My mother liked to take photos, she also drew a number of things. When she died I took care of the estate and I took all of the photos and some of the art work. In my case there is me, my brother and my sister, so in this case who, if anyone, owns the copyright on the photos and art work? I’m pretty sure that once the estate is settled it gets dissolved unless it’s been set up not to. So does the copyright transfer to the person who handled the estate, the person who owns the physical copy or what?
The real reason I ask is because I’ve seen people say that photos are not subject to the same copyrights as written works and that some photos could still be copyrighted from the mid to late 1800s. I can’t see how this would be the case, and how would one figure out who owned the rights, especially after a couple of generations and lots of possible owners.
The same goes for paintings, what if I found an unknown painting from a famous painter who died in the 1800s, could I be prevented from making prints of it?
Copyright in an image usually belongs to the creator of the image - the painter/photographer - and devolves on death like any other property. If your mother’s will didn’t deal specifically with the copyrights she held at her death (or if she made no will) then they will have passed to her general benficiaries - her husband, if he survived her; otherwise you and your siblings jointly.
As to how long copyright lasts, that depends on the laws of the particular country in which you are trying to enforce the copyright. If somebody copies one of your mothers photographs here in Australia, you and your siblings can enforce your copyright against them for up to 70 years after your mother’s death.
Basically, everything you create is copyright from the moment you create it. (Unless the terms and conditions say otherwise - I haven’t read them, but I assume a lot of websites like this take ownership of your comments if you checked that “I agree” box). (Also Google “works for hire” for another issue.) Therefore, everything you create is copyright, just like Disney products, until the term expires - there’s a whole series of calculations depending on the media used and creation date.
It’s part of your estate, so as mentioned, unless you specifically state otherwise, it passes on in shares proportionately to all your heirs. “Half my estate to my brother Larry and half to my other brother Larry…”
That’s true under today’s U.S. law but is absolutely ***not ***true for older works.
The correct terms can be found here. “Author” mean “creator” on that page. It is not limited to prose.
Paintings from the 1800s would probably fall into the Unpublished Works category. Works from a known painter are in the public domain if the author died before 1944. If the death date or identity of the author is unknown then all works from before 1894 are in the public domain. Same would be true for photos. If either had been published, then anything before 1923 is in the public domain.
Who owns the copyright depends entirely on who gets the physical objects under the terms of your mother’s will. See a lawyer. We can’t help you.
Sorry. I was imprecise. I was referring only to the drawings the mother made. Her rights to these would be passed through the estate. Since the will apparently does not transfer copyright specifically, then it is likely that whoever takes the drawings would have rights to control future use of them. This could potentially lead to battles among the siblings, and that’s where a lawyer is essential.
This of course does not apply to works created by others that are not already in the public domain.
As long as we’re nitpicking I have to correct another statement md2000 made.
I can’t speak for all the websites in the world but this one, meaning the Dope, emphatically does ***not ***take ownership of anything. It claims a non-exclusive right to reprint your comments in any future works or advertising pertaining to the Dope. You retain copyright of all your words and you can use them in any way you see fit, except that you cannot bar the Dope from also doing so.
Not necessarily true? I saw a discussion of the publishing rights - someone had bought some letters from a famous person, since there’s a market for such things. The discussion said that the writer and hence his estate continued to own the copyright, although the owner of the physical letters could own that actual written copy, they could display it, but they could not publish the content without the heirs’ permission. (i.e. in the “collected works of…”) Think of it as buying the first published copy of a book. You can do whatever you are allowed to do with a book, lend, display, discuss - but reprinting the contents is not one thing you are allowed to do.
But yes, you are right, the copyrights over time have been complex and convoluted.
And that’s just for the USA. And… different mediums may be treated differently, IIRC there’s publishing and performance rights for music an lyrics involved in music, etc.
