Copyright question

[Annie65115]

Our local archives has a wide selection of old photos on a dedicated website. They hold copyright, specifically it says this:

   
Copying and access
This digital image, and all images on (website), are protected by copyright. You may use it for private study or non-commercial research, with due acknowledgement.
You may share it on social media via a linked post or by citing (website) together with the Image Reference. You must not reproduce it by any other means without permission.

Now, what counts as "reproducing it"? I would like to use the picture in a presentation I'm giving, but would need to buy an image licence to do so and they are not cheap!

If I produce, by my own hand (ie not digitally), a black and white drawing of the scene (it's a b+w photo), does this count as a reproduction under the usual terms of such licences? In other words, if I draw the scene, based on the photo, and then use my drawing in the presentation, would I be infringing copyright? (It's a picture of buildings which were in a public place but are no longer standing. No identifiable people in the picture).

[PrawnCocktail]

Someone I know had this problem, with a photo in our local archive, which was not reproducable under copyright law.
He said, "Although reproducing the photograph would be an infringement of copyright producing a drawing of it is not and the reproduced drawing of this scene is what I drew a few years ago", when he put his drawing up on Facebook. As the author of many reports for local government, he must have run into same the problem many times over the years.
If you draw the scene (lucky you, to be able to!), that is your drawing. You have changed the picture, and added your own efforts to the scene. The resultant picture is then copyrightable in it's turn - to you!

[Marmalady]

You might need to consult a lawyer specialising in IP for this

If you draw Mickey Mouse for commercial gain, you are still infringing on Disney's copyright, so copying the photo as a drawing could well also be an infringement.

[MollyC]

The image may be out of copyright, but the Archives holds reproduction rights, by virtue of having collected it and made it available.  I would enquire whether the rules are intended to deal with people using the image for commercial purposes, and if they are intended to exclude people promoting local history in a voluntary way (non-commercial research?).  The statement also has to cover images which the Archives has collected from others on the understanding they will not be reproduced without the donor's permisson (which may be available, depending on circumstances). 

[Biggles50]

They can put in text as they see fit but simply putting it on their website is putting it freely in the public domain.

If they are that concerned they would emblazon all their images with a watermark as per Getty or Alamy Images

As long as you are not getting paid for the presentation you are OK to use it.

My Wife and I have created over 100 presentations for our interest groups and we use images off the internet all the time.

We just add in very small very feint text an acknowledgement as to the source.

[LizzieL]

As I have always understood it, the person who originally took the photograph (or if applicable,  the person who commissioned them to take the photograph) holds the copyright. The archive website would have copyright on the digital image they have made by photographing / scanning the original photograph.

My father was an artist in a small way. He painted a portrait of a famous person based on an amalgamation of photographs and displayed it in a local gallery. It was purchased by someone who admired the famous person. The purchaser then commissioned my father to paint a picture of the same person, but much younger from a photo he supplied. So in the case of the first painting my father had copyright and for the second painting the purchaser had copyright.

The paintings were later donated to a museum local to where the famous person lived. I an not sure whether this was by the purchaser in his lifetime (he died in 1996) or by his widow or children after his death. As they are now in a public art collection images of the two paintings are on the Art UK website. For any painting where copyright still exists (artist still alive or less than 70 years from death) Art UK  clearly differentiates between the copyright holder of the original artwork and the organisation (normally museum or gallery) who produced the digital image for the website.

[Marmalady]

They can put in text as they see fit but simply putting it on their website is putting it freely in the public domain.

WRONG!!!!!

Images are subject to copyright whether published in a book, in a newspaper or on the internet.

The inernet does not constitute Public Domain

[ThrelfallYorky]

As someone who has had my own copyright design and work images "poached" by others, in the past, my advice to you is to contact the copyright owners before attempting to do anything, clearly stating the use / modifications you would wish to do, and the purpose for which the image is intended. And ASK.

You will usually find the owner reasonable, indeed often very happy to have images used,often without fee, especially if there is some credit given to them, and/or it is in a good cause. If you don't, they may, as I did, require a whole print run to be destroyed, or they may request a fee. It's not a good idea to "just go ahead", because other people have blithely done so, and apparently got away with it.
TY

[MollyC]

The Archives should be aware of the specific copyright attached to any image they hold.  They will probably also have scanned it at varous resolutions: thumbnail and low resolution for the website and high resolution for high quality reproduction and security.  They will also hold many, but not all, as original photos.

I am aware of a large collection of mid-20th cent. photos which were donated to an archive by the photographer's executor BUT he had already given the negatives to a local society with a signed agreement and express instructions that the society held the copyright in the images which was under no circumstances to be handed to the archive.  This apparently because once he had been miffed by the archive wishing to charge him for a copy of another photo, for reproduction.

So it can get vey complicated!  That archive will just have to wait until the copyright expires.