Would It Be Legal ?

[TobaccorRoad]

Years back I bought some tourist 35mm slides brought back to the states, mostly Virgin Islands & Mexico. They are commercial and packed 5 to a strip holder. I believe they were sold in the 50s? The original price was $1.00 per a strip of five.
I started scanning them and then thought , will they be legal to upload to Flickr and such? Some were made by GAF and a couple other companies. I would guess that they are still under copy write law?
Need I worry?
Ron B

[melek]

You are fine with reproducing them. The copyright on these photos expired after 50 years.

If you are ever unsure, reproduce the photos and provide credit the photographer (if known) or the company that holds the copyright. In this case, it would be Dixter or the name of the company that distributed/sold the photos.

By doing this, you are making clear that you are not the creator of the original work and that you are making an honest effort to provide credit to the original creator. Because there isn't a photographer's name with these photos, you are assigning credit to the company that distributed/sold them.

Certainly, we all have family snapshots and older family photos, and the letter of the (copyright) law would require us to get the permission of the photographer. That's true - even if it was your mom, dad, brother, cousin or friend. However, very few people ever do this, because it's understood that family snapshots are posted online so frequently that it would be impossible (and a waste of time) to ensure that every photo online is properly credited.

Further, in many cases, we know that the person who took the photo is dead. And when you inherit the box of photos from your parents, who even knows who took the photo.

However, copyright protection is good, because at some point, you will find your photo online or being used in a way that you didn't expect. A few years ago, a photographer took someone else's photo and entered it into a photo contest under this own name. The photo won, but it was quickly revealed that the photo had been taken from someone else's site.

The one group of companies that I know that vigorously enforces copyright are those that take school photos. Those companies will almost always force you to remove the photo, especially if an identifying mark (usually in the corner) is visible.

[TobaccorRoad]

Thanks Mike, some good things to know.

Ron B
BTW--- I have one strip that has never been opened, till now.

[LarryD]

The store I worked at in the 70s sold those on a big revolving rack. We sold local images along with world travel. They were popular with students doing papers with presentations. We would special order sets for people out of this huge catalog.

[TobaccorRoad]

Thanks guys, the smoke from the forest fires are receding and I've got some work to be done outside. But will get the rest of them scanned and put up on Flickr.{ as the wife says-get outdoors and away from that darned computer}

Ron B

[LarryD]

I recently scanned and restored a pack of those slides for a friend. They had faded badly.