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PSA: Most people don't know copyright law for old photos is way shorter than they think | Legal Discussions - Hub Chatter

faithg26•2mo ago

PSA: Most people don't know copyright law for old photos is way shorter than they think

I was reading a thread on legal advice and found out that for photos taken before 1978, the copyright protection is only 28 years with a renewal option. If the copyright wasn't renewed, they're public domain now. I looked it up on the US Copyright Office website and saw that only about 15% of pre-1978 photos were actually renewed. So a ton of those vintage photos on eBay or Etsy are legally free to use for anything. Doesn't that change how you think about buying old photo collections?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_ruby2mo ago

That's an interesting way to look at it, but I see this differently. The fact that a photo might technically be public domain doesn't mean it's easy to find a clean, high-resolution copy you can actually use. Most of those vintage photos on eBay come from someone's personal collection where the original prints or negatives are owned by a collector who has the only high-quality version in existence. Even if the copyright has lapsed, that collector still controls the only physical copy, so they can charge whatever they want for it. And honestly, a lot of the value in buying old photo collections isn't about the legal rights anyway, it's about getting access to the actual artifact itself for study or display.

jakep242mo ago

That part about "the collector still controls the only physical copy" really hit home for me. I had a situation where I needed a clear scan of an old local map for a project, and even though it was from the 1800s and clearly public domain, the only decent copy was in a university's special collection that charged a scanning fee. It's a practical reality that ownership of the physical item often matters more than the legal status of the image.