Any opinions on the eligibility of restored movie posters for 'Editorial' use?

[Greg M]

Hi there! First post here, let me know if this should go in some other sub-section or anything else. Also, sorry for the length. I tried to stay concise but it is what it is. The actual question is in bold.

 

Are restored (edited) images of original vintage movie posters something that would be eligible as non-commercial 'Editorial' content on Alamy? Or is it either non-eligible, or not worth the hassle considering the multiple complications of image origin, copyright, uneven quality, etc. On the other hand, if it is in fact eligible, is there anything I should keep in mind? Especially from a copyright point of view.

 

Now for some context. I was hoping for someone with experience on the subject being able to shine some light on a nuanced topic. In summary, I've been reviewing my personal digital collection of movie posters accumulated over the years, and... one thing led to another, and a few months later I've spent well over a hundred hours reviewing, editing and restoring old movie posters. Now I have a few hundred classic movie posters which have been restored to all but eliminate creases, dust, hair, rips, stains and what not, leaving them almost as nice as when they were just printed. Many of those posters are now effectively unique and of better perceived quality than just about any other copy you'll find online. Especially pre-1985 movie posters, when distributors finally had the bright idea that maybe folding posters wasn't all that great of an idea. I find them of great historical & cultural value, and part of the reason I restored them was because I was a bit annoyed by the fact no one seems to have done so before and made them readily available online.

 

While I don't entirely regret doing so just for my own enjoyment of them, the carpal tunnel and neck pain I'm developing from 12hr+ or near-continous editing is making it pretty hard for me rationalize or consider sustainable as just for love of the arts. My intention was to simply post them on my website and pretend the ad revenue and occasional donation might make it not entirely an economic waste of time, but after seeing so many Alamy posters on Google Images I started to wonder if they might perhaps be eligible as 'Editorial' images... and well, here I am asking if that's the case.

 

Notes

• I do have a stock photography account on another website, but I haven't ever used Alamy before (which appears to be more permissive with editorial use of movie posters). I'm also unfamiliar with the nuances related to something like movie posters, or editing other images found online to make them discernably unique.
• I'm only talking about pre-2000 or so movie posters (especially pre-1970 or so). High-resolution digital originals of post-2000 movie posters are much easier to find online, and I imagine much more likely to create issues from a copyright point of view.
• As far as the quality of the posters, obviously it varies greatly. All of them look excellent when viewed on your typical <24" monitor, but some suffer when viewed at maximum magnification (read illegible tiny texts) as they were originally one-sheet (27"x40"-ish) size posters and most of the images are around the 2000x3000 pixel range, which doesn't allow a high DPI.
• Given the nature of the subject matter, regrettably I didn't take the images myself. While I'd love to have originals to photograph, some of these posters now cost in excess of $15,000 and are only found in art collections or auction houses. I found the images online, reverse-searched them for the highest quality versions, and then digitally restored them to the point that they are blatant alterations at face value. It may be possible to identify the source image due to things like a hand-written NSS number, but besides that they should look mostly like undamaged but aged originals whose fungible copies would have been printed by the thousands in their time.
• As my original intention was never to post them as stock images, I haven't kept records on the original images used, editing log, original work file, etc - Though I'm not yet finished editing and could do so in the future. If it turns out they are eligible as 'Editorial' images, any suggestions to help cover one's back in the case of copyright infringement claims would be appreciated.

 

I'll leave it here for now since to be honest I'm still more clueless than anything else on whether this is worth looking into or not. Thanks ahead for any knowledge.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Greg M

[spacecadet]

 

Alamy require that you own the copyright, or at least the right to reproduce, any image you upload. So if you have copied the images from the Internet, IMO the answer is simple.

No, you can't submit them.

Most you find here have actually been submitted by film studios or their licensees.

Alamy will not actually prevent you from submitting them, but that doesn't mean you have any rights in them. The onus is on you.

Edited May 4, 2021 by spacecadet

[Greg M]

Thanks for the response.

 

I perfectly recognize the question regarding the copyright would be the complicated part, considering:

- On the one hand, copyright regarding the subject matter isn't that important for 'Editorial' images as opposed to commercial, and I imagine wouldn't be the decisive factor here.

- On the other hand, there's the ever-present issue of fair use, and at what point the editing of an image establishes a new copyright. There are plenty of examples where little more than a name change suffices ('Hughes v. Benjamin (1:17-cv-06493)' comes to mind), so blatantly editing/restoring images would certainly be a good-faith defense. But of course, while everyone loves to claim fair use these days, the only place that can be established is in a court room, so there's always a bit of 'hope as a strategy' implicit in claiming it. Nonetheless, there's no doubt a new copyright can be established via the editing or restoring of images, the only question is when.

- Related to the prior two points, artistic merit or imagination is a requirement for copyright, so it actually would be questionable whether a frontal, true-to-life image of a poster actually has an enforceable copyright by the photographer (again, only where editorial use is concerned), as 100 photographers taking 100 images of 100 different fungible identical copies of posters would give effectively the same reproduction of the image. It's similar to the situation regarding stock photography of retail items on white backgrounds where creativity isn't a factor. But sadly, this also falls into the camp of a legal defense that can't be proven a priori, and likely hinges more on attorneys and circumstance than the image itself.

- I've seen Alamy images uploaded by presumably unrelated photographers who explicitly disclaim all rights to the image contents as a pre-emptive defense, but from afar it's hard to tell if that's the rule or the exception.

