I agree, the likelihood that the museum owns the copyright
is very slim. You might be able to make legal copies of the
photographs under the "fair use" exception. The fair use
exception usually doesn't apply if you make a profit on the copies, so I
would be careful to charge only for the cost of the actual reproduction
and no additional permission fees. Alternatively, you could decide
that the risk of an infringement complaint is so low that you should just
go ahead and copy them. Assuming that the photographs have never
been registered with the Copyright Office, you are not subject to the
most onerous penalties.
Most of all, you should take Bill Maher's workshop on copyright as soon
as you possibly can!
Peter Hirtle
At 02:47 PM 7/3/2006, Carlos Ovalle wrote:
I don't believe the museum owns
the copyright of the photos, unless copyright was passed on to the museum
in writing by the copyright holders. The materials might be in the public
domain, depending on how old the photos are, if they were ever published,
and which formalities were required at the time of their
creation/publication. Peter Hirtle's Public Domain Copyright Term Chart
may help:
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm
If the copyright holders can't be found, the photographs are probably
considered orphan works. Legislation related to the use of orphan works
has been introduced in the house (
HR 5439), which
should make it easier for some uses of these types of works.
I'm not quite certain where it's going at this
time.
Carlos Ovalle
On 7/3/06, Jessica Waite
<[log in to unmask]
> wrote:
- Hello! I'm new to the listserv and the
museum field. I am not quite as familiar with copyright as I would like
to be and I was hoping somebody would be able to answer my question. Part
of my responsibilities is to organize the museum's archival and
photograph collection. Just today I was contacted by a volunteer who
would like to use some photographs in our collection for publication. The
photos are part of a collection donated to us by a law firm who inherited
the photos from an oil company here in Virginia. The company has long
been disbanded and the lawyers have passed away. Am I right to assume the
copyright for the photographs lies with the museum? Thanks!
- Jessica Waite
-
- Curator of Collections
and Education
- Reedville Fishermen's
Museum
- P.O. Box 306
- Reedville, VA
22539
- (804)
453-6529
-
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