williamappleton

Yes it is fair use in my opinion, especially if the restored photo is an orphaned work. The copyright office says some 50% or more of copyrighted works are orphaned works that people can't use because of this exact problem. People are scared to use them. But if the original creator disappeared, made no attempt to monetize his work, and abandoned it, then why is it bad for society, or for the industry, for me to restore the photos and sell them? What's "garbage" is the idea that by "violating" the unknown creator's copyright, I am "hurting" that person. That absurd. If that person came forward somehow, then I would pay them their fair share. Why isn't this signed into law? Because the big recording studios and major IP holders lobby Congress to make the copyright laws stricter for their benefit. They don't want people using orphaned works. Even when it's impossible to find the original owner. In the digital age, there is no excuse for an artist to leave their work behind unsigned. Photo websites all have usernames, digital files contain tags and meta-data, works on paper should be signed, etc. If you leave behind orphaned work, then it's your negligence. How is this any different than if you drop coins on the floor or leave your couch on the curb and someone drives by and takes it? That's not theft, that's abandonment.

A more accurate comparison would be finding a work of art in a flash drive or SD card, opening the file, modifying it slightly, adding a layer or filter, and then printing it out on paper, and selling it. I've added several layers of changes, and changed it's medium from digital to paper. Is it a new work? Like I've said before, the law is NOT clear on this. The CD example would be obvious copyright infringement because it's a pure copy of the original with no modifications. Now, if the original work was on an old phonograph cylinder, and the sound was clouded by static, and I took that cylinder and converted the sound to digital, removed the noise, enhanced the sound, and burned it on a CD. Is it a new work? I think it would be. Or at the very least, I would be insulated from major penalties.

I hid my identity because I know how emotional society is and it's shoot first and ask (the legal) questions later. I should be able to candidly ask about these things without being labeled a crook, but unfortunately, that's not possible. These questions should be asked. This is how laws are made. The law is not clear on these issues. That is why the Supreme Court exists. There are people on both sides of this argument. Beyond the legal jargon, I'm simply asking a philosophical question more than anything else. Ethics. Who am I hurting by scanning these dusty Kodachromes? Am I depriving someone of royalties? Am I harming society as a whole? Is society worse off if people restored old photos and sold them? Does it make me immoral to restore someone's old abandoned film and make money off it? In my opinion, the answer is no to these questions. The orphaned work legislation should have been passed into law. Hopefully it will soon.

Spearhead, It's more complicated than that. This isn't a pure copy. There is work being done by me. That includes scanning, editing, and restoring an old film photo. Not only that, but the medium is being changed from analog to digital. Arguably, the work I'm doing is enough to create a separate body of work. The time required to do this is vastly greater than the time it took for the unknown photographer to point his camera and press the shutter button. The copyright laws are not clear on this. Not as clear as you seem to think.

To the guy who called me a copyright violator, think again. I just read this great article: Legalities of photo restoration services - Is it a copyright violation? Here are the key excerpts: "Your client brought you an old, water-damaged photo of her Great-Grandma Mabel that she found in her mom’s attic. She wants you to restore the photo. But, is it legal? Is it a copyright violation? These are questions you should ask before you agree to restore any pictures. "Copyright law is a confusing area of the law, even for lawyers. Many areas of copyright law have been intentionally left undefined so that judges can make decisions based on each case. This makes it even more confusing. But, there are a few things for you to consider to make an informed decision as to whether or not you want to agree to restoration of another photographer’s work." "There is an argument that photo restoration is creating a new work, making it transformative, but (again) there is no clear answer. One Supreme Court case (A.V. v. iParadigms), stated that work “can be transformative in function or purpose without altering or actually adding to the original work.” This would seem to support the argument that restoration is transformative and, therefore, would qualify as fair use, but until a case is actually tried there is no clear answer on which way the courts would rule." So much for quickly labeling me a copyright violator and a liar.

BTW, I'm glancing over the copyright laws, it's a giant 2 MB PDF file with 370 pages. I'd like to think I'm reasonably smart, but I can barely understand any of it. It is the most jargon filled, dense document you can possibly read. Literally every word and phrase can be argued or debated. I don't know how anyone can possibly think copyright law is "clear" about a situation like this.

"However, I can cite the relevant copyright law if you would like." I can find the text just fine thanks. The law as written is often very different from precedent and case law. Judges interpret laws in various ways, some are more literal, and some are not. If you have any decided cases I would love to see them.

