Copyright Aid

Hi Andy,

As I mentioned on opening another thread, regarding old photos.

I'll give you a summary of what I have done with Google Books over the last two years. Being Google Books it involves US copyright laws. I'm not sure if you are aware U.S. publications that did not renew their copyrights pre 1964 go directly into the Public Domain. Firstly, I trawled Google Books and found many old, mainly pre 1964 magazines. Google Books has a service, which allows anyone to ask if a book or magazine they like in Google Books is in the Public Domain. If so, Google releases the book, not only to the person who requested it, but also places it on Google Books as a Public Domain book/magazine for anyone to download and use. Let's even say that if a person wants the whole series of say 50 magazines (or books) they can ask Google Books for the lot, but, there is a catch, you have to request them one by one, as each book or magazine is logged individually.

I'm telling you this because that's precisely what I've been doing since 2021. I have roughly 1,000 aircraft periodicals (in PDF format) that I have downloaded for the purpose of researching aviation history. (the bulk of the magazines are American, but also include several editions of a couple of British magazines (namely 'The Aeroplane' and 'Air Pictorial'). Now that they are in the Public Domain, they are free to download for any aviation enthusiast.

Now to come to my two questions, as I mentioned in my other thread, I am writing about the old DC-4 airliner, and I have found some nice photos in one of the Public Domain magazines I have received from Google. Can you tell me if I can use the photos in the Public Domain aviation publications that I have? I don't mean advertising photos, which would probably breach copyright, but photos from articles and the like in the magazines.Those photos would almost certainly be photographed by staff of the aircraft magazines, or were photos given free to the magazine from aviation companies to promote their aircraft. I would think the photos would also be in the public domain.

Thanks,
Theo

Hi again Theo,

The main problem with using images from these magazines which are in the public domain in the USA is that copyright in them may well continue to exist outside the USA. This would apply to magazines originally published in the UK and to the work of photographers who were not US citizens*.

I think the risk is pretty small because if the publishers are no longer in existence there's no-one to enforce the copyright which they once owned. That said, if any of these photographs were supplied under licence by a specialist photo agency I think it is a fair bet that even if the original agency is now out of business, the stock of the agency will have been bought up by another company and the new owners will be reasonably alert to any new use of their images without a licence.

I would also have some doubts about the quality of the scans of the half tone images in the magazines. Have you tried doing this and are you happy with the results?

I fully appreciate the point that you made in the other thread about not wishing to devote too much time to this kind of research, as it takes you away from writing. Perhaps I could suggest a slightly different route. Why not approach Boeing, as the successors to McDonnell Douglas, and see if they can supply you with some images from their library? I imagine you might be able to get these for free. Of course I appreciate that they may not have exactly the sort of images you want, for instance in the liveries of specific airlines or shown in particular airports/countries, but worth a try maybe.

* It's a little more complicated than just the nationality of the person who created the image, but the main point is that just because something is in the public domain in the USA due to their idiosyncratic old copyright laws, doesn't automatically mean that the same work is in the public domain everywhere else.

Hi Andy,

Thanks very much for your reply. I do have many images of the aircraft that I can actually use. I have to thank Wikimedia Commons for those. I also have an American gentleman who is head of an aviation organization over in the States who has granted me carte blanche on using the organization's photos. His only request was a copy of my book, which is what I do for any individual or organization that assists me. It's the least I could do.

I asked about using Public Domain magazine photographs since I discovered two photos of an airplane manufactured in 1938. I found the two photographs in a 1938 American magazine from Google. I felt the photographs would be great for my book. I don't actually cut photos from periodicals, but, you are perfectly right Andy; most scans are down the bottom of the spectrum in regard to quality. However, given to the rarity of the photographs, I was ready to include this airplane in the book.

Sorry to say Andy, but Boeing is not the same aircraft manufacturer that once offered free photos to aircraft enthusiasts. It's all about the money now with them. They sell their photos now, the price for a basic photo is $59.99 and ranges up to $304.99 for a framed print, oh, and if you wanted a stretched canvas, it's only a measly $599.99. For an independent aviation writer like me, the Boeing website is a no-go zone.

I would have thought that the British magazines will not be public domain in the US, since as foreign works their copyrights would generally have been revived and extended under GATT. It would be content-dependant, so there might be individual articles or photographs that are no longer protected in the UK, and hence would be PD in the US.