Crown Copyright

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From; https://www.trademarkterminal.com/texas/

So by definition, any photo taken by a person working for the government (inc. on-duty service personal) automatically becomes Crown Copyright and would of had its copyright expire if it was taken before 1959.

just to put a spanner in the works does this mean that any photo i took while i was on active duty belongs to me, but if i publish said pics they are Crown Copyright and dont actualy belong to me???:confused:

As the wording is now (and has been for some time), the work has to be produced as part of your official duty. Private photos are not covered and does not fall under CC.

Here is a quote from my correspondence with DIPR-CC:

“Whether photographs taken by service personnel are Crown Copyright or not is not always an easy question to answer. It is certainly not automatic that they are.”

During WWII this was not so in the states.

As mentioned above, the same photo can be classified differently in different countries. If a photo is public domain in the states, it can be freely used in the states. However, it can still be protected by copyright law in the UK.

Don’t disagree, but the point is that some of the material in IWM or RAFM posession wasn’t taken by Servicemen, but by Press photographers or private individuals

In that case its unlikely that it was ever Crown Copyright (unless somehow commissioned).

I have discussed the extend of Crown Copyright with MOD Directorate of Intellectual Property Rights Copyright Unit (DIPR-CC). Currently the wording of what constitutes CC material is, that the content should have been made as part of the creators official duty.

However, in the states during WWII everything created by servicemen while on duty, is a work of the United States Federal Government and thus now in public domain.

DIPR-CC was unable to inform me, if this US style wording was used for material produced by British servicemen during WWII.

Since the nation was at war, Im inclined to think that it was. Placing all material produced while serving under Crown Copyright. But its nothing I have been able to get clarified.

Don’t disagree, but the point is that some of the material in IWM or RAFM posession wasn’t taken by Servicemen, but by Press photographers or private individuals

So by definition, any photo taken by a person working for the government (inc. on-duty service personal) automatically becomes Crown Copyright and would of had its copyright expire if it was taken before 1959.

just to put a spanner in the works does this mean that any photo i took while i was on active duty belongs to me, but if i publish said pics they are Crown Copyright and dont actualy belong to me???:confused:

Another point worth mentioning is that the US National Archives and Records Agency holds a vast amount of UK material from both the services and manufacturers and will quite happily release this material and provide a cover document if needed. Of course the subject of copyright gets really tangled when material is held by seperate organisations one of the strangest at the moment being the Time images as quite a few of those are also in NARA and are available for free- a similar situation appertains to the Bundesarchiv where much of the material is duplicated in NARA.

Pick a minefield- any minefield!

Cheers
MJ

Don’t confuse material held by the RAF Museum or IWM with material that has Crwon Copyright. Some undoubtedly does fall under CC, but there is also a substantial body of work whose rights are NOT Crown Copyright, but the original Copyright holder’s rights have been assigned to the museum. In that case, copyright exists in the material 70 years from the death of the original holder.

I have a suspicion much of the Charles Brown collection falls under that.

I have discussed the extend of Crown Copyright with MOD Directorate of Intellectual Property Rights Copyright Unit (DIPR-CC). Currently the wording of what constitutes CC material is, that the content should have been made as part of the creators official duty.

However, in the states during WWII everything created by servicemen while on duty, is a work of the United States Federal Government and thus now in public domain.

DIPR-CC was unable to inform me, if this US style wording was used for material produced by British servicemen during WWII.

Since the nation was at war, Im inclined to think that it was. Placing all material produced while serving under Crown Copyright. But its nothing I have been able to get clarified.

Very many thanks for everyone’s comments.

I will be contacting the IWM tomorrow but I have a feeling I know what they will say – ‘That’ll be £***, thank you very much.’

Never mind, thanks to Gordon Brown’s generosity I’ll only pay 15% VAT.

Peter

Don’t confuse material held by the RAF Museum or IWM with material that has Crwon Copyright. Some undoubtedly does fall under CC, but there is also a substantial body of work whose rights are NOT Crown Copyright, but the original Copyright holder’s rights have been assigned to the museum. In that case, copyright exists in the material 70 years from the death of the original holder.

I have a suspicion much of the Charles Brown collection falls under that.

It is very similar at the National Archives, the material may well no longer be copyrighted but you still have to pay them to use it.

I was sent this reply from the NA to an inquiry in January.

Thank you for your e-mail regarding the use of images from our archives on a website.

The reproduction of direct images of documents from The National Archives on a non-commercial website costs a one-off fee of £40.00 + £6.00 VAT. This fee covers up to twenty items, and the charge reflects the fact that website use constitutes worldwide publication.

Payment may be by VISA or MC (we supply an email link to our secure payment site). The images must be protected from download at high resolution. You can do this by watermarking, or by keeping the resolution to a level whereby the documents are legible for information and research, but are not of sufficient quality for commercial publication.

Sorry for a triple post, but I got to add this.

Using IWM material for a commercial book is a matter of nerves.

A copyright infringement have to be filed by the content owner (this is not automatic, as copyright is not a law that can be broken in its self), as if you copy an image from a book and the author then files a copyright infringement suit against you. However, if you can provide evidence of acquiring the images from a place without a copyright claim, it will be hard to for any owner to prove you infringed on their copyright.

