Re: R.M.S. Titanic

John Sankey <bf250[_at_]freenet.carleton.ca> wrote:
>
> My grandfather was the last survivor of those who sailed on
> the British clipper Cutty Sark under the British flag. The
> National Maritime Museum has over the years collected many
> photos of the ship and of her crew. They claim copyright
> and the right to restrict further reproduction of photos
> of my own grandfather, of which the family still has copies!
>
> I still feel that 50 years after creation a work should be
> free of copyright restriction. It's only 17 years for
> patents, after all.

I presume you mean the National Maritime Museum in the UK. In the UK, the lifetime of copyright in old unpublished photos is 70 years from the year of creation or from publication if the photo was published. Assuming the photos were created/publishede more than 70 years ago, they are out of copyright, and so the NMM cannot claim copyright in them.

However, the NMM would be entitled to restrict people from copying the particular photographs they have in their posession, but that is no different from my choosing to stop anyone making copies of photos that happen to be in my house.

Charles Oppenheim
Dept of Information and Library Studies
Loughborough University
Loughborough
Leics LE11 3TU

01509-223065
Fax 01509-223053 Received on Mon Apr 06 1998 - 08:02:45 GMT