geogphotos

Thinking more about it. It is something of a nonsense to have a transfer of ownership without a transfer of copyright. It means that neither the photographer/copyright owner or the buyer can do anything with the images.

Most of this stuff ends up in auction after a person has died and their house has been cleared. Some goes direct to the auction, other things filter through dealers. If I get around to digitising these old slides I could always put them back in the auction. I have spoken to the auctioneers to suggest that if they sold them with copyright permission they would potentially get higher prices but they just weren't interested. Just too much hassle I suppose. Neither will they tell you who put the items in for auction. With the latest batch I bought there was a name and address on various items. I Googled the name and found that he had died a year ago, and there was an obituary online which mentioned his partner's name and the funeral company. So I could try and make contact but am not sure how that would go or how it would come across. Mark, you raise a very legitimate point though I can't ever imagine chucking my slides out even when all copied.

No I didn't pay much at all for the slides I have. As I said they do not have a market value. Approx £10-£20 for somebody's entire photo collection of thousands of slides - including medium format. I even ended up with one shot of the Beatles! I just find it sad that they are getting flogged off at auctions and even worse chucked in the rubbish bin. Also sad is seeing military medals all lined up at auction no longer wanted by the family. The other day someone visiting a refuse dump found a photo album taken by an officer at Gallipoli with unique images of the battlefield. Admittedly, this did have a commercial value just as an album and went to auction with an expected price of £1500.

The irony is that if these old photos are going to be saved they need to have an economic value. And this Orphan Works situation prevents that. Have a look on Ebay and you'll see huge unassorted piles of old slides being sold off for very low prices. I assume some people like them for art projects, not sure what other uses they have beyond pure serrendipity. I've come across one or two cultural projects that invite people to donate their old photos for the sake of posterity but the one I have particularly in mind is a charity and does ask for permission from those donating - won't take the images without written permission. Going back to my discussions with the copyright authority. It went one stage further than I reported on that other thread. I asked what I would have to pay as licence fee to have the images on a non-commercial basis simply to let others see them and was told it would be 10p per image in addition to the initial charges. So, the Orphan Works Register would charge me £80 for each 30 images to check that I had done a diligent search and all the admin, and then another £3 for putting those 30 images on my website for other people to look at. There is always the other option of not doing it properly! Putting them on a website with a disclaimer about copyright should the owner emerge ( will they really object?), and if you wanted to have a 'commercial' angle charge a service fee per image to any potential commercial publisher who would then have to deal with the Copyright Office themselves and pay their licence fee on top of the search and admin fees. Not sure what the potential for being 'bitten' would be? Maybe you could do this as a charity of cultural organisation? Can't imagine that Alamy would want to accept images like this which are obviously in copyright but copyright owner unknown. I am interested in pursuing this and will keep plugging away.

No you don't own copyright. If you don't know who owns the copyright they are Orphan Works. I started a thread about this and it contains some of the information I obtained from email exchanges with the govt office that deals with this in UK. I can't find a way to post the link. It's called 'Orphan Work Puzzlement' in Let's talk about pics

Yes some of 'my' Naples prints, and possibly others are by the Alinari family - I see them described as the oldest stock photography agency in the world ( which is obvious given what Wim says above)! I think that they have been in some financial trouble in recent years - nothing unusual there! In my albums there are also some smaller snapshot pictures, some very out of focus and amateurish, so it does look as though the album creators were wealthy tourists doing their trip c 1900 around Europe and buying photographic ready-made prints to record their experiences and show the folks back home plus taking a few of their own pictures too. There also may be one or two where they have paid to have a photograph taken at a famous site. It does seem, much like today, that there was a set route that people followed and certain 'me too' places and views of and from specific viewpoints that people wanted photographs of. In searching Google I have come across images which at first glance look identical only to see that there are slight differences - but from almost exactly the same viewpoint. As a geographer I am interested in the places, the route, and the way that they wanted to experience and celebrate the sense of place ( sorry if that sounds pompous but there we are!). ie) Naples was of interest for its street life and authenticity, other places for architecture - so when you went to Naples that's what you want pictures of, that's the experience you would be expected to bring home and show to others ( even if you had actually stayed in the hotel?).

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I wonder if rich tourists bought such prints as they went around Europe on their 'grand tour' so that they could create an album of their travels without having a camera. I'll have to see how far this photographer travelled and if that included other countries. I will have to do the reverse image search on other images when I get the chance. Can't think that I'll be considering auctioning them any time soon!

Or copies that are two a penny.....at least I have them to photograph and be with!

It appears that they are quite famous - not sure what to make of all this. Good news or bad news? How did they end up in auction? Where did they come from? My stomach has gone all funny🙃 Found my urchins on a famous stock site. Not saying anymore for the while.......

Not sure what to make of that! Public domain.....🙁 What does MoMA mean? Okay - Museum of Modern Art

Not as yet. But I agree these are not from some random amateur. All in good time.

No not you, the images on Photoshelter are limited to 500 pixels 😊

I expect that he will be tucked up safely in a bar photographing his food!

Yes, that is the reason.