I think the reason I haven't posted more is because I've been so nervous about posting images.
Are any of you frightened about being focused on by enforcement agencies or people representing people whose images these are? They're gorgeous. I know most before say, 1923 are okay to use, but some of the others, I'm seriously scared of being sued over. And I don't have the money to pay out in case I do get a cease and desist letter. I think that's why I've been very low key so far.
http://hankinslawrenceimages.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/fed-up-with-copyright-infringement/
It's actually good to see you're nervous about it. Far too many people don't ever even think about the issue of image copyright, or assume just saying "I'm not claiming I made this" and/or "fair use" covers it. That's not okay.
But! The great thing with old photos is that there are all these wonderful institutions comitted to making their collections as accessible as possible, which often means letting you use their images. Time for a tour, with examples.
First stop,
The Flickr Commons. If you love to look at old photos, bookmark. Then set aside three weeks just to look. The Commons is a place where museums, libraries, and other archives from around the world share their collections. It's very accessible, browsable, searchable, and amazing. AND-- all photographs shared must be shared with "no known copyright restrictions". Which can
mean different things, but means you can use it in your blog.
Next stop, the
LIFE photo archives (with Google). Endless numbers of photographs from the life of LIFE, as well as photos that predate the magazine that they ended up with. Searching takes a bit of creativity and a bit of luck sometimes, and you can't really browse, but,
the archives of LIFE magazine!. Since copyright for these images is held by LIFE (actually Time Inc., who owns them), they can decide the terms of usage, and they allow "personal, non-commerical use". Which means you can use it in your blog.
Three, the
Imperial War Museum (UK). This collections site is terrific, easy to search, browse, look at, just super. And, best of all for someone wanting to use images-- they make a point of copyrights before you save. Anything the IWN owns the copyright to is under a
non-commerical license, which means you can use it for blogs, papers, etc., with credit given. Most of the images in the collection are in this category, although some aren't, for various reasons. Luckily the IWN helps you out-- if you try and save an "all rights reserved" image, it tells you, and gives you only a tiny image rather than the full-size you get otherwise.
Time for a break in this lecture, haha. In Part Two, we shall have a look at checking the copyright restrictions on specific images in other collections, and on other collections in general. But, these three should keep you occupied for a while!
(And if I forget to come back for part two, do remind me!)
(and if you have any questions, do message-- I'm not a qualified expert (yet... I just started a degree in the area, though) but I take this very seriously and have quite a bit of experience, so I'll try to help!)