This is why I had to create a pseudonym before asking this. I knew it wasn't long before I got a long drawn out moral lecture.

"The law is less ambivalent than you. Even fair use requires substantial modification to qualify as a copyrightable work.If this was a grey area, films that were digitally reconstructed would lose their copyright. That's not happening." Well, I never said they would lose the copyright. I was referring to derivative works with a separate copyright. The law is less ambivalent than you. A poster above mentioned the Vivian Maier case. If the law is so definite and decided, then why are lawyers still battling the case out in court 3 years after it was filed? I don't believe you backed up your soapbox lecture with any concrete precedent or relevant case law that applies to this particular situation. Emotional beliefs about what is you think is "right" and "wrong" doesn't count in court. Save that for the philosophy class.

I'm also asking because I don't know if it's not actually illegal. I'm not sure what the gray area is here, and the law seems pretty undecided and/or vague. I'm not a lawyer and the lawyers I know don't practice this type of law, but even by Googling, I see nothing but question marks. I don't think there has ever been a legal case involving these facts: A guy finds a dusty box of 60-year old tourist film slides at a flea market, scans a picture of say -- a mountainside in Tibet with two goats, edits it, sells it, and gets sued. I'm almost certain it would be a first. Is it abandonment? Is it an orphaned work? Is my editing enough to make it an original derivative work?

So I've spent a few hours down the legal rabbit hole known as Google search. It appears that there are a couple of important issues here, for anyone that is wondering, or wants to add anything. The first is digital copies of works that were never digital as originals. There seems to be a legal debate/gray area here, and some courts have ruled that the digital copy is a separate copyright, and others have ruled it is not. Also, some courts disagree on which modifications would suffice and how different the image has to be. I've found one Supreme Court case, but it seems really broad since it did not establish the minimum threshold for modifications needed to regard a work as "original" in it's own right. It also didn't precisely define "original" -- or at least, by digital age standards (SCOTUS cases were all in the early 90's) -- hence the subsequent legal debates about digital images. The second is orphaned works (the Kodachrome slides are the perfect example), where the original creator cannot be identified or found. Even the Copyright office agrees it's a problem. The U.S. government has tried passing legislation easing all penalties for people who want to use orphaned work, if a good-faith attempt is made to locate the creator of the work. I think that's a great idea. However, those bills failed to pass into law. It may be kind of weird, but if I manage to do this, I'm sort of hoping the 1-in-1 billion chance of someone coming out of the woodwork and claiming an image actually happens. It would be an epic, years long legal case with Supreme Court potential. .

It says that I warrant that the content is my "original creation". I guess it depends what "original creation" means. Does it count if you take a photo from a slide, modify it in lightroom, apply filters, adjust the clarity, remove grain, resize, and convert to .jpg or .png? If so, then yes, it is my original creation.

Why? Who would challenge your father's photos in court? Who would sue over such a thing? Ethically, I think it's fine. I feel like I rescued these slides from obscurity, and hope to edit them so the world can see them. I don't think I'm taking any potential profits from anyone's pocket or depriving someone of royalties. They abandoned the photo decades ago.

Hi, I'm fascinated by old photos and discovering new ones on eBay. I've purchased some amazing slides of landscapes,from places like Hawaii, Switzerland, Greece, etc. They're tourist snapshots, from the 1950's-1980's. Now that I've been getting into photo editing, I want to buy a scanner capable of scanning the slides in high resolution. I'm also interested in potentially selling them on stock photo sites like Shutterstock. Not really for profit, but to make back my cost of purchasing the slides and the scanner (I doubt I'll make much off them). I've read some posts pointing out potential copyright issues. It is my view that the photos are now mine, and the previous owner abandoned them, even though the copyright was never transferred. From what I read, the copyright law is a bit iffy when it comes to abandonment. If there was ever a case to be made in regard to abandonment, this is it. Furthermore, how on earth would anyone be able to recognize a landscape photo from 70 years ago? Not only to identify it, but determine that it was taken by them or a relative. Then they would need to prove it. I think the odds of that happening are slim to none. Basically zero. Regarding the documentation required by the sites -- what's to prevent me from claiming that these photos are my "father's" photos that I found in the "attic"? My father has passed away, so I am entitled to his estate as his only heir. Despite the legal issues that exist here, I just don't see a potential liability. Especially considering that I'm not going to scan photos with recognizable faces. What do you all think?