by Joelle Steele

I just got yet another nasty email from someone who posted his old photo on a website and claimed that because he owns the photo he also owns the copyright, and that I infringed on his copyright when I republished the photo for use in an article. He called me names and even threatened me. And that is just one reason why I don’t like doing work for amateur collectors.

So, for anyone else out there who thinks that owning a photo means you also own the copyright, the United States copyright office makes it very clear that owning an old photo and owning it’s copyright are two different things. It doesn’t matter whether you were given the old photo, inherited it, or bought it online or in an antique store. You only own the old photo, NOT the copyright.

Old photographs fall into the public domain if they were created, published, or printed before 1923, were created by an unknown photographer more than 120 years ago, or were created by a photographer who died more than 70 years ago. So, unless the photographer (the original copyright owner) gave, sold, bequeathed, or transferred the copyright of a photograph to you, you do NOT own the copyright.

I use old photos under the “Fair Use” section of the United States Copyright Law because that allows me to use them to educate people, which is what I do in my articles and books.