Re: rights for defunct newspaper?

My understanding is that under the current Canadian Copyright law, copyright in a photo lasts for a straight 50 years. The copyright would belong to the person or organization that commissioned the photograph. Did anyone gain ownership of the Newspaper's photo archives when the newspaper went out of business? I would think that they would own the copyright.

Of course if Bill C-60 had passed in parliament last Fall, everything regarding copyright for photographs would have been completely rewritten.

Rob Tiessen
Head, Access Services
University of Calgary Library
tiessen[_at_]ucalgary.ca
403-220-6043

Millward, Debbie (VAN_Exchange) wrote:
> (Canadian question, but answers from US copyright perspective might apply):
>
> My understanding is that a newspaper as an organization owns the copyright
> of the photos taken by staff photographers in the course of employment at
> the newspaper. Presuming that's correct, what happens to ownership of those
> photos when the newspaper ceases to exist, and isn't bought or absorbed by
> another company?
>
> A photo agency has an old photo in its files that they want permission to
> use, but the orginating newspaper folded in the 1980s. So who owns the
> rights to the photo(s) now?
>
> Thanks in advance for any opinions, from non-lawyers as they may be.
>
>
> Debbie Millward, MLS
> News Research Library Manager
> Vancouver Sun | The Province
> Vancouver, BC, Canada
>
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Received on Fri Mar 03 2006 - 23:40:55 GMT