Copyright Question

Sully

Hey,

Iv been given about 20 or so photos that are many years old. Iv been given the photos to upload onto one website, and for no other use. The owner of the photos does not want them used on any other site without his permission. We added a watermark to the images, but want to add a copyright tag. Any suggestions?

JMcL

Sully wrote:

Hey,

Iv been given about 20 or so photos that are many years old. Iv been given the photos to upload onto one website, and for no other use. The owner of the photos does not want them used on any other site without his permission. We added a watermark to the images, but want to add a copyright tag. Any suggestions?

That's an interesting question actually. I read recently a piece regarding copyright on old photos from somebody buying old photos at jumble sales etc, and if the photo is beyond a certain age (I think it was pre-1946), copyright expires. As far as I remember there was a second category for photos pre-1960 something where lighter copyright rules persist. This relates to UK law, but Irish law tends to parallel that. That said, why would copyright for a photo be any different in principal to a book/piece of music etc? I suppose the case in point was one where there was no possible means of tracing the "author" of the work, ie the photographer

Paulw

From my understanding of Irish law, copyright never expires, not even on photos. If you have an alternate documented source JMcL, I'd be very interested in reading that.

By default, the photographer always owns the copyright, unless it is signed over to someone in a contract.

You can always add the copyright symbol © (Alt-0169) to your works, if you like.

Sully

So a simply "copyright X 2007. All Rights Reserved." is ok? I thought id have to state about not using them elsewhere etc.

Paulw

By law, no one is allowed use the image without the permission of the photographer anyway.

Putting words and the copyright symbol make no difference to copyright.

JMcL

Paulw wrote:

From my understanding of Irish law, copyright never expires, not even on photos. If you have an alternate documented source JMcL, I'd be very interested in reading that.

Copyright does expire, in the case of books/recordings etc it's 70 years after the death of the author (see here). What I referred to earlier was a specific case relating to British copyright, and because of the timescale (1940s) wondered whether the same applied in Irish law, but probably not as copyright law is always being tinkered with. The situation I was referring to related to photos where the photographer could not reasonably be identified, which is probably not the issue as far as Sully is concerned.

Paulw wrote:

You can always add the copyright symbol © (Alt-0169) to your works, if you like.

From a legal standpoint this isn't strictly necessary (see the above linked doc as well). From a practical point of view though, it might cause somebody to think twice about making free use of it.

mikeanywhere

Paulw wrote:

By default, the photographer always owns the copyright, unless it is signed over to someone in a contract.

Coyright for the photographer is usually life + 70 years as per some stuff I read recently as I have been puttong together contracts which I wanted to add copyright detail in them.

In the first instance I would add All rights reserved under the images or as a general tag. Also make sure the images are low quality too so if someone does take them they are worthless.

Sully

We added "copyright" as a lite watermark. Overdramatic?

I guess we will add the copyright line, just to make people think twice I suppose!

RoryW

what if you post the pictures themselves as a watermark to your webpage? That way they cannot be "right clicked" and saved.

Alternatively you could disable the right click/save option for teh webpage with the photos

This would help to prevent unauthorised people saving the photos etc

minikin

that's assuming they haven't figured out how to use the printscreen key...
there's little point in worrying about copyright of images once you upload them onto the www - images will get nicked, don't lose sleep over it.

ThOnda

Think carefuly and deeply...