Buying random negatives

CMoore · Oct 16, 2023

Vivian Maier
is the obvious case, but she is probably an outlier. That situation will probably not arise again for most of us.
So i am not talking about that scenario, but the more likely buying 10-15 negs here and there..........not shot by one person.

You might get them from
Ebay
Thrift store
Garage sale
Etc etc

I suppose it might vary from one country to another, but what is 'the law' regards printing the negs and selling the prints.?
The negs may have changed hands a few times over the years and you have no way of knowing who shot them.
Can you sell the prints with some sort of disclaimer, or is it simply illegal.

MattKing · Oct 16, 2023

It will vary with jurisdiction. There are various complexities that differ from country to country, and the residence of the photographer - not the location of you or the negatives themselves - may determine what rules apply
It isn't "illegal". It potentially brings rise to a claim for damages from the owner of any copyright that attaches to the images.
The image is essentially owned by someone else, who may very well not know of their ownership entitlement.
Selling something that belongs to someone else is a civil tort known as conversion.

Sirius Glass · Oct 16, 2023

I wonder what the OP's and others motivation is for buying random negatives.

CMoore · Oct 16, 2023

Sirius Glass said:
I wonder what the OP's and others motivation is for buying random negatives.

I have bought a grand total of ONE Negative from Ebay.
It is a 1960 era EMD locomotive.
My post has nothing to do with me personally.
Just curious about 'the law'

I would think old negatives and photographers would be an obvious interest.

rcphoto · Oct 16, 2023

I believe copyright on negatives ends once the photographer is dead or can no longer be identified.

Don_ih · Oct 16, 2023

CMoore said:
The negs may have changed hands a few times over the years and you have no way of knowing who shot them.
Can you sell the prints with some sort of disclaimer, or is it simply illegal.

The likelihood is, whatever print you make from whatever negative, no one will ever challenge your sale of it. Vivian Maier was an exception: her images are a goldmine and everyone who can stake a claim is staking a claim.

Normally, finding some random negative and selling prints of it will make you a few dollars, if it even pays for your time and materials.

Sirius Glass said:
I wonder what the OP's and others motivation is for buying random negatives.

Some people find photos interesting.

I accidentally ended up with what seems to be the total of film shot by some guy in the 1950s. I bought a cheap darkroom lot for a few things (namely, stainless steel trays). I could see these cardboard tubes in the listing images but had no idea what they were. They were tubes with negatives in them. So I have hundreds of rolls of negatives. Meanwhile, I can barely look through my own negatives, let alone someone else's. The guy had a Rolleiflex and a Leica IIIf (he labelled his cardboard tubes). He was pretty good at exposure.

CMoore · Oct 16, 2023

Don_ih said:
The likelihood is, whatever print you make from whatever negative, no one will ever challenge your sale of it. Vivian Maier was an exception: her images are a goldmine and everyone who can stake a claim is staking a claim.

Normally, finding some random negative and selling prints of it will make you a few dollars, if it even pays for your time and materials.

Some people find photos interesting.

I accidentally ended up with what seems to be the total of film shot by some guy in the 1950s. I bought a cheap darkroom lot for a few things (namely, stainless steel trays). I could see these cardboard tubes in the listing images but had no idea what they were. They were tubes with negatives in them. So I have hundreds of rolls of negatives. Meanwhile, I can barely look through my own negatives, let alone someone else's. The guy had a Rolleiflex and a Leica IIIf (he labelled his cardboard tubes). He was pretty good at exposure.

Yeah......Vivian was and is special. One of the greatest photographers who ever walked the Earth.
'Street Photography' only improves with age, and she was REALLY Good at it.
Like we have said , that scenario with THAT many negs and a name to go along with them is unlikely to happen again anytime soon.

I am just thinking about negs that went from Man, to granddaughter, to trash, to trash scavenger to flee-market scenarios.
Random negs from several different people, passed on to God knows who.
There is just no way of knowing who shot the negs and who might 'own the rights' to them.
Was not considering it a money making endeavor.......... just wondering about the legal technicality.
Seems like Matt has given as a good a general answer as is possible.

