I'm confused. All I want to do is preserve family history for my genealogy research.
This is one of the main reasons that orphaned works legislation, in some form, is a good idea. There's a lot of concern about it being abused to deprive artists of their rights, but it leaves people in the kind of situation that you describe -- confused, because the laws are not clear. A solution that addresses the concerns raised, but also clarifies your case, is one that I see as ideal.
Note I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but...
You're probably fine reproducing those photos yourself, but the real complication comes in on the issue of doing so "for-profit", so if you want a commercial firm to do the reproduction/archiving, you might find you aren't able to if they are concerned about the copyright issues. If the laws were less confusing, and the issue of "when the copyright status of a work is impossible to determine" were explicitly covered, people would know what the law was, in order to follow it.
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Re: Via Metafandom
Date: 2008-04-20 06:39 am (UTC)This is one of the main reasons that orphaned works legislation, in some form, is a good idea. There's a lot of concern about it being abused to deprive artists of their rights, but it leaves people in the kind of situation that you describe -- confused, because the laws are not clear. A solution that addresses the concerns raised, but also clarifies your case, is one that I see as ideal.
Note I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but...
You're probably fine reproducing those photos yourself, but the real complication comes in on the issue of doing so "for-profit", so if you want a commercial firm to do the reproduction/archiving, you might find you aren't able to if they are concerned about the copyright issues. If the laws were less confusing, and the issue of "when the copyright status of a work is impossible to determine" were explicitly covered, people would know what the law was, in order to follow it.