Warning
This website may contain images and names of deceased persons that might not be appropriate for all viewers.
Copyright Law and Moral Rights
According to the Australian Copyright Council Information Sheet the following rules apply to the copyright of photographs:
| Type of Material | Copyright expired if | Othewise duration is | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Photos first published anonymously or under a pseudonym | taken before 1 January 1955 | year first published + 70 years |
| 2 | Photographs (except 1) | taken before 1 January 1955 | life of author + 70 years |
For photos taken between 1 January 1955 and 1 May 1969, the author means the individual who owned the film on which the photos were taken or, if a company owned the stock, the photographer.
Apart from the legal rights of the copyright owner there are also moral rights that require that the creator of the photograph is correctly attributed and that their work is not treated in a derogatory way.
Photographs with expired copyright are in the Public Domain. This means that everyone can use them without asking permission. Apparently, this rule only applies to the actual physical carrier of the image (a negative or a print) while
all digital copies of old photographs currently attract copyright under Australian law, as digital images are considered to be an artistic product in their own right.
The statement above appears on the Museums and Galleries of NSW website.
Ethics
The ethical side of the project is more complicated. Some of the images taken decades ago were probably not meant to be publicly displayed even after the photographers and the subjects passed away. However, at some stage they all become part of our material and pictorial history.
There are no set rules here and I have to use my best judgement to decide what images are better left out and not displayed. I normally do not include photographs that I as a photographer would reject for technical reasons whether they are out of focus, blured or badly composed, especially when other photos on the same roll are expertly executed. At the same time I really enjoy images that I assume were taken by kids, like the pictures of dogs in the backyard or the roll from the UK that had a lot of double exposures and some out of focus shots. These could be the first rolls ever shot by a young photographer and have their own charm and appeal.