I was simply curious

MattKing · Oct 16, 2023

Your biggest challenge would likely occur if another party sought to publish the result. In most cases, to protect themselves, they would need a legally enforceable license to use the image, or an assignment of copyright for the image. With found negatives, you have no ability to give either. If you purported to do so, that might itself be illegal - as in fraudulent.
For clarity, negatives don't have copyright attached to them. The underlying image has copyright attached to it.
And in the USA, for works created on or after January 1, 1978, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus seventy years.

MattKing · Oct 16, 2023

For other countries, the table in this Wikipedia article is useful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries'_copyright_lengths
As indicated though, there are laws, and there are practicalities.
If you are worried, you could instead always make a collage of the negatives themselves

BrianShaw · Oct 16, 2023

Might be worth reviewing “orphan works”…

https://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/sme/en/wipo_smes_ge_10/wipo_smes_ge_10_ref_theme11_02.pdf

https://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/OrphanWorks-June2009.pdf

Copyright: orphan works

How to get permission to copy a creative work for which the right holder(s) cannot be found ie an orphan work.

www.gov.uk

Don_ih · Oct 16, 2023

CMoore said:
Was not considering it a money making endeavor.......... just wondering about the legal technicality.
Seems like Matt has given as a good a general answer as is possible.

I wasn't implying that you were out to make money - just citing the fact that you probably wouldn't. The main consideration is the fact that anyone who could possibly identify the photo or photographer would, in most instances, never see any print you (or anyone else) made from it. Legality is not even remotely an issue in 99.9% of conceivable cases.

That doesn't even take into account the fact that any legal proceeding would require one to ~~waste~~ spend a bunch of money on lawyers. It wouldn't be worth it for someone to try to stop you from printing the negative.

CMoore · Oct 16, 2023

Don_ih said:
Good ol' Matt
Wouldn't want to disagree with him or anything...

I wasn't implying that you were out to make money - just citing the fact that you probably wouldn't. The main consideration is the fact that anyone who could possibly identify the photo or photographer would, in most instances, never see any print you (or anyone else) made from it. Legality is not even remotely an issue in 99.9% of conceivable cases.

That doesn't even take into account the fact that any legal proceeding would require one to ~~waste~~ spend a bunch of money on lawyers. It wouldn't be worth it for someone to try to stop you from printing the negative.

Sorry if it sounded that way.
I was just agreeing with you that the likely hood of 'making money' would be pretty slight.

VinceInMT · Oct 22, 2023

I haven’t collected random negatives from others but on a parallel note I scour various sources for cast off magnetic recording tape, not for the tape itself but for what might be recorded on it. Over the past 20 years or so I’ve picked up nearly 1,000 reels, some dating back to the late-40s before the tape had a plastic backing. While primarily interested in old broadcasts, some of these tape have contained local, live recordings of family events, church services, and “committees” making political plans. I’ve found lots of local history in this endeavor.

I have zero interest in monetizing this hobby and I end up posting most of the material on my web site. When I can, I track down the descendents and give them copies of the recordings. For example, I have recordings of the recordist’s wife playing the piano and singing with her daughters. I tracked down one of the daughters, now well into her 70s, and gave her a CD of the tape. She had no idea it even existed And was happy to receive it.

This one batch of tapes, 563 reels, I picked up at an estate sale. The gentleman who had passed away was the father-in-law of a colleague and the the best I could figure out is that the deceased had trolled thrift shops and picked up tapes to use for his own recordings, primarily LPs and stuff from TV. Luckily, he didn’t record over many of them. Many of the original tapes were made my a gentleman long dead and his family dumped them at a thrift shop where they were purchased by someone else. I figured that the act of donating them to the thrifty shop put the local, live recording in the public domain so I feel free to publish them.

In one batch that I picked up I found recordings from the early-80s that were made at the local blood bank. Evidently they recorded all their phone calls and in these calls there is conversation about named patients, their doctors, their conditions, etc. I tussled over whether these should be released but decided to go ahead and do so since this was pre-HIPAA.

