Are Historical Images Websites Now Illegal ?
Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 10:29 am
Apologies for the long post but I'm hoping to clear the mists on this one after months of confusing advice !
I have, for nearly 10 years, built and grown an image archive website that holds over 2000 images of my local area. The images are mostly from old postcards and most of them from the 1900-1930 era but some are more recent. Equally, some are from old newspapers, magazines and just basically anywhere. The site does not include any images from the "digital" era.
The site is completely non-commercial and is purely there to encourage an interest in and to educate people about the area's history ..... not dissimilar to the plethora of "My City in Old Picture Postcards" books that you can find in most bookshops.
I have a supporting Facebook Group that discusses images, identifies images and even contributes further images. That group has nearly 11,000 members so the whole operation is quite a popular one.
I try to keep tabs on UK copyright law and am aware of some changes taking place over recent years (to align UK law with EU law maybe ?) but I've struggled to get a clear understanding on how these changes might have impacted on what I do.
Some commentary seems to suggest that UK copyright law is now retrospectively applied (which it wasn't when I started out) such that all images - even those going back 100 years - are "in copyright" and can't be used even if it is impossible to trace a copyright owner for them.
Others have suggested that is nonsense because it would suddenly make the very many websites AND books presenting images from old sources illegal.
Can anybody offer any simple, factual guidance of relevance here ?
Any help appreciated.
I have, for nearly 10 years, built and grown an image archive website that holds over 2000 images of my local area. The images are mostly from old postcards and most of them from the 1900-1930 era but some are more recent. Equally, some are from old newspapers, magazines and just basically anywhere. The site does not include any images from the "digital" era.
The site is completely non-commercial and is purely there to encourage an interest in and to educate people about the area's history ..... not dissimilar to the plethora of "My City in Old Picture Postcards" books that you can find in most bookshops.
I have a supporting Facebook Group that discusses images, identifies images and even contributes further images. That group has nearly 11,000 members so the whole operation is quite a popular one.
I try to keep tabs on UK copyright law and am aware of some changes taking place over recent years (to align UK law with EU law maybe ?) but I've struggled to get a clear understanding on how these changes might have impacted on what I do.
Some commentary seems to suggest that UK copyright law is now retrospectively applied (which it wasn't when I started out) such that all images - even those going back 100 years - are "in copyright" and can't be used even if it is impossible to trace a copyright owner for them.
Others have suggested that is nonsense because it would suddenly make the very many websites AND books presenting images from old sources illegal.
Can anybody offer any simple, factual guidance of relevance here ?
Any help appreciated.