RE: filmscanners: Importance of Copyright on Images

["Laurie Solomon" <laurie@advancenet.net>]

First, your statement that only the current law is applicable may be true
where you live but where I live in the US it is not.  Images created and
registered under the old copyright laws are governed by the older laws that
they were copyrighted under.

There are many images in the historic archives whose copyrights have run out
or never existed that are in the public domain.  There are many images
created as work for hire by the U.S. government ( and probably other
governments as well) which are in the public domain in so far as they were
created with public moneies and under work for hire contracts.

I just finished some copywork about a year ago for a company that was
putting out a CD of those sorts of images (mostly those which are well known
or famous from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s).  Neither the company nor I needed
to get copyright releases for the images since they were in the public
domain; permission was necessary in some cases to access the originals which
where housed in secure collections in public libraries and archives.
Sometimes, permission to access the collections was contingent on the
institution being given a photo credit and sometimes on the payment of a
small token fee to cover the costs of admission to the institution and that
particular collection or the maintenane of the collection.  If special or
additional services from the institution were needed they would have to be
paid for by the company; but this was not a license fee.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Anthony Atkielski
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 4:29 AM
To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
Subject: Re: filmscanners: Importance of Copyright on Images


Laurie writes:

> ... but that it is "practically nil" is at best
> an overstatement ...

Do a search on images, then count the number that are probably _not_
copyrighted.  Very often the number is zero.

> True enough under current copyright laws and
> conventions; but that has not always been the case.

That is irrelevant, since only the current law is applicable.

> Moreover, it can always change in the future.

When it changes, the search engine can change its notice appropriately.

> ... it may just be more practical for these
> search engines to caution that the materials
> might be copyrighted rather than asserting that
> they are.

It would be still more accurate to advise that some images might _not_ be
copyrighted, since the absence of copyright is a rare exception to the rule,
and
not the inverse.