Perhaps what the OP has heard is the argument over “Happy Birthday to You” which apparently, depending on who you believe, is still copyright (although under lawsuit) while written in the late 1800’s or 1910 originally. Plus Sherlock Holmes (another interesting lawsuit) where items published before 1900 were disputed in court (last Sherlock appeared 1935, so is does that protect all things Sherlock? No, according to the latest court decision)
I wasn’t really interested in my mother’s things, I was using her as an example. I’ve read posts at other sites saying basically "If you didn’t take the photo, you don’t own the copyright, don’t post it. It doesn’t matter if the photo was taken in the 1860s, you didn’t take it you can’t post it.
Seems difficult to me to know who would own the copyright then. My mother, to keep using her as an example, had no will. The photos and such I kept as no one really wanted it. If I died today then I’d guess one of my kids would get it. In such a case I was just wondering who could do what with the images. Seems strange if I wanted to write a family history and use a photo from 100 years ago I’d have to go track down some copyright holder and there could be 100s of people that could possibly be.
This isn’t a legal question, I just was curious is all.
But this isn’t something unique to copyright. Any property, tangible or intangible, which a person owns which they do not bequeath specifically in their will goes to the residuary beneficiaries, who may be more than one person, in which case they share it equally (unless they come to some other arrangement - “you take the rings and I’ll take the bangles”). And it turn it may pass to their residuary beneficiaries. And so forth.
This thing is kind of self-correcting. If your mother can’t be bothered to make a will dealing with certain assets, and if her heirs can’t be bothered to make an agreement about how to divide up the assets, the likelihood is that the assets aren’t worth very much. Or, in other words, if you make a copy of a 100-year old family photograph, it’s not very likely that any of your cousins will sue you for breach of copyright.
No. That graph is deliberately misleading for ideological reasons, as part of an anti-copyright diatribe. It shows only the worst possible case rather than the varied realities that are shown in the link I gave.
Even so, you are reading it wrong. You’re apparently looking at the light yellow blocks that represent the 1909 Act. That Act was superseded by the 1976 Act. Works created in 1899 are now totally covered by the provisions of the 1998 Act as given in my link. Unpublished works created in 1899 may possibly be still under copyright in certain circumstances but no published works are.
The 1976 Act got rid of any renewals, period. I have no idea what this line might mean with a present tense verb like “are.” The 1976 Act was written specifically to bring the U.S. system in line with the EU terms, since we are signatories to the Berne Convention. There is no renewal in European copyright either, to my knowledge.
A few countries have their own unique copyright laws and conflicts can arise from them. Normally, however, if something is copyright in one major western area it is under copyright in all, and if in the public domain is in the public domain in all. There are a few exceptions but since the alternative is utter chaos, there are very few.
What defines “unpublished” then? Is a photo from 1920 published if it’s been printed or would it need to be in a book or newspaper?
I am kind of interested as I buy photos from antique stores that have names on the back to give back to people looking for family members. I’ve seen places say, “If you didn’t take the photo, you don’t own the copyright, take it down.” How can one ever know who owns copyright in such a case, especially if there’s no will, and how many wills spell out, X owns the copyright to my photos?
Published covers a wide terrain, but for most practical purposes it means being presented to the public in a durable form. Remember we’re talking about the pre-Snapchat era. A family photo album is not published, since no multiple copies are involved.
This has nothing to do with copyright so I’m a bit lost. Are you saying that you want to post these images so that people can find them and have them returned to you? I’d be amazed if those people would go after you for a copyright infringement. And the only penalty they can invoke is tell you to remove the photo, which you would do anyway if you returned it.
You can do anything you like with your own website. If you want to be so careful about not breaking the law that you prohibit perfectly legal uses, that’s up to you. If you want to be more inclusive, you can. My personal opinion is that nothing would happen or could happen, but I started by saying see a lawyer and I’ll keep saying that.
That’s a good question and one with no good answers. Nobody thought 50 or 75 or 100 years ago that this could become an issue. The law has retroactively put things into copyright without taking into account the legal limbo of many items. Old, unpublished photos are simply not in the same category as old published books, though.
I just want to make it clear that possession of a copyrighted work has nothing to do with having possession of the copyright itself.
