Who owns copyright in old company scrapbook photos if the photographer is unknown?
Asked 8/30/2015
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2 answers
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I’m trying to understand copyright status for photographs in a factory scrapbook compiled by a company from roughly the 1910s to 1960. The original photographer(s) are unknown, the company no longer exists except as a trademark, and most company records were destroyed in the 1970s. The scrapbook survived and was later sold privately several times.
Several later owners used the photos in books and one current owner claims he owns the copyright to all of the scrapbook photos because he bought the scrapbook and the rights to a later book. None of these later owners actually took the photographs.
In the U.S., does owning the physical scrapbook transfer copyright in the photos? Could copyright still belong to the original photographer, the photographer’s estate, or the company as work-for-hire? And is it possible that some of the images are now public domain because of their age?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
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(Assuming you are in the United States. Other jurisdictions will vary.)
Each photo in the scrapbook would need to be determined individually.
In general the photographer or their estate would hold the copyright unless the photograph was done under a contract or for hire arrangement that assigned copyright to another party.
Depending on the age of each photo, if a copyright expired without being renewed that photo would now be considered public domain. For photos created from the time your company was started after 1910 until around 1923 the term was 75 years. For photos created after 1923 but prior to 1978, the term is either 120 years from date of creation for unpublished photos or 90 years from the publication date for published photos. So it is possible that some of the photos made and published prior to 1925 are now (as of 2015) in the public domain. It is also possible that some of the photos were published without a copyright notice during the period when doing so would have placed the photo in the public domain upon publication. The requirement to provide a copyright notice at the time of publication was not dropped until after your company folded.
The problem with any of theses scenarios is being able to prove which of the photos in the album fall into which category. Without documentation to support your contention you are always risking the possibility that another party may step forward at a later date with solid documentation they own the rights to an image.
Without documentation to prove otherwise, the safe thing would be to assume all of the photos are still covered under copyright and treat them as such. If no evidence exists that documents who holds copyright to a particular photo, then the copyright to that photo is effectively orphaned until 120 years after each photo was made. After the 120 years have passed no one could renew the copyright since only the current copyright holder can apply for a renewal. If no documented copyright holder exists, then no one is eligible to renew the copyright. In which case each photo would pass into the public domain 120 years after it was made (75 years for photos taken prior to 1923).
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
10y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
In the U.S., owning the physical scrapbook does not automatically give someone copyright in the photos. Copyright normally belongs to the original photographer, unless the images were created as work-for-hire or assigned by contract to the company.
So the current owner may own the scrapbook itself, and may own copyright only in the newer book layout/text he bought rights to, but not necessarily the underlying historical photos.
For the scrapbook images, each photo would have to be evaluated separately. Some may have belonged to the photographer or estate; some may have belonged to the company if shot as work-for-hire. With missing records, that can be hard or impossible to prove.
Also, because the images are so old, some may now be public domain depending on when they were created, whether they were published, and whether any required renewal applied under older U.S. law.
So the safest summary is: buying the scrapbook did not by itself transfer copyright, and the current owner’s blanket claim to all photo copyrights is not automatically valid.
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