Copyright Aid

Hello

I own a large collection of 1930s postcards that state Valentine and Sons have copyright and the images are by Lawson Wood - grand pops the monkey/ape ones. My question is can I use the images from the postcards on /for my merchandise? I am confused because Valentine and sons no longer exist but were taken over by Hallmark Cards. Also, it is not 70 years since the death of Lawson Wood. So where do I stand legally? Who owns the copyright to the images on the postcards now?

many thanks

Hi Sallie,

As you correctly indicate Lawson Wood died in October 1957 and so copyright in his work lasts until the 31 December 2027. Precisely who owns that copyright today is difficult to say without knowledge of the contractual relationship he had with Valentines. Since the UK copyrght is still in force you would need permission to use his illustrations. You should note that a great many of his illustrations are available as prints in the USA, although it is not clear from the websites selling these copies whether they have been made under licence, or if the Wood images are in the public domain in the USA, due to the effect of their different historical copyright terms.

I suggest you contact the Artists Collecting Society to see if they have any record of the present day owner of the copyright in Lawson Wood's work. His estate is not represented by the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS).

While you could contact Hallmark, I doubt if the current staff will know much about the historic relationship which existed between Wood and Valentine & Sons, so they will not be in a position to know if they inherited any copyright in Wood's work along with other aspects of the Valentine business. You can read Hallmark's fairly comprehensive terms concerning their intellectual property for their present day catalogue here. That statement may or may not apply to the older Valentine stock which they acquired when they bought the company from John Waddington Ltd.

Many thanks