who owns the IPR of the spitfire image?

Thanks to all, thats cleared up the answer to my question!

The photographer owns copyright on their image, unless they have passed it on to somebody else. There are companies who buy up images and sell licenses for a living.

Sometimes the location, such as a museum, will own the artefact being photographed and their permission may also be needed.

AFAIK nobody can stop you publishing a photo of something that has been on public view and legally snapped by a passing photographer. But if the photo was taken behind closed doors, the design owner may have control too.

Somewhere like the Wikimedia Commons has supposedly freely-available images. But it is wise to check the small print of the license, and also to take a view on whether the image might have been uploaded illegally by a rip-off artist. For example some licenses do not allow commercial use, as in a company logo. You would not be able to register the logo as belonging to your company unless the image owner/s had specifically released it under a suitable license.

Similar issues can arise over the use of a registered trademark such as the word “Spitfire”: you might get away with calling your company say Super-Fighters Ltd. but not Super-Spitfires Ltd, and you might not be allowed to say that the image in the logo was a Spitfire.

If you just drew your own image (but not traced another) or took your own photograph of a machine in a public place (e.g. not a privately-owned airfield), photoshopped out any proprietary markings such as registration IDs or RAF roundels, never said what it was and steered clear of any business activity which might be seen as competing with the license owner, you should be OK. Otherwise, you’d need to check the licensing.

Not regarding the Spitfire as such but there was quite a hoo ha about WW2 flight sims that used the name of certain American aircraft makers company name ,but a photo of an aircraft will be different.

Out of interest, though, who owns the rights to images of the design? The business successors to Supermarine – is that BAe? I suspect that legally this would be a nonsense..

Good business is nothing more than risk management.

Many will be unaware, but for the previous 18-24 months (or thereabouts) there has been a Small Claims track at the High Court that deals with intellectual property. There is a cap at (currently) £10k on claims, but for most photographers/illustrators/authors this is adequate. Crucially, the costs either side can claim are strictly capped…meaning if you claim and lose the other party cannot claim legal costs that typically might equate to having to sell your home when the lawyers present their bill.

The Small Claims track at the High Court has opened up access to justice for small creators. I should add that if you are finding your images used without permission the entire process is a bit legalese, but accessible to a non-legal like me.

An example of the Small Claims track in action, with an aviation theme (Goodwin Sands Dornier), can be read here:-

Case judgement

So using images without permission is not recommended as the risk may well outweigh the benefits.

Having said all that, there is no way I would use an internet forum to seek advice on this. The only advice I trust these days is paid for and that is what I would recommend in this case.

can images of the spitfire be used freely in a business logo?

If you are having to ask here, the issue is perhaps best avoided.

Copyright lasts for the lifetime of the artist plus 70 years after their death. If someone takes a pic of a spitfire they can give you permission to use it.

If this was a design registered at the time say, 1935, it will now be out of registry eg. expired. Registered designs last for a maximum of 25 years.

Copyright should not apply. If it did apply, copyright expires after 70 years.

An unregistered design can be protected for a maximum of fifteen years fron the date of first issuing the design

Source: “Guide to the Law” John Ptitchard.