500 Wedding Ideas

What is the legal position on wedding photos when the company has gone bust?

My parents got married in 1974. Their photographs starting turning purple 10 years after they were taken and now look awful. I'd love to be able to take their photos somewhere to sort them out but despite the company no longer exisiting, I can't find anyone to look at these due to legal reasons. Legally, how long does the Copyright exist on photos and is there anything I can do since the company does not exist?

Public Comments

1. The company always owns the rights. You merely pay for the photography service and for prints. Sorry! Take the originals to some shops, it's amazing what scanning and PC technology can do the revive them these days. I can't see any shops turning them away for legal reasons.
2. Sure - buy a scanner & a good photo editing software program (Microsoft's Digital Imaging Suite is a good one) and restore them yourself. Given the age of the photos, you may be able to find a photo restorer who will do it - especially if you can prove the company no longer exists.
3. The duration of copyright on photos in the USA varies, but is a lot longer than 34 years in all cases. No reputable photography shop will make copies of a 1974 commercial photo without the permission of the copyright holder. "Someone" owns the copyright to the photos. If the firm went bankrupt then all its assets, including copyrights, passed to its creditors. If the owner retired and wrapped it up, then they became his. If he retired and sold the business to another studio, they now own them. To find out 'who' owns the copyright will require some digging - but there 'is' an owner out there. Your simplest answer, to be honest, may well simply be - as someone else suggested - to photoshop them yourself. The results won't be as good as you could get from the original negatives, but they may not even exist any more. Richard
4. I had a similar situation. When we were married 40 years ago we had a photographer, and he supplied us with photos but at the time we couldn"t afford to buy them. The ones he had given us had PROOF stamped across the front. I tried to think of something to give my wife for our 25th anniversary. I carefully removed the PROOF stamp from 2 of the photos and took them to a local store. They told me that although the company had ceased trading some years previously they still owned the copyrights. I explained what had happened and what I wanted to do with these 2 old photos. They told me if I was prepared to put into writing that I would accept any legal consequencies for breach of copyright from the original photographer then they would indeed enlarge the photos for me. They now hang, nicely framed in our home, and my wife was absolutely delighted. I have had no problems re copyright, and it is now 15 years on. Might be worth a try.