Have you ever wondered about who "owns" the rights to a photograph, or anything else that you personally have not created, and what "rights" you might have for their use? I sure have, all the time. Obituaries, Letters, Photographs, books or magazine articles; can you use them without fear of legal litigation? How much is "fair use" and who determines what is fair?
Never fear, help is here. . .
Who Owns the Copyrights to Your Photographs by Steve Danko, who has just completed a bit of training in Copyright issues, writes about the Copyright laws in the USA and provides some links to sites with additional information.
To Post or Not to Post: That is the Question by footnoteMaven, who writes about her dilemma regarding posting a family photograph from the early 1900's. She has analyzed the origin of the photograph step-by-step and her analysis could easily be used as a checklist for determining if it is feasible to post or publish any photograph without fear of legal litigation.
In my opinion, in case anyone cares, a little bit of common sense goes a long way in determining usability in these matters. But keep in mind, the wrong decision at the wrong time could see you in court.
There is a lot of information out there on this topic, so ignorance is not an excuse: a Google search for copyright+"fair use" brings up only 6,500,000 hits, the first one being U.S. Copyright Office - Fair Use
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The ability to comment has been turned off for all blog posts effective 21 May 2018. Kinexxions has been inactive for more than two years and most comments have come to me directly via email from readers but more than a few were simply spam. My desire is to keep the blog available to the public since there is value in what has been published, particularly posts dealing with family history.
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Becky Wiseman - - kinexxions@gmail.com
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