Breach of copyright! - photographs

[Modeldad]

I also understand that there may be another issue in that certain legal rights are not granted to photographs taken by German and Japanese combatants of WW-2.

Let us not confuse the issues of one who owns a "picture" and one who owns the copyright to that picture. They are not one in the same.

I strongly doubt that most pictures taken of WW-2 German aircraft have any copyright protection what so ever. Possibly a British or American soldier, or the estate ther of, who took a picture of captured aircraft could assert a copyright claim.

Copyright claims are often used to do nothing more than to try to intimidate other people, e.g. copyright claims of the Ethell Estate to pictures that were taken by the US governemt.

[Mikael Olrog]

Many of us have struggled to gain permissions etc to publish photos, but what real cases do we know of people:
A) Claiming the copyright of a photo that someone else has published?
B) Succesfully claiming financial compensation for it having been used?
C) Going to court to claim compensation?

What I'm looking for is what real consequenses or risks do you/we as authors run when using photos that we think we have valid permission to publish in our work and publish in good faith? This is an important issue and since the agreements you sign with publishers usually tend to make the author accept any financial consequences of any copyright disputes caused by the published work.

Secondly, if someone starts a process for compensation, would that process have to be initiated in the country that the publisher is based in, or can it be started in for example the country the person who claims the compensation is based?

A third question regarding the photo collections that BA-MA, Deutsches Museum etc have which they claim copyright for and charge heavily for. Can they really make a court case regarding any of their photos in their collections? My guess is that more than one of their photos can be located in other collections so it can be questioned if they really are right in claiming these copyright fees (It's ok to claim a fee for making a duplicate or scan). Have they ever made any processes to claim compensation for photos used without their permission which they claim to be theirs?

Obviously my question is limited to photos of WWII German/axis aircraft.
/Mikael

[Boris Ciglic]

I see that general discussion is focused on the question what if somebody claims the copyright for a published photo. From my experience, I have been able to see countless cases where diffierent veterans or their families, or collectors, possesed similar photos, even in cases where these people had no bound at all (like serving in same unit or at same time). I have also seen numerous cases where same photos could be found in different archives, museums or private persons. I personally have quite a lot of photos which other people also have, indeed I've even seen some of them at ebay. Still, I do not think that this is a real problem when we talk about the "Breach of copyright".
What is really disturbing is the fact that many photos are simply scanned from published books/articles and then re-published in other books/articles. Of course, these are easily recognized by apple-sized pixels, and bad retouche. In the past such practice was thought to be reserved for Eastern European publishers aqnd authors but I see very often that it has deep roots in the west as well. The last example is a book published by Motorbuchverlag about Bf 109 in foreign service and I was stunned by the amount of badly retouched scans in it.
The greatest nonsense of such practice is (in my opinion and from my experience) that in era of internet and forums like this one such behavour is absolutely unnecessary. In most cases I was able to find certain authors and historians and when I asked for help and photos I got positive reply almost every time, people were generally very keen to help. No one ever asked for money, for a contract about the copyrights or anything similar.
So what is the problem then? Why should someone publish a bad reproduction of a published photo and proudly write that it comes from his collection (the other way-around they take is to state they got it from late Heinz Nowarra or somebody else who passed away!) when they can try to get in touch with people which have the originals. Vanity, avarice or simple idleness?

[Jan vd Heuvel]

Denes,

you are right, owning an original negative give you more rights, but as I have stated it doesn't mean you have the copyright.

Boris,

You kwno I am one of the persons who share his original photo's with someone who needs them for a book or article without asking for any
money. And you know I have many original photo's.

Yes, the real problem is that current software allows to make photo's published in books or magazines printable.

And who can afford the costs of fighting against such breaches of copyright ?!

In my opinion it is perfectly safe to use "original "photo's" for a publication if you state it comes from the collection of xxx.
When you state the photo is copyrighted to xxx you will be on the trickyer
side.

Many photo's were swapped between "comrades", so there are many prints around and each owner can claim the copyright untill proven otherwise.

Regards,
Jan

[mkenny]

To further confuse things 'official' wartime photos were distributed to all the Picture Agencies by both The Germans and The Allies free of charge. Pathe for instance has for sale its WW2 Newsreel footage that is, for the most part, made up of the footage taken by the combat cameramen and the rights are now held by the IWM.
There are hundreds of photo agencies that have 'copyright' of these (sometimes) famous photos so how do you decide who has to be credited?
Bovington Tank Museum sells copies of photos that belong to Koblenz so I would say it would be impossible to show where the copy used came from
Has anyone ever been forced to pay royalties for any WW2 photo?
I have never heard of it happening.

[Tony Williams]

As an author, I have struggled with this one as well.

The US Government generously considers its own material, including photographs, as being "in the public domain", and charges nothing in the way of reproduction rights. if you buy photos from them, you can use them as you wish (except that you cannot, of course, claim your own copyright for them). However, their publications may include pictures which originate elsewhere - where they may still be copyrighted. Very confusing!

Matters are being made worse by the fact that, although the period of time that copyrights last varies internationally, the tendency seems to be for it to increase.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[Pilot]

@ mkenny- once before I get a bulk of images of the Yugoslav Kingdom warplanes from one archive from Germany. But I have change my mind about use in publication when I get info how much I have to pay for this. Only I have pay is the images from the IWM. But never publish it.

Fact is that in the USA many thing is Public Domain and this is by my opinion reseachers paradize.

The fact is that many authors, not only from East Europe, just take image from publication or take it from web site or forum and place it into their publication. Main problem is in the idea- why they publish the subject for which they have no material. If you have research subject for sure is that you will found some material too. This simply denote that this publication are worth nothing and have not to be buy.

Have you ever try to scan some paper money like... Euro for excample? Gouverment are long time ago make agreement for the manufacturers of the scanners to make scanning software which could recognize that kind of "material" and scaner is block in moment. Best possible protection in the moment. Also all printers left invisible sign on every sample of print [yellow color is used] and who have authorities can with easy trace from which printer is something printed. If this technology could be used for the protection of the published books or magazine this will mean instant death of many of "famous" publisher. I hope that something will change in that way.

We in Serbia say "kind words open doors of steel" - I realy don't understabnd why somebody simply don't ask if need something.

[Dénes Bernád]

Originally Posted by Mikael Olrog

regarding the photo collections that BA-MA, Deutsches Museum etc have which they claim copyright for and charge heavily for.

AFAIK, BA-MA, Deutsches Museum, etc. do not charge their fees for copyright (which they legally do not have), but rather for publishing purposes, i.e., 'publication fee', which is a totally different matter.

[Franek Grabowski]

Denes
And what the copyright is?

[Dénes Bernád]

Franek, AFAIK all photos and other material published officially during the IIIrd Reich doesn't have any copyright any more.