You can buy an Andy Warhol painting, but the rights to make copies, etc., belong to the heirs of the Warhol estate (unless otherwise assigned).
A work is an expression of an idea, that is protected. The physical object is just atoms. (But note that in some places like Europe, the creator retains the right to prevent destruction, damage, changes to his/her work.)
So whoever has possession of the OP’s mother’s photos has no special standing in regards to copyright entitlements.
This I understood, which is why I was asking, how does one determine who owns said copyright on something that’s been unpublished and sold to an antique store.
Well someone must, either me, my brother, my sister or all three of us.
There’s always the possibility that out there are photos of WWI, or a diary from WWI, both it seems could still be under copyright so no one could use them unless the copyright owner could be found.
That may be the policy at certain websites, and I wouldn’t criticize that policy. On my own premises or website, my policy would be “If the copyright owner wants, they can send me a cease and desist letter, which I will be happy to honor if I have reason to believe they’re the legitimate owner.”
It’s an interesting question. My father is a retired patent attorney, and I asked him whether putting something on the web was publishing. He replied that as far as he knew, that had not yet been adjudicated. That was maybe 10 years ago, and perhaps it has been since then.
US law requires that anything published be submitted to the Library of Congress, with a (relatively small) fine for failure to comply. Goodness knows they don’t want a copy of everything put on the web! I suspect that this definition of “published” may differ from the definition used for copyright publication purposes, in the future.
Not that this is particularly relevant to the question, since there was no web back then, and now that there is, copyright terms are defined differently; obviously nothing that could have been first published on the web would be out of copyright, regardless of whether posting on the web is “publishing” for copyright purposes. They won’t have to decide that for 50 years or more!
No, not really. Current U.S. law says that everything is copyright as soon as it is published, technically “fixed in tangible form”. That includes everything on the internet, including every post of yours on the Dope.
What you’re thinking of is copyright registration. To register a copyright, two copies of a print work must be sent to the Library of Congress. However, a single uploaded copy of a webpage will do, or a computer disk or CD-ROM. (See Circular 66, Copyright Registration for Online Works)
The reason you want to register copyright is: “Registered works may be eligible for statutory damages and attorney’s fees in successful litigation. Finally, if registration occurs within 5 years of publication, it is considered prima facie evidence in a court of law.” Otherwise you are limited to actual damages - money you can prove a copyright infringement cost you in direct losses - and a takedown order.
There are obviously no penalties whatsoever for not registering a copyright.
Certainly they could. Making an unlicensed copy of a copyrighted work is not a crime.
They’d be taking a risk - that the copyright owners would turn up, and would sue them for damages for breach of copyright. But they might form the view that (a) the copyright owners are unlikely to turn up or sue, and (b) if they did, the damages they might hope to recover would be trivial.
[QUOTE=US Copyright Office]
Does mandatory deposit apply to publications published only online?
Effective February 24, 2010, the Copyright Office adopted an interim regulation governing mandatory deposit of online serials published in the United States and available only online. The regulation establishes that online-only works are exempt from mandatory deposit until the Copyright Office issues a demand for deposit of such works. Demands will be made only for works published on or after February 24, 2010. Publishers may also submit back issues.
[/QUOTE]
This suggests that in the view of the Copyright Office, works that appear online have been published. So be sure to save a copy of anything you’ve put online since 2010, in case the Copyright Office wants it later. :rolleyes:
This lawyer’s site has some examples of the other exception to the general requirement of sending in two copies of everything published in the US: If doing so would be too burdensome. In that case, you ask for permission not to send in two copies of, say, your sculpture. I wonder how many sculptors actually ask for such permission (or send in their two required copies).
I had no clue that by buying a painting you didn’t buy to the right to reproduce it, etc…
Is this something recent? Do buyers nowadays also buy specifically the copyright along with the work for some reason?
If I buy a painting (or more probably a photograph) for $ 500 000, and the painter/photographer then decides to mass-produce copies sold $5 each, do I have any recourse?