Using old B&W aircraft photos for aviation publication

[SkyHigh]

Hello copyrightaid team,

I am an independent aviation writer, with a few books on Amazon, and would like to ask for your assistance.

In 2021, I bid for hundreds of propliner photos on eBay from a British gentleman named Tim, and won the bids.

Since 2021, I have kept the photos packed, and have not used them. However, I would like to use them now, for the simple reason that I am writing a book on one of the aircraft from the batch of photos, the 'Douglas DC-4", and I want to use all the DC-4 photos from the collection, to illustrate my book.

Back in 2021, when I asked Tim about the copyright status of the photos, at the time of the sale, this was the main part of his response:

"Not sure which I took personally of the ones that I have already sent to you - very probably I took none of those. Of the ones I am about to send you, I took Vanguard G-APEX & the BUA Herald. So all the rest are either bought as originals from the photographer (whoever that was) or they are duplicate copies of originals - I would not know which but it is definitely safe to say that providing there are no copyright or not for reproduction etc markings on them then it is ok to publish them including if just the photographer’s name is on them providing there is no copyright etc mark as well.
With regards to contacting people then yes why not. However most of the photos were bought many years ago, in the case of the Paul Tomlin ones c.50 years ago. He was much older than me so may not be with us anymore. Air Britain however is still alive and well - you can Google them for a contact, so yes it’s worth asking the question."

Obviously, Tim thinks it's ok for most of the photos to be published, as they are from unknown photographers (or 'orphan works' I believe they call them). He also mentions the "Air Britain" & "Paul Tomlin" photos that have copyright stamps at the back. That was no issue,[/img] I took out all copyright stamped photos from the collection. I only have the 'bare backed' or photos now, or without any copyright stamps on the back.

I have attached a sample of the plane images, so you can get an idea of what the collection looks like.

I would very much like to publish these photos with my book. If you could help me with some advice on what is the best way for me, I would very much appreciate it.

Kind regards,

Theo Gianna

[AndyJ]

Hi Theo,

Welcome to the forums. It may not have occurred to you but just posting those photos on this forum could amount to infringement unless you had the copyright owner's permission. As we don't know their copyright status at this stage I have deleted the images for now.

These planes presumably date from the late 1940s onwards, so even the oldest of the photographs is likely to be well within the standard copyright term of the lifetime of the author plus 70 years after his or her death. This applies whether or not the photographs have a copyright notice attached to them. Even if they are truly anonymous, they will remain in copyright until 70 years from the end of the year they were first published with authorisation.

You can only begin to treat them as orphaned works and apply for an orphan works licence after you have conducted a diligent search for the identity of the author (the photographer). If during your search you discover that the photographer's name but find that they have died, you then need to discover the identity of their heir. More details on this subject here: IPO Orphan Works Scheme Guidance Notes.

Some of the images may have been produced by professional photographers while they were working for a picture agency or magazine, in which case the current owner of the copyright may well be the agency or publisher or their successors. So I suggest the first thing you need to do is to try and establish who took the photographs, by searching the specialist picture agencies (for example Air Team Images), doing a Google reverse image search, or consulting old reference books etc.

Arguably it might be easier to start with those photos which have a copyright notice and the photographer's name on them. Once you have a name you can go to places like the DACS copyright collecting society or the many professional bodies for photographers (eg the Association of Photographers) and see if your photographer is known to them.

I hope this helps get you started.

[SkyHigh]

Hello Andy,

The reason I joined this site is actually because of you. I went through several copyright websites with most of them being, at best, mediocre. I then found this forum and I read some of your responses to the members copyright queries here and I knew you were on the ball. You explain things very well, and make it easy for the members here to know where they stand with copyright issues.

Regarding my request, I will give it some thought, whether I take a long and arduous road to find the photographers whose photos I now possess. The problem is there would almost certainly be, not one, but, many photographers to chase up, which means it would take time off my writing, which is my main focus. Anyhow Andy, thanks very much for showing me what I need to do. I will definitely try to find the photographers some time in the future, but there's no rush to do so. Luckily, there are other avenues I can take regarding finding aircraft photos, such as Wikimedia for one.

I have one more important question for you but, I will start a new thread for that one. It's regarding Public Domain magazines.