Hi Admin,

I have the opportunity to acquire a large collection of aircraft photos, mostly taken in the 70's and 80's. The photographer is no longer interested in them and said that if no-one wanted them he would trash them. He has no interest, or the time, to digitise them and upload them himself (they are colour slides or negative film).

As yet I have not seen them, but I have a slide/film scanner with which I could digitise them. If I got a signed release, would I be able to upload them to this database for all enthusiasts to share and enjoy? I would be happy to give due credit to the photographer in the photo comments.

Regards,

Peter.

I have a few photos such as this on this site..posted with permission of the original photographer.

Example:

http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/145289.html

I have quite a few photos on Airport Data that were willed to me by a dear friend when he passed away several years ago. From what I understand they are now under my copyright since he willed them to me and the family gave them over to me as executors of his estate do do with as I wished.

I have marked some of them with his name...I had intended to do so with all of them but I fell short of that goal. I do go back occasionally and update them with his name in the description.

Example:

http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/146038.html

I think it s great way to preserve and share photos that would other wise never see the light of day and might ultimately be destroyed.

Zane

Thanks Zane,

I ws also thinking of creating a separate folder on my home page, such as "Joe Bloggs Collection".

Cheers,

Peter.

Peter.

That's an excellent way of separating such photos from your own collection.

You may wish to see that I have three appropriately named folders in my Photo Gallery.

Malcolm.

That is a good idea to use a separate folder...now I've just gotta find the time to do it....lol.

Looking forward to seeing these old photos!

A couple of further points, which apply to the UK - the USA may be different.

My understanding is that copyright falls under what are known as Intellectual Property rights. These rights can be transferred to another person but I am advised that it is preferable to have such an agreement drawn up professionally.

The other point is that ownership does not mean that you have the IP rights. These remain with the creator for a period of 25 years. So I assume that even though you may own a hard copy of a photo, if you benefit from it financially in any way, the creator is the person entitled to such benefits.

I strongly recommend to anyone publishing such an image/photo to state the creator as the copyright owner.

If the copyright owner does not have an email address, and one of my contacts didn't even own a computer, you can use your own address but still state his copyright. Similarly if they don't wish for some reason to receive any contact, again grant them copyright but use your own address.

Malcolm.

I have yet to make an appointment to go and see the photographer, who lives about 40 km from me, to check out the photos.

He says he also has some old black and white prints from the 1960's which were not taken by him - he does not even know who took them. I guess if what you say is correct Malcolm, IP rights on photos 40 or 50 years old has long expired.

When (if) I do get them, it will take a while to make the time to scan them, prepare them for upload, and actually upload them. It will be a slow process, as he says there are some 600 in the collection. Many may not be suitable for upload.

If any did sell, I would be happy to share the proceeds with him, considering I will have invested time and effort in processing and uploading them and handling any such sale. This I will have to work out with him.

Regards,

Peter.

14 days later

For those who have not checked the recent uploads, I have collected the photos and commenced uploading scanned images from the colour prints. I have also uploaded a couple of scanned slides, but these will take longer as there is more work to do in preparing them and researching the details of the aircraft depicted. The photographer had noted details on the back of a lot of the prints, but said he had thrown out notebooks with the slide details.

I have uploaded more than 50 so far and this number will continue to increase as I scan and prepare more. They are sorted into folders according to the country they were photographed in, unless this information is not available, in which case it is the country where they are registered.

You can find them at the following link:

http://www.airport-data.com/photographers/red750/Edwin-van-Opstal-collection-with-permission.html

Regards,

Peter.