Copyright Aid

... and wishing to include old photos of the town I am writing about. Many are old photographs owned by people I know who are happy for me to use them.

However, can I use these? Or is the original producer of the postcard still the owner?

These are all 100+ year old shots, and none were produced by Francis Frith, which is still in existence.

Thanks for any help / advice you can offer!

Hi Henry,

Photographs as old as these were only covered by copyright for 50 years from the date they were made, so you should be fine using them to illustrate your book. They would have been covered by Section 21 of the 1911 Copyright Act, which says

21. The term for which copyright shall subsist in photographs shall be fifty years from the making of the original negative from which the photograph was directly or indirectly derived, and the person who was owner of such negative at the time when such negative was made shall be deemed to be the author of the work, and, where such owner is a body corporate, the body corporate shall be deemed for the purposes of this Act to reside within the parts of His Majesty's dominions to which this Act extends if it has established a place of business within such parts.