copy right of old family photos,

[merlinmagic]

I am wondering who owns copyright on old family photos. I have many, some taken in England before 1920 other taken in Australia, most before 1900. Many are originals, and they have been handed down by grandparents and parents. I can put them up on a website, what I want to know is can others copy them and display them on their webpages or website. 
Suggestions on how to display without downloading or printing  welcome please.
Merry Christmas to all have a safe one

[kevinf2349]

Basically you can't easily prevent someone that is determined to download a picture from website from doing so. You can watermark the picture, and there are some products that will track who has downloaded and used the picture but as I recall they are extremely expensive.

What I do is add some Javascript to the page to disable the right click

Code: [Select]

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
function click() {
if (event.button==2) {
alert('Copyright of Me');
}
}
document.onmousedown=click
// --></SCRIPT>

Hope this helps

Kevin

ps I forgot to mention that even with this script in place you can really stop someone with the knowledge of how to read the pages HTML.

[PrueM]

Please see the topic here about copyright for photographs:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,459330.0.html

However, this relates only to copies of the original photo (e.g. a scan that you want to post on Rootschat).  Once you post a copy on a website, it is as Kevin has said...hard to stop anyone from nicking it.  You could also add a copyright message of your own to your webpages to try to deter people.

[chinakay]

What I do is add some Javascript to the page to disable the right click
Kevin

Can the javascript be defeated, Kevin?

[kevinf2349]

Chinakey

Yes it can. I will PM you if you want to know how.

Kevin

[andycand]

Hi

The issue of copyright of the photos may be a bit more complicated, I think that the photos taken in England would be governed by English copyright law and the photos taken in Australia by Australian law. In Australia copyright expires 70 years after the death of the photographer, and I believe that photos taken before 1st Jan 1955 are out of copyright. I think it means that just because you own an old photo that has been handed down that you don't own the copyright.

http://www.copyright.org.au/find-an-answer/

On the other hand if you have your own website then the material on that website would, I believe, be your copyright. Unfortunately many people think that anything on the internet is free to use. if others copying your material is of concern then it may be worth getting legal advice re copyright, and your options if someone does download, before posting your material.

One thing to keep in mind re family photos is that a number of 'originals' may have been printed off the negative so other branches could have the same photo.

I haven't tested it but the snipping tool on Windows Vista and Windows 7 enables you to capture what is on the screen so probably bypasses the disablement of the right click, a watermark might be the way to go.

Andy

[merlinmagic]

Thankyou very much for all your assistance and information. I do have a website which is locked, only those with a password to access can look at photos but they can also download them with the password. I will take all the replies I have thus far on board and think about what to do. It is a difficult to decide what to do as I have seen photos from supposedly  safe sites copied and then displayed as their own on other site ( if that makes sense).
Please keep responding.

[Billyblue]

If your photos were taken before the 1960s then there is NO copyright on them, per se.
Copyright on photos didn't exist before then.

The only copyright you can claim is the way you display them on your website.
But, as others have said, it is hard to stop people from downloading them, anyway.

Dawn M

[Nick29]

Of course asking this question opens a new can of worms ....... did you have the rights to post the photo in the first place ?