding my own work to the picture, it will be incorporated into it.

Then again I will probably never get round to selling any of it.Im such a procrastinator.

 

[captblue1]

but this does not include things that continue to be copyrighted under the estate or corporation...for instance, I don't think that Micky Mouse will ever go out of copyright, even 100 years after Walt's death.

wrong. it actually came up and the company got congrass to pass an extension law.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20020305_sprigman.html
it was extended 20 more years. so mickey mouse will be public domain in 2019.

 

[markc]

There's also a difference between trademark and copyright. As I understand it, Mickey Mouse himself would be covered by trademark. Movies Mickey was in would be covered by copyright.