Hello, Everyone!

 

I have two crazy copyright questions that I'd like to bounce off of you all. I know copyright seems to be discussed ad infinitum around here, but please bear with me!

 

1) As a local history collection, we have a ton of anonymous photos, usually of buildings or general outdoor scenes. We can usually give it a time frame, but don't know who took the photo; of course, there are no deeds of gift. Many of these photos have been used in local publications, such as the local historical society magazine, without thought of copyright. This was done years ago. We just acquired the historical society's photo collection last summer, and have not received any requests for their magazine. My question is: do we consider those anonymous photos published works? Even though they were done with no one's consent, probably in violation of copyright? I have the charts, but am trying to figure out where these anonymous photos (taken in the first half of the 20^th century) fit in the charts.

 

2) After 9/11, our fire department received dozens of letters and cards from schoolchildren across the country. Many of these were hand-drawn, with text and illustrations. For the 5^th anniversary of 9/11, we are planning to display some of these in our room, and we would also like to put together an on-line exhibit. Of course, our deed of gift was from the Fire Department, and the copyright for the cards would be held by these kids, the creators. Right? I am assuming an on-line exhibit would be considered fair use; there are lots of lawyers in these parts, and we don't want some lawyer mom or dad freaking out that their kids' artwork is being put on the web. I'd just like my suspicions about fair use confirmed or denied, so we can proceed (or not) with planning the online exhibit. If anyone here has done a similar type of online exhibit, using children's artwork, I'd be interested in how you handled any of these issues.

 

Thanks for any responses you can provide, either to the list or directly to me.

 

-Heather

 

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