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« on: December 22, 2020, 10:55:19 PM »
As this title contains 'Historical Photographs' I thought I would add a cautionary tale.
In the period 1950s-1980s my father was a photographer in business in Teignmouth (U.K). He would take photographs of ships at the local port and because of UK Purchase Tax law was only allowed to sell to ships crews or shipping related companies. A couple of years ago, I found a copy of one of his photos on a Dutch Coaster website, not credited to him. All photographs sold were stamped on the reverse side with a copyright stamp but of course the act of scanning does not record the back of photographs. I contacted the site concerned and was told that this issues was under the remit of a US company that maintained the site content. When I contacted the US company, they said that they would change the details but only after I had sworn an affidavit in a US court. Obviously I did not pursue this.
Experience with other sites has often worked well, usually I offer some additional info on the actual photo circumstances to show thanks.
I have several thousand photos taken by my father and myself, but not uploaded them to any site because I find that the copyright issue is too stressful to resolve should someone choose to violate it.
Even so, some photographs still find their way into books published by reputable publishers, mainly because they are wrongly advised that someone else holds the copyright.
Best regards for Christmas and the New Year, keep safe and well,
Tom