Old postcards

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Hi Chris

As I said great site..Im afraid I don't get to the CRO very often...can't get around to booking in advance..

Perhaps you can fill me in on the legal side of copyright with postcards? It seems a very grey area. I wouldn't dream of using Friths images anywhere! but i have got several postcards of Looe that must be out of copyright or the company is no more...Argalls for example....and is it Hawkes of Helston.

PS I don't own an anorak either.... but I do have a light mac ( copyright Bonzo's 1968)

Copyright for real photographs is valid for, where anonymous, 70 years after creation, or 70 years after publication if publication was within 70 years of creation, and if the author is known then 70 years after the death of the photographer. For printed postcards it should be the same, whether the rules for photographs or printed material applies. The laws differ for post 1957, post 1969 and post 1989 material, and Crown copyright is different again. The only images on the Historical Illustrations page I'm not too sure about are the Duloe photographic postcards by AE Raddy, more your neck of the woods, though obviously I would be willing to remove any which do happen to be in breach of copyright. The website is non-funded, non-profit making and I have no wish to deplete the profits sought by others. Copyright of images of these 'out of copyright' originals is a much more complicated issue, though it should, I believe, subsist in the owner of the material or the producer of the respective images, as with the images on the Frith website and, for instance, in photos of old paintings etc reproduced in modern publications. See the National Archives pdf guide at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/legal/pdf/copyright_full.pdf for further details. Hope this helps, Chris.