Copying Crown Copyright from a third party source, that don’t claim copyright for the content, should technically leave people in the clear, as they infringe on the interlectual property of the creator (who do not claim copyright).

The original material is in the ownership of IWM (although they don’t have copyright), the copy of that material is not the material itself and thus not owned by IWM.

Naturally the image has entered circulation through some license with IWM, but its that individual creator that can complain about copyright infringement – NOT IWM.

How can it be established where an image has been copied from, when any number of magazines and books might have used the same image (originally licensed from IWM)?

Once such images are in circulation on the internet, they are defacto public domain.

Regarding Crown Copyright, there are two things to note:

1. Published Crown copyright material has protection for 50 years from date of publication.

2. No unpublished material will lose its copyright protection until January 1, 2040. As per the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

I have had a longer discussion with IWM about their fees and their copyright claim, and it seems they insist their materials belong to them.

This is a direct quote from a mail i recieved from the MOD Directorate of Intellectual Property Rights Copyright Unit (DIPR-CC).

“Any Crown Copyright photos/film dating from WW11 would now be out of copyright in the UK”

This is a copy of my correspondence with IWM:

“As noted in my previous email, the duration of Crown Copyright is 50
years and such material older than this is indeed out of copyright. The
Imperial War Museum as the owners and holders of this material (which
involves, amongst numerous other responsibilities, conservation and
access) licences it for a wide range of uses. I attach our standard
Terms and Conditions which will perhaps help clarify this.

If I may explain more fully: This Second World War RAF material is in
the ownership of the Imperial War Museum and released under licence to
the DVD distribution company. The DVD produced using the material
licenced from the Imperial War Museum has a copyright in its own right
(in a similar way as a television programme using such material would
have its own copyright ) and may only be used for the purposes stated on
the DVD sleeve and box. By purchasing the DVD the purchaser agrees the
terms of sale as detailed on the DVD sleeve and box – in effect, a
contract – and DVDs containing our material limit the use to private
home use only.”

It thus appears that there is another copyright attached to new use of the materials, such as IWM posting them on a website. This new copyright is concerned with the website content, rather than the actual images.

The same goes if the images were printed in a book, then its protected by the copyright of the book – although the actual image is no longer protected.

All a bit too complicated and made to squeeze money out of people. The material should be public domain, as its funded by the British public and no longer have a military function.

We’ve recently had a bit of a debate about this over at the AIX forum.

To quote from OPSI (ex. HMSO) – http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copyright/index.htm

What is Crown copyright?
Copyright material which is produced by employees of the Crown in the course of their duties. Therefore, most material originated by ministers and civil servants is protected by Crown copyright.

So by definition, any photo taken by a person working for the government (inc. on-duty service personal) automatically becomes Crown Copyright and would of had its copyright expire if it was taken before 1959.

I then also found the following PDF guide for museums regarding Crown Copyright which helps clear some things up: http://www.museumscopyright.org.uk/crown-a.pdf

I then spotted the following in the IWN terms and conditions of use:

http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/terms.php
http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/tnc.htm

Images purchased from the Imperial War Museum are for private and evaluation use only and are subject to the following terms & conditions

All other usages, including websites and private publishing, require a license.

I thought this was a bit odd as it was in contradiction of the information given on the OPSI website – but it turns out it’s not.

Buried in all the information on Crown Copyright at the OPSI are the following documents:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copyright/copyright-guidance/copyright-in-public-records

1. In the Government White Paper, The Future Management of Crown Copyright, it was announced that copyright would be waived for certain types of material which are Crown copyright protected. One of the categories of material which is covered by waiver is unpublished Crown copyright protected public records.

5. For those Public Records which are subject to waiver, users may copy, quote, index, transcribe, publish and broadcast the text of Crown Material in all formats and media throughout the world without:

* payment of a fee or royalty; or
* requiring a specific licence or approval.

However, if you read down to the section on excluded material you noticed a link to what OPSI called “Value Added Material”

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/value-added-licence-information/index

Value added material will usually satisfy the following conditions:

* It will bring together information from a variety of sources, including core Crown copyright information;
* Value will often be added by means of commentary, analysis, indexing, search facilities or text retrieval software in ways which extend its usefulness as a reference tool;
* The fact that the material is issued by government is not essential to its status but clearly it will be seen as authoritative;
* There may be similar competing commercial services and products in the marketplace;
* Its creation is not vital to the workings of government. There will often be alternative suppliers of such information.

Uh oh… I see where this is going…

Looking at the list of example “Value Added Material” the IWN collection is not listed but it certainly seems to fall into the definitions listed above.

My guess is that circa 1985 when this review was made the IWM collection become commercially viable and hence the need to license photos. Certainly publications I’ve seen prior to 1980 that use IWM photos simple state “Crown Copyright, via IWM” and state the image reference number.

So I think those of us who would like to use Crown Copyright photos to illustrate our self-published histories and works are stuffed unless we buy a license or find a willing publisher to cover the fees for using them in print. 🙁

I think you will find that there are two different issues

Copyright
Reproduction Fees

I belive the IWM, RAF Museum etc charge reproduction or licencing fees for their images

I would contact the IWM about that, especially if that is where you obtained them.