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Old 17th November 2017, 00:09
edwest2 edwest2 is online now
Alter Hase
 
Join Date: Jan 2016
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Re: what a slimey person

Hi Brian,


Not here to shoot you down but copyright law is complicated and is sometimes ignored or too hard to understand. Some examples:

A) In the US, an old photo album from World War II is sold at an estate sale or ends up in an antique shop. Surely, the original owner doesn't want it, right?

B) A photo album ends up going to a university or veterans group. In the case of veterans, some may have put up photos on a site dedicated to the unit and service they belonged to, and are meant for veterans and relatives to see them like looking back into the past. They may have a statement on the site like "no photographs on this site may be reproduced" or "photographs may be reproduced by contacting us, getting written permission and following certain guidelines."

C) Some photos are passed on to a relative who, for whatever reason, decides to sell them on eBay. Say after the relative has passed on.


These are not all the possibilities.


Take the US Library of Congress:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/195_copr.html


Copyright law in Germany for photographs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photog...right_(Germany) Note: For some unknown reason, I can't link to the correct page, so click on the question near the top of the page this link goes to.


Now, this is not all-inclusive and I would contact a lawyer in any case. Some photographs may have indeed been granted copyright protection in some cases, either in writing by the original owner (even long after the war), or by assignment to a publisher who now owns the copyright, or a transfer of ownership to heirs or others.

Take the excellent publication, Luftwaffe im Focus. The owner of a photograph may give limited, one-time reproduction rights but retain ownership of the original photo in his collection.

Permission is the key, along with understanding the copyright laws of various countries.




Hope this helps,
Ed
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