Copyrighting a tintype

[Secesh]

Hello,
Can anyone inform me as to where I can obtain a copyright form to register an original CS tintype in my collection? To date I have found where a certain State Archives has made it accessible (a copy of my image), which has already resulted in it being published in a recent book. Also, does anyone know the cost of registering it? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[ElizabethClark]

Re: Copyrighting a tintype

To my knowledge, as you are not the creator of the work, nor a person the creator has transfered copyright to, you cannot register copyright.

You have, instead, an issue of ownership rights--you own the original, and have the right to control distribution of and access to the image you own.

(If the State archives owns another original copy of the image, they are within their property rights to allow it to be published.)

The site you need for registering copyrights of works you have created is www.copyright.gov

For property rights issues, you'd want to consult a lawyer, and then talk with the State archives about purchasing the image, or your desired credit/use policy.

[Secesh]

Re: Copyrighting a tintype

Thanks Elizabeth. Actually, I own the original image, having given a copy to the Alabama State Archives upon their request for one.

[FranklinGuardsNYSM]

Re: Copyrighting a tintype

There may be a way to do this, even if an agency has a copy. I know, for instance, that certain images in the USAMHI collection are actually privately owned, and that when you request preview photocopies of them, they have an attachment stipulating that special permission is required from a third-party to utilize the high-res copy. Don't know if they're doing that merely as a courtesy, or if there's a law backing it up, but it's worth checking out.

[AZReenactor]

Re: Copyrighting a tintype

From what I understand, while the original image is not able to be copyrighted, but the reproduction, whether physical or digital, is a derivative work that is automatically under copyright (the new laws do not require registering copyright) when created. It is the copyright of the derivative work that archives and libraries control.

[Army30th]

Re: Copyrighting a tintype

As an individual who has copyrighted several works:

Anything that has ever had a copyright cannot be copyrighted by anybody else, unless the owner of the original copyright transfers the copyright to the other party. You could own ten thousand antique photos and not a single one could be copyrighted by you.

Currently, any work published in the US prior to 1923 is in the public domain, and may be used without restrictions. So your tintype would be covered, IF it was made before 1923. If the creator of the tintype is unknown, or not known when to have died, and was made before 1888, then you would have 120 years from the creation of the tintype. This would apply to works that were not published or registered prior to 1888 or if the creator died prior to 1938.

In your case it's not the tintype that's copyrighted, but the "presentation" of the derivative work that would have the copyright. The archives published the photo because it had the public domain right to do so.