1923 front cover
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Oysterbay19
- New Member
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Mon Aug 25, 2025 1:05 pm
1923 front cover
Hi I'm a newbie here but wondering if anyone can help. I belong to a car club and the members have asked me to make some greeting cards from the front covers of some magazines they own from 1923. My question is would the cover pictures still be covered by copyright. Can I sell the cards to members. No profit would be made just cover costs. Thank you for any help you can give me.
Re: 1923 front cover
Hi Oysterbay19 and welcome to the forum,
You don't mention what the original covers consist of, but I presume that they are either mainly photographs plus some text or graphic works plus some text. I think we can disregard the text because it will probably be too brief to really qualify for protection as a literary work. But the distinction concerning the illustration on the cover matters because at the time the magazines were published the relevant copyright law (the 1911 Copyright Act) treated photographs differently to other forms of artistic works. Photographs were only protected for 50 years from the date they were made, whereas a drawing or painting, for example, was protected for the lifetime of the artist plus 50 years after his or her death. So if we take hand-drawn artwork as the worst case, you can see that if the artist was in his mid twenties when he made the illustration on the cover, and he might reasonably have lived to the age of 75, so dying around 1975, copyright in his work would have been due to end about now. However during that period of his copyright, the law was changed and today we need to add 70 rather than 50 years to the post-death part of the term of protection, meaning copyright in the case of a 25-year old artist would exist until the mid 2040s. Obviously if the artist was about fifty when he made the artwork, we can assume that he died around 1950 meaning that the copyright would have ended about 5 years ago.
Your next question might well be, how do I find out when the artist died? That is a more difficult issue as you obviously need to know the identity of the artist. However, if the artist is truly anonymous then a different set of rules can be applied. They are to be found in section 12(3) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, namely that
And if the covers consisted of photographs, then again copyright would have lapsed because the term of protection was for a fixed period and not determined by the lifetime of the photographer.
I am sorry that this is quite a long way of saying that you probably don't need to worry about copyright, but as you can see it's complicated so you do need to be aware of the details. You need to look carefully on the cover and inside the magazines to see if the artist (assuming the cover is a drawing or painting) was credited, and if he was, try to find out when he died. If he was relatively well-known this may be easier than if he was a relatively obscure member of staff of the magazine. If you have absolutely no luck in finding the date of death for an named artist, you can apply for what is known as an orphan works licence (details on how to do this here). However that process will incur a small fee, but it would protect you from liability if an heir of the artist decided to sue you.
Whether or not you intend to sell the greeting cards is irrelevant to all of this process.
I hope this has answered your question.
You don't mention what the original covers consist of, but I presume that they are either mainly photographs plus some text or graphic works plus some text. I think we can disregard the text because it will probably be too brief to really qualify for protection as a literary work. But the distinction concerning the illustration on the cover matters because at the time the magazines were published the relevant copyright law (the 1911 Copyright Act) treated photographs differently to other forms of artistic works. Photographs were only protected for 50 years from the date they were made, whereas a drawing or painting, for example, was protected for the lifetime of the artist plus 50 years after his or her death. So if we take hand-drawn artwork as the worst case, you can see that if the artist was in his mid twenties when he made the illustration on the cover, and he might reasonably have lived to the age of 75, so dying around 1975, copyright in his work would have been due to end about now. However during that period of his copyright, the law was changed and today we need to add 70 rather than 50 years to the post-death part of the term of protection, meaning copyright in the case of a 25-year old artist would exist until the mid 2040s. Obviously if the artist was about fifty when he made the artwork, we can assume that he died around 1950 meaning that the copyright would have ended about 5 years ago.
Your next question might well be, how do I find out when the artist died? That is a more difficult issue as you obviously need to know the identity of the artist. However, if the artist is truly anonymous then a different set of rules can be applied. They are to be found in section 12(3) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, namely that
meaning that the covers would now be free from copyright protection.(3) If the work is of unknown authorship, copyright expires—
(a) at the end of the period of 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was made, or
(b) if during that period the work is made available to the public, at the end of the period of 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which it is first so made available
And if the covers consisted of photographs, then again copyright would have lapsed because the term of protection was for a fixed period and not determined by the lifetime of the photographer.
I am sorry that this is quite a long way of saying that you probably don't need to worry about copyright, but as you can see it's complicated so you do need to be aware of the details. You need to look carefully on the cover and inside the magazines to see if the artist (assuming the cover is a drawing or painting) was credited, and if he was, try to find out when he died. If he was relatively well-known this may be easier than if he was a relatively obscure member of staff of the magazine. If you have absolutely no luck in finding the date of death for an named artist, you can apply for what is known as an orphan works licence (details on how to do this here). However that process will incur a small fee, but it would protect you from liability if an heir of the artist decided to sue you.
Whether or not you intend to sell the greeting cards is irrelevant to all of this process.
I hope this has answered your question.
Advice or comment provided here is not and does not purport to be legal advice as defined by s.12 of Legal Services Act 2007
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Oysterbay19
- New Member
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Mon Aug 25, 2025 1:05 pm
Re: 1923 front cover
Hi Andy Thank you so much for your comprehensive reply. The pictures are from car magazines from the 1920’s. The original magazine covers are printed illustrations . There are no creditations in the original magazines who the artists were. And the original magazines have been out of print for over 30 years. I’m certainly now reading up the orphan works license.
Many thanks for your help
Many thanks for your help