 

Really, the main reason I want them online is because of their artistic and historic value. I'll be uploading them one way or another, since I want others to have them. Any sort of kickback would just be to justify the hundreds of hours spent, and as an incentive to keep restoring posters in the future. But considering that I doubt any royalties for this type of thing would be more than a hundred bucks a year or so, if this sounds like it's going to be a bigger headache than it's worth I should just post them on my own site and call it a day.

 

Anyway, if anyone has any more information on the topic, it would still be appreciated.

[meanderingemu]

On 05/05/2021 at 17:50, Greg M said:

Thanks for the response.

 

I perfectly recognize the question regarding the copyright would be the complicated part, considering:

- On the one hand, copyright regarding the subject matter isn't that important for 'Editorial' images as opposed to commercial, and I imagine wouldn't be the decisive factor here.

- On the other hand, there's the ever-present issue of fair use, and at what point the editing of an image establishes a new copyright. There are plenty of examples where little more than a name change suffices ('Hughes v. Benjamin (1:17-cv-06493)' comes to mind), so blatantly editing/restoring images would certainly be a good-faith defense. But of course, while everyone loves to claim fair use these days, the only place that can be established is in a court room, so there's always a bit of 'hope as a strategy' implicit in claiming it. Nonetheless, there's no doubt a new copyright can be established via the editing or restoring of images, the only question is when.

- Related to the prior two points, artistic merit or imagination is a requirement for copyright, so it actually would be questionable whether a frontal, true-to-life image of a poster actually has an enforceable copyright by the photographer (again, only where editorial use is concerned), as 100 photographers taking 100 images of 100 different fungible identical copies of posters would give effectively the same reproduction of the image. It's similar to the situation regarding stock photography of retail items on white backgrounds where creativity isn't a factor. But sadly, this also falls into the camp of a legal defense that can't be proven a priori, and likely hinges more on attorneys and circumstance than the image itself.

- I've seen Alamy images uploaded by presumably unrelated photographers who explicitly disclaim all rights to the image contents as a pre-emptive defense, but from afar it's hard to tell if that's the rule or the exception.

 

Really, the main reason I want them online is because of their artistic and historic value. I'll be uploading them one way or another, since I want others to have them. Any sort of kickback would just be to justify the hundreds of hours spent, and as an incentive to keep restoring posters in the future. But considering that I doubt any royalties for this type of thing would be more than a hundred bucks a year or so, if this sounds like it's going to be a bigger headache than it's worth I should just post them on my own site and call it a day.

 

Anyway, if anyone has any more information on the topic, it would still be appreciated.

 

 

Remember that having an image uploaded to Alamy is not an approval by Alamy.  Alamy expects contributor to abide by rules of the Contributor Agreement, with review After the fact in case of problem.

 

 

Alamy does not licence all images the are potentially legally licensable, just the ones that fit the ones they want to be involved, as prescribed by the agreement you agree to when joining.  This is not a copyright issue, as much as a respect of the contributor agreement.  If your claim is that the original file is part of "Public Domain" that is a different story.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Greg M]

4 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

If your claim is that the original file is part of "Public Domain" that is a different story.

 

My main claims would be a combination of:

- The editing/restoration process itself is transformative in nature and creates a new copyright and/or would no longer infringe on the original photographer's copyright, when the following points are considered:

- Copyright of trademarked brands/designs/content is much more lenient for 'Editorial' content, and even more so for educational/historical content. With that I mean that the bar for what is considered copyright infringement is purposely much higher by virtue of its educational (as opposed to commercial) role. Publishing copyrighted material in a documentary-style article is by design more permissive than, say, publishing the same copyrighted material on a t-shirt for sale. It's what allows things like Wikipedia to exist.

- The original images themselves would be as old as 1916 (some of which indeed have lapsed copyright due to age or are part of public domain), in 95% of cases older than 1985 when posters were damaged by design via folding them, and in no case younger than over two decades. That largely helps bolster the point that it is indeed historical content part of vintage "Americana", and that the educational claim is not unwarranted. In effectively all cases, restored or undamaged digital copies don't exist online at all (otherwise, I would have used them instead of spending hours restoring damaged copies).

- I have serious doubt that they have any sort of credible commercial value as a "market substitute" of any kind, as 2kx3k resolution is perfectly adequate for digital monitors, but woefully unsuitable for reproducing at their original 41" size with any degree of sharpness. And to the degree that the restored copies would be preferable over the original would only further prove the point that the editing process is transformative.

 

My ideal outcome would be publishing the restored images on a site like Alamy as Editorial stock photography, so online publications who couldn't care less about paying a few cents to use an image could do so, which at the same time would allow the images to proliferate so regular movie lovers could download the images for free from those publications for their own private collection. A Win-Win-Win in my book. The sad part is I grant this is a fringe case which makes it near impossible to get a definitive answer, and the risk/reward ratio is so low that it makes it hard to justify the risk, even when the benefit for the public is comparatively large. I still haven't made my mind up on the best course of action.

[wiskerke]

For true restorations, also have a look at Sweat of the brow doctrine.

(Wikipedia)

 

wim

Edited May 7, 2021 by wiskerke

[spacecadet]

You're also quoting US law- Alamy is a British company FWIW and fair use and transformation are pretty unique to the US. They certainly don't apply as you suggest in the UK or EU. Restoration isn't transformation and doesn't give rise to a new copyright- there's settled English law on this.

You may have missed the point that it's a breach of contract to upload material you don't own the rights to. Also, if you've copied them off the internet, you must be relying on the original uploaders having no rights to them- the same applies to you.

Edited May 7, 2021 by spacecadet