Apologies for the late reply.

Photographs are protected by copyright just as any other created material.
As far as copyright, the digitization of photographs is not terribly
different from the digitization of books. The first and most useful
determination is when the photograph was taken, which would let you know
what the copyright law is associated with that type of material at a given
point in time. Hirtle's Public Domain Chart is very useful in this respect:
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm

For recently created works, no notice of copyright is necessary. The item is
automatically copyrighted on creation. For older works, there may have been
formalities involved before copyright protection was given. This may require
research on your part. There are a few other things to consider with
photographers. In some cases, the photograph is a work for hire, so the
hiring party would own the copyright (assuming U.S. copyright law). There
are often contracts involved with professional portraits, however, and the
photographer is often the owner of the copyright.

If you don't have copyright permission, you'll need to rely on a copyright
exemption for the digitization, usually in the form fair use or the Section
108 library and archives exemption. The library and archives exemption is
fairly restrictive regarding digitizaed materials. The new orphan works bill
and the Section 108 group might make some of these processes easier,
hopefully. ^_^

If your institution has an accessibly attorney, it might be a good idea to
clear these types of uses.

Hopefully, hopefully, we'll have some copyright and digitization resources
available at ALA's librarycopyright.net website over the next couple of
months.

Carlos Ovalle

On 6/2/06, Bishop O'Rourke Library <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> This is an off-shoot of the recent question about privacy and portraits on
> the web.
> What about the copyright issues with digitizing portraits?  Modern
> professional
> photographers often stamp the back of their prints with copyright claims.
> Do these copyright claims have legal basis?  What about older photos (many
> of ours are '40-'60s) which
> bear the name of a company or studio, but nothing else?
>
> Thanks,
> Melissa Martinez
> Librarian, Bishop O'Rourke Library
> St. John's Catholic Newman Center
> Phone: (217) 255-6610
> Email: [log in to unmask]
>
>

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