Copyright Issues

[ajmmac]

I had a friend who published some historical/factual books about WWll in the early 1970's--each had a sleeve of a photographed painting--in addition each book had numerous photographs of actual events taken by authorised photographers--i assume by gov. or mod photographers--naval, aircraft, personnel and aerial photgraphs--the photographs and cover were sourced from a variety of sources (mainly the Imperial War Museum) and all sources were acknowledged in the published books--my friend died in 1999 and his wife now wishes to upload the books to Amazon for publication on kindle--i have been helping out by scanning all the books, including the photographs to upload to kindle--the issue of copyright over the cover and the photographs has now arisen--virtually all the photographs lncl. the cover can be found in many websites and all are noted as "...in the public domain"--nevertheless the Imperial War Museum which hold them in their archives and gave permission to my friend to use them--for which i assumed he paid--now say they are still under copyright and have to be paid for again--my friend's wife has no means to pay for these again--approx 6 books with a dozen photos per book at a cost of £100(+) per photo--all the cover paintings were done between1915-1945 and all the photographs taken before 1945--surely copyright is no longer an issue after 70+ years--my friend's wife wants the books on kindle because they are all out of print and she just wants them preserved for posterity and interested students of the periods coverded--she has no illusion of making lots of money from the publications--Amazon reckon they might sell for £2 per download from which my friend's wife will get 10%--a mere 20p perdownload--hardly much considering the work to download and proof reading them and then editing them and and designing the layout--we would appreciate advice any legal eagles out there can give regarding the copyright issues--cheers--arthur mcdermott

[Buenchico]

The law about copyright in photographs is incredibly complex. The Intellectual Property Office used to have all the details on their website but since some idiot decided to merge their web presence with the (horrid) Gov.uk site, it's no longer there. [Grrrr!]

However Leeds Beckett University seems to have got it all covered:
http://libraryonline.leedsmet.ac.uk/sys.files/guides/photographs_copyright_guidelines.pdf