CMoore · Oct 22, 2023

VinceInMT said:
I haven’t collected random negatives from others but on a parallel note I scour various sources for cast off magnetic recording tape, not for the tape itself but for what might be recorded on it. Over the past 20 years or so I’ve picked up nearly 1,000 reels, some dating back to the late-40s before the tape had a plastic backing. While primarily interested in old broadcasts, some of these tape have contained local, live recordings of family events, church services, and “committees” making political plans. I’ve found lots of local history in this endeavor.

I have zero interest in monetizing this hobby and I end up posting most of the material on my web site. When I can, I track down the descendents and give them copies of the recordings. For example, I have recordings of the recordist’s wife playing the piano and singing with her daughters. I tracked down one of the daughters, now well into her 70s, and gave her a CD of the tape. She had no idea it even existed And was happy to receive it.

This one batch of tapes, 563 reels, I picked up at an estate sale. The gentleman who had passed away was the father-in-law of a colleague and the the best I could figure out is that the deceased had trolled thrift shops and picked up tapes to use for his own recordings, primarily LPs and stuff from TV. Luckily, he didn’t record over many of them. Many of the original tapes were made my a gentleman long dead and his family dumped them at a thrift shop where they were purchased by someone else. I figured that the act of donating them to the thrifty shop put the local, live recording in the public domain so I feel free to publish them.

In one batch that I picked up I found recordings from the early-80s that were made at the local blood bank. Evidently they recorded all their phone calls and in these calls there is conversation about named patients, their doctors, their conditions, etc. I tussled over whether these should be released but decided to go ahead and do so since this was pre-HIPAA.

Just Curious.
What machine(s) do you have.?

I had a 1/2 inch. 4-Track that i partially restored.
I sent the heads out to some guy that specialized in that stuff.
Then i started going through the electronics.
Threw a scope on it a few times.
Super interesting and a great... but some what feeble... learning experience.

I REALLY needed a mentor....... not just the repair and spec manuals.
Pretty far above my machismo ability for recording gear

VinceInMT · Oct 22, 2023

CMoore said:
Just Curious.
What machine(s) do you have.?

I had a 1/2 inch. 4-Track that i partially restored.
I sent the heads out to some guy that specialized in that stuff.
Then i started going through the electronics.
Threw a scope on it a few times.
Super interesting and a great... but some what feeble... learning experience.

I REALLY needed a mentor....... not just the repair and spec manuals.
Pretty far above my machismo ability for recording gear

I have a few:

http://www.codecooker.com/projects_magrec/

I’m a pretty good mechanic but only so-so in the electronics diagnostics realm. I do know how to replace motor run capacitors and, with the Akais which have issues with some of the transistors in the amps (the black leg disease), I’ve replaced many of them. Like my old cars, there is always something that needs attention.

Bill Burk · Oct 22, 2023

CMoore said:
Just Curious.
What machine(s) do you have.?

I had a 1/2 inch. 4-Track that i partially restored.
I sent the heads out to some guy that specialized in that stuff.
Then i started going through the electronics.
Threw a scope on it a few times.
Super interesting and a great... but some what feeble... learning experience.

I REALLY needed a mentor....... not just the repair and spec manuals.
Pretty far above my machismo ability for recording gear

I’ve got a friend like that…

Don’t throw away anything you might learn enough to fix it.

My friend’s project…

CMoore · Oct 22, 2023

Bill Burk said:
I’ve got a friend like that…

Don’t throw away anything you might learn enough to fix it.

My friend’s project…

View attachment 351640

Wow..!!!

Buying random negatives

CMoore

MattKing

Moderator

Sirius Glass

CMoore

rcphoto

Don_ih

CMoore

MattKing

Moderator

MattKing

Moderator

BrianShaw

Copyright: orphan works

Don_ih

CMoore

VinceInMT

CMoore

VinceInMT

Bill Burk

CMoore

Buying